DRIVER ASSISTANCE SYSTEM
Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure describes a driver assistance system to prevent casualties on the road while driving.
Background of the Disclosure
Driver assistance systems are now considered and are being investigated as an important important solution which provides additional in-vehicle information to drivers. It is complex endeavor to design such technologies which enhances driver safety and driving efficiency.
Driver Assistance Systems available today are subject to certain limitations. The primary limitation is that these systems do not consider the possibility of the Driver being in sub-optimal driving conditions such as fatigue, inebriation or sleep. Another key challenge for current systems is the instantaneous blindness caused by intense light beams from the opposite direction. Present Driver assistance systems fail to address this situation which is a potential hazard. They also fail to acknowledge Zebra Crossing signs on the road surface which ideally warrant a low speed approach to such a situation.
Therefore, there exists a need for a system that provides certain assistance and services that is considered as "prime candidates" in improving driving performance.
Summary of the Disclosure
The present disclosure describes a driver assistance system which obviates the aforementioned limitations and drawbacks of the earlier existing systems.
Driver Assistance System is in-vehicle, vision-based electronic system for automobiles. The system comprises various sub systems such as means for Driver State Monitoring, which checks the status of the driver by extracting his edge based face features; means for Lane Departure Warning

which checks and generates a warning signal if the vehicle is departing from its current lane; means for Collision warning which generates a warning signal by checking the proximity of the preceding vehicle; means for High Beam Detection which counters the glaring effect of host vehicle head light on road surface and on outgoing vehicles rear surface; means for Panoramic View and blind spot elimination which displays a mosaiced image of the road; means for Zebra Sign Detection which detects the zebra sign on the road in advance to alert the driver.
Further, the signal generator means generates a warning signal when there is any abnormality detected based on the output of the different sub systems. 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 Driver Assistance System according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.
FIGURE 2 illustrates a block diagram showing the driver assistance 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 Driver State Monitoring System. It consists of different sub-systems such as a lane departure warning in block 101, a driver state monitoring in block 102, a collision warning block in 103, a high beam detection in block 104, a panoramic view and blind spot elimination block in 105 and a zebra sign detection in block 106.The real time processed and computed result is stored in block 107 and the warning message actuator block 108 generates the respective signal.
As an embodiment of the present disclosure the lane departure warning in block 101 is an apparatus designed to warn a driver when the vehicle begins to move out of its lane on freeways or on arterial roads. The execution comprises of a two-step process which involves road region extraction as an initial and its boundary edge detection & approximation as the second/ final step. The edges are first extracted by applying canny edge detection. Then all the prominent edges are used to form solid regions/ clusters. The Lanes are detected using two-phase procedure which uses the size, shape and color information of the lane in its first phase, and the geometry of the same in its second phase. Secondly the road region extraction can be executed in a step-by-step manner by Edge detection & extension for Cluster formations, Image inversion for cluster ignorance, Size and location based region filtration and a final road region approximation. On the basis of above mentioned steps a warning is generated for right or left lane departure.
As an embodiment of the present disclosure a driver state monitoring in block 102 in the vehicle that issues an alert when the driver is not in proper driving condition. The face of driver is detected based on the edge-based features of the image. The input image is first subjected to pixel-by-pixel spatial filtering operations using kernels of a specific size to detect edges in four directions - horizontal, +45degree, vertical and -45 degree. In the image every block of a fixed size is considered for template matching with the training sample. The best matching block contains the face. The matching is carried out using Manhattan distance as dissimilarity measure for detecting face. The left eye is detected from the rectangular face block of the whole image. Thinning Morphological operator and Pruning Morphological operators are applied to check the status of eye that it is closed or open. A spatial filter is applied to detect the two nostrils. Since the nose tip is unique in the face so the orientation and movement of the face can

be monitored by the movement of the nose tip. Finally it detects the driver drowsiness on the basis of eye closed status and downward head movement.
As an embodiment of the present disclosure a collision warning block in 103 alerts the driver of imminent rear-end collisions with the vehicle ahead. The horizon is first calculated. Horizon is the point of intersection of the extension of the optical axis of the lens and road. Based on Camera Calibration parameters, horizon in the source image is calculated. Based on horizon information, source image is cropped and thus obtained cropped image is converted from pixel coordinates to global coordinates using inverse perspective mapping (1PM) technique. Obstacle detection is performed on the IPM image within the region of interest. Range calculation is done using camera calibration parameters. Depending on Vehicle speed, Collision Warning System may alert the driver up to 2.7 seconds prior to collision, allowing considerably larger time to react and avoid the accident.
As an embodiment of the present disclosure a high beam detection in block 104 counters the glaring effect of host vehicle head light on road surface and on outgoing vehicles rear surface. Nocturnal Driving poses a specific challenge because of the glare of the vehicles driving at the "high beam" setting in the opposite direction. This glare creates momentary blind spots for the driver which is a potential hazard. This system keeps the beam low whenever it finds any vehicle approaching to it. The execution is vision based which give the results according to the shapes of the incoming and outgoing vehicles beam pattern.
As an embodiment of the present disclosure a panoramic view and blind spot elimination block in 105 assists the driver to have 180° degree view, in which the images from the three cameras, namely at both side mirrors and one on the vehicle rear are mosaiced to eliminate any blind spots. It gives a clear view of the blind spot of the vehicle. The challenges faced in image mosaicing are depth and base correction of three images as the three images are coming from three different cameras. The overlapping region among the three images is calculated first. Then the perspective correction is applied on images. Finally depth and base correction are applied on input images to get the final stitched image. Finally the 180 degree view is displayed on any visual media including but not limited to handheld screens, LCD or TFT Monitors.

