Vehicle Video Display Highlighting IR-Detected Objects in Darkness
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current color video cameras in vehicles struggle to provide usable video in dark conditions, while long-range infrared cameras can detect objects in complete darkness but offer lower resolution and non-natural appearance video.
Innovation Solution
An imaging and display system that combines the strengths of visible light and long-range infrared cameras by using a processing circuit to analyze the infrared video stream, detect objects with reduced visibility in the visible light stream, and modify the visible light stream by highlighting the detected objects with graphic symbols.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If a visible light video camera is used to capture exterior scenes, then the video quality and resolution are high, but the visibility of objects is reduced in dark conditions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the high-resolution visible light video stream with the infrared video stream that detects objects in dark conditions. The processing circuit merges these two streams to create a composite video output that maintains high resolution while improving object detection reliability in low-light environments by utilizing infrared detection capabilities.
2Reliability
If a long-range infrared video camera is used to detect objects in darkness, then object detection capability is improved, but the video resolution and natural appearance deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the infrared video stream with the visible light video stream in a composite output. The processing circuit uses the infrared stream for reliable object detection in darkness while overlaying this information on the high-resolution visible light video, thereby achieving both improved object detection capability and maintained video resolution.
Solution Approach 2:
The processing circuit acts as an intermediary that receives both infrared and visible light video streams, processes them separately to extract complementary information, and then combines them into a unified composite video stream that displays high-resolution imagery with enhanced object detection capabilities.
3Reliability
If the system processes both visible light and infrared video streams, then object detection accuracy in low-light conditions is improved, but the processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The processing circuit performs preliminary analysis on the infrared video stream to detect objects of interest before final composite generation. By pre-identifying objects in the infrared stream and their locations, the system reduces the complexity of the final merging operation, as it only needs to overlay pre-processed object information onto the visible light video rather than performing complex real-time fusion.
Data Source
AI summary
An imaging and display system is provided for a vehicle having: a video display disposed in an interior of the vehicle; a visible light video camera configured to capture a visible light video stream of an exterior scene in a visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum; a long-range IR video camera configured to capture an IR video stream of the exterior scene in an IR region of the electromagnetic spectrum; and a processing circuit for receiving the visible light video stream and the IR video stream for analyzing the IR video stream to detect an object with reduced visibility in the visible light video stream, and for modifying the visible light video stream by highlighting a region where the detected object should be located in the visible light video stream, the processing circuit configured to supply the modified visible light video stream to the video display for display thereon.