Vehicle Camera Angle Detection for Driveway Clearance

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Solution Overview

Problem

Drivers face challenges in judging the correct approach angle when entering or exiting driveways or elevated surfaces, leading to potential vehicle damage due to limited visibility and driving experience.

Innovation Solution

A system using vehicle cameras and neural networks to detect elevated surfaces, analyze elevation characteristics, and determine an appropriate approach angle, providing this information to the vehicle's systems to prevent damage.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If drivers manually judge the approach angle when entering or exiting driveways, then the system complexity remains low, but the risk of vehicle damage increases due to limited visibility and driving experience

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvevehicle damage preventionVSAvoidsystem complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent replaces the manual mechanical judgment process with an automated vision-based system. Cameras capture images of the driveway and surrounding environment, and image processing algorithms automatically calculate the approach angle, substituting human visual judgment and physical maneuvering with automated optical detection and computational analysis.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces an intermediary computational system that processes the relationship between the vehicle and the driveway. The system acts as a mediator by analyzing camera images, detecting driveway characteristics (slope, elevation, width), and computing the optimal approach angle, thereby preventing direct trial-and-error maneuvers that could cause damage.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Ease of operation

If drivers drive straight onto elevated surfaces to maintain simple operation, then the ease of operation remains high, but the risk of scratching the vehicle bottom increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedriving operation simplicityVSAvoidvehicle bottom damage

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary analysis of the driveway characteristics before the vehicle reaches it. By detecting the slope, elevation, and width of the driveway in advance using camera images, the system calculates the required approach angle beforehand, allowing the driver to prepare for the appropriate steering input before encountering the elevated surface.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system provides feedback to the driver about the detected driveway characteristics and the calculated approach angle. This feedback mechanism allows the driver to adjust their steering input accordingly, transforming the simple act of driving straight into an informed maneuver that prevents vehicle damage while maintaining operational ease.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

3Measurement precision

If the system uses multiple cameras and complex image processing to accurately detect elevation characteristics, then the measurement precision improves, but the device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveelevation detection accuracyVSAvoidcamera and processing system complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent transitions from two-dimensional image capture to three-dimensional spatial understanding by analyzing the relationship between multiple camera views and the detected driveway features. By incorporating elevation data and slope calculations from processed images, the system adds a vertical dimension to the analysis, enabling accurate detection of driveway characteristics that affect the approach angle.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

Data Source

PatentUS11645779B1Using vehicle cameras for automatically determining approach angles onto driveways

Publication Date: 2023.05.09 AMBARELLA INT LP

AI summary

An apparatus includes an interface and a processor. The interface may be configured to receive pixel data of an area external to a vehicle. The processor may be configured to generate video frames from the pixel data, perform computer vision operations on the video frames to detect objects in the video frames and determine characteristics of the objects, analyze the characteristics of the objects to determine elevation characteristics of a driving surface with respect to the vehicle, perform a comparison of the elevation characteristics to clearance data of the vehicle and determine an approach angle for the vehicle in response to the comparison. The approach angle may be determined to prevent an impact between the vehicle and the driving surface. The approach angle may be presented to a vehicle system.