COLLISION WARNING SYSTEM
Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure describes a collision warning system to prevent any forward collision on the road.
Background of the Disclosure
There have been many attempts to create a system that alerts the driver of a vehicle and assists him in avoiding any type of collision on the road. There are few mechanisms which uses sensors to collect the data and accordingly warn the driver, if the distance between an object and the vehicle is decreasing dramatically. Though these mechanisms are useful up to certain extent but they are not veryl accurate. Moreover they fail to recognize the difference between a stationary object and a moving object. They also fail to recognize the curves present on the road.
Hence, there exist a need to create a system that uses better sensors or some other device and mechanism to improve the accuracy of a collision warning system.
Summary of the Disclosure
The present disclosure describes a collision warning system to prevent any casualty on the road because of forward collision while driving. It is in-vehicle, vision-based electronic system for automobiles. It utilizes at least one camera or a radar sensor installed on the front portion of the vehicle and takes the forward view of the road. Thereafter, the real time image processor extracts the desired image from the acquired image and determines its proximity with the vehicle. If the equivalent calibrated longitudinal distance is greater than the reference distance then a safe signal is generated otherwise a warning signal is generated. These signals can be can be an acoustic signal, a video signal, a photonic signal or a haptic signal.

Brief Description of the Drawings
The present disclosure explains the various embodiments of the instant disclosure with reference to the accompanying drawings present in the following description:
FIGURE 1 illustrates a block diagram showing the schematic construction of the Collision Warning System according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
FIGURE 2 illustrates a block diagram showing the Collision Warning process according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
Detailed Description of the Disclosure
The embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, the present disclosure is not limited to the embodiments and the embodiments described herein in the art of the present disclosure. The disclosure is described with reference to specific circuits, block diagrams, signals, etc. simply to provide a more thorough understanding of the disclosure. The detailed description of the disclosure is as follows:
Figure 1 illustrates a block diagram of a Collision Warning System. A camera (or radar sensors) 101 installed on the front upper portion of the vehicle and take the forward view of the road. The real time image processing system 102 extracts the desired image from the acquired image and determines its proximity with the vehicle. If the equivalent calibrated longitudinal distance is greater than the reference distance then a safe signal 104 is generated by the signal generator means 103 otherwise a warning signal 105 is generated. These signals can be can be an acoustic signal, a video signal, a photonic signal or a haptic signal.
Further, the real time image processing means consists of a object detection and tracking block 106, a distance/direction measurement block 107 and a data collection or storing block 108.

Figure 2 illustrates a block diagram showing the image extraction, image filtering and measurement process. As illustrated in figure 1 the collision warning system consists a camera (radar sensors) 101 which captures the images of moving or stationary objects on the road. Before the camera is set to capture the images it is calibrated off line i.e. when the system is not operational. In step 201, the calibration of the camera is done on the parameters such as the Imaging Sensor size, Lens focal length, Camera mount angle, Angle with respect to established forward reference, Camera angle with respect to established horizon and Camera location in the global coordinate system. These parameters help to measure the real global distance of the object.
Further, the camera is connected to the real time image processing means 102. The input image is first subjected to extraction of images in specific frame sizes. After that, in step 202 the horizon (row value) calculation is performed based on camera calibration parameters computed in the step 201. Horizon is the point of intersection of the extension of the optical axis of the lens and the road.
One of the limitation due to the perspective effect in the acquired image is that the desired pattern width changes according to its distance from the camera. The perspective effect is removed in two steps: a) exploiting the knowledge of the acquisition process and of the scene represented in the image, which is a signal transform (a non-uniform re-sampling), that generates an image in a new domain where the detection of the features of interest is extremely simplified; b) exploiting the sensor data, by low-level morphological processing.
Another limitation due to perspective effect is the induced non-linearity in the image which is corrected by Inverse Perspective Mapping (IPM) in the step 203. The image mapping is done with the horizon point and cropped input image. Thus, the correct detection of pattern by means of traditional pattern-matching techniques is performed based on matching the values with the different sized patterns, according to the specific position within the image. This Image information (image coordinates, pixel intensity values) which is in rectilinear form is converted to global information (global coordinates, intensity value) in curvilinear form. Corresponding to number of rectilinear (row, column) pair, equivalent curvilinear global (X, Y) pairs are obtained.

Now, to extract each curve information of IPM image, after pair-wise sorting of global (X, Y) points and the corresponding pixel intensity values are linearly interpolated to achieve an interpolate IPM image boundary and missing curve points. Similarly, bilinear interpolation is done to obtain missing non-zero pixel intensity values within IPM image. After the removal of the perspective effect, each pixel represents the same portion of the road, allowing a homogeneous distribution of the information among all the image pixels where the size and shape of the matching template is independent of the pixel position.
In step 204, after defining a Region of Interest (ROI) obtained from an IPM image, the computation process gets simplified by identifying only the prime target (i.e. an immediate target in front of the host vehicle that can be a potential source for collision). A horizontal edge filter, of fixed magnitude and edge width, identifies potential targets and their edge-intersection with the road. The filter output signal acts as a reference to detect distance of the potential Target from the host Vehicle. Finally, based on IPM image potential edge information an equivalent Calibrated Longitudinal distance in meters is computed.
The output signal of the real-time image processor 102 allows the signal generator 103 to generate a safe signal 104, if the equivalent calibrated longitudinal distance is greater than the reference distance otherwise a warning signal 105 is generated when the equivalent calibrated longitudinal distance is less than the reference distance. These signals can be can be an acoustic signal, a video signal, a photonic signal or a haptic signal.
The Collision Warning System described in the present disclosure is applicable to in all personal/commercial vehicles (car, truck, passenger transport, heavy trucks etc.)
Although the disclosure of the instant disclosure has been described in connection with the embodiment of the present disclosure illustrated in the accompanying drawings, it is not limited thereto. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various substitutions, modifications and changes may be made thereto without departing from the scope and spirit of the disclosure.

We claim:
1. A Collision Warning System, the system comprising
at least one image acquisition means (101) for capturing the image of the objects on the road;
a real time image processing means (102) including a detection means for detecting the object in real time, it's distance and direction with other parameters based on the predetermined values; and the processor for processing the said information to generate an output signal; and
a signal generator means (103) for generating a predetermined signal based upon the output signal from the real time processor.
2. The Collision Warning System as claimed in claim 1 wherein the image acquisition means
(101) is a camera or radar sensors installed on the front upper portion of the vehicle and take the forward view of the road.
3. The Collision Warning System as claimed in claim 1 wherein the real time processing means
(102) uses image perspective mapping (IPM) to form the desired image of the detected
object.
4. The Collision Warning System as claimed in claim 3 computes the equivalent Calibrated
Longitudinal distance in meters of the detected object, based on the image perspective mapping (IPM) image potential edge information.
5. The Collision Warning System as claimed in claim 1 wherein the signal generator means (103)
generates a safe signal (104) if the calibrated longitudinal distance is greater than the reference value.

6. The Collision Warning System as claimed in claim 1 wherein the signal generator means (103)
generates a warning signal (105) if the calibrated longitudinal distance is less than the reference value.
7. The Collision Warning System as claimed in claim 5 and 6 wherein the generated signals can
be an acoustic signal, a video signal, a photonic signal or a haptic signal.
8. A method for Collision Warning, the method comprising
capturing the image of the objects on the road;
detecting the object in real time, it's distance and direction with other parameters based on the predetermined values; and processing the said information to generate an output signal; and
generating a predetermined signal based upon the output signal from the real time processor.