Luggage Compartment Door Obstacle Detection via Rear Camera Distance Calculation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Vehicle rear luggage compartment doors may come into contact with obstacles such as low ceilings or rear walls during opening or closing due to lack of effective distance calculation and obstruction detection systems.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle equipped with a rear door, a camera to capture images, and a control device that calculates the distance to obstacles using the camera's images and stops the door's operation when the distance is below a threshold, preventing contact with obstacles, and optionally displays the images to the user to recognize potential obstructions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the luggage compartment door is electrically opened using an actuator, then the door can be opened automatically, but the door may come into contact with obstacles such as rear walls or low ceilings
Solution Approach 1:
The control device performs preliminary distance calculation using camera images before the door opening operation commences. This allows the system to detect obstacles in advance and prevent contact by stopping the door operation before it reaches the obstacle, thus resolving the contradiction between automatic operation convenience and obstacle contact prevention
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors the distance between the door and obstacles during the opening operation using real-time camera imaging and distance calculation. This feedback mechanism allows the control device to stop the door operation dynamically when an obstacle is detected within the threshold distance, preventing harmful contact while maintaining automatic operation capability
2Reliability
If a dedicated camera is added to detect obstacles during door opening, then obstacle detection capability is improved, but the number of components and device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system utilizes an existing camera that captures images of the rear of the vehicle during normal operation for multiple purposes: both for general rear view monitoring and for obstacle detection during door opening. By calculating distances from these existing images, the system achieves reliable obstacle detection without adding a dedicated camera, thus reducing device complexity while maintaining detection reliability
Solution Approach 2:
The obstacle detection function is merged with the existing rear view camera system. The same camera that captures images for general vehicle monitoring is also used for distance calculation and obstacle detection during door opening operations. This consolidation eliminates the need for separate detection components, reducing overall device complexity while ensuring reliable obstacle detection
Data Source
AI summary
When there is a request to open the luggage compartment door, the ECU performs processing including the following steps: activating the back camera, acquiring a moving image, displaying the moving image on the display device, acquiring a still image, calculating the distance to the object in the image, stopping the operation of the luggage compartment door when the distance to the object is less than or equal to a threshold, stopping the display on the display device, and performing an opening operation of the luggage compartment door when the distance to the object is greater than the threshold.