As an embodiment of the present disclosure a zebra sign detection in block 106 detects the zebra sign on the road in advance to alert the driver. The drivers are supposed to maintain a slow speed when approaching a zebra crossing. The method for ZSD is a two phase model. Phase 1 is a sign detection and decision making step based on row-wise total edge pixel count, Failure of which leads to the second phase which is a step by step execution of Edge filtration based on low to high transition, edge extension for region formation and Region filtration and decision making based on distance between centers of two consecutive regions/blobs.
Figure 2 illustrates a block diagram showing the image extraction and image processing process. As illustrated in figure 1 the driver assistance consists of image acquisition means 201 such as cameras which capture the various images. The camera is connected to the real time image processing means that computes extraction and processing of images 202. Depending upon the output result of the image processor a safe signal 203 is generated if there is no change detected otherwise it generates a warning signal 204.
The Driver Assistance System is applicable for all forms of motor vehicles that operate in close proximity to other motor vehicles or traffic. The invention is highly useful for all personal, commercial or transit vehicles in its various embodiments.
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 Driver Assistance system, the system comprising
means for Lane Departure Warning (101) which checks and generates a warning signal if the vehicle is departing from its current lane;
means for Driver State Monitoring (102) which checks the status of the driver by extracting his edge based face features;
means for Collision warning (103) which generates a warning signal by checking the proximity of the preceding vehicle;
means for High Beam Detection (104) which counters the glaring effect of host vehicle head light on road surface and on outgoing vehicles rear surface;
means for Panoramic View and blind spot elimination (105) which displays a mosaiced image of the road; and
means for Zebra Sign Detection (106) which detects the zebra sign on the road in advance to alert the driver.
2. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 1 wherein a Lane Departure Warning System, the system comprising
at least one image acquisition means (101)for capturing the image of the road;
a real time image processing means (102) including an extraction means for extracting the desired road image area from the image based on the predetermined values; and the processor for processing the extracted image with respect to the vehicle utilizing object detection and lane boundaries extraction mechanism; and

a tracking means (103) for detecting the state of change and sending a warning signal to an output means.
3. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 2, wherein the image acquisition
means is a camera installed on the front upper portion of the vehicle and takes the forward view of the road.
4. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 2 wherein the real time processing
means comprises
a first extraction means for extraction of cluster based road regions; and a filtration means for producing filtered images.
5. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 4, wherein the first extraction means
uses edge extension and detection by the techniques of binary-blob formation and horizontal gradient scan.
6. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 4, wherein the filtration means uses
gradient filters to compute the filtered value by combining the result of binary-blob formation and horizontal gradient scan.
7 The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 2 tracking means includes a signal generator mechanism for generating an output signal,
8. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 7 wherein said signal generator mechanism generates any one of the following output signals
a safe signal is generated when there is no lane departure detected;
a lane warning signal is generated when there is a departure from the current lane;
and

a lane assist signal is generated if there is any object present in the nearby region of the lane.
9 The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 2. The Lane Departure Warning System as claimed in claim 7, wherein the signals can be an acoustic signal or a video signal or a combination of both.
10. A method for Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 1 wherein Lane
Departure Warning, the method comprising
capturing the image of the road;
extracting the desired road image area from the image based on the predetermined values; and processing the extracted image with respect to the vehicle utilizing object detection and lane boundaries extraction mechanism; and
tracking and detecting the state of change and sending a warning signal to an output means.
11. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 1 wherein Driver State Monitoring
means comprising
an image acquisition means for capturing the image of a driver;
a real time image processing means including an extraction means for extracting the desired image from the image based on the predetermined values; the processor for processing the extracted image; and an estimation means for the extraction of the correct position of the eye from the extracted image and or orientation of the driver's face based on the predetermined values.; and
a signal generator means for generating a predetermined signal based upon the output signal generated by the estimated means.

12. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 11 wherein the image acquisition means is a camera installed on the vehicle facing towards the driver.
13. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 11 wherein the real time processing means comprises means for detecting features of driver's face.

14. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 13 wherein the driver's face detection means uses edge-based features of the driver's image such as left eye position and nose position for a right hand driver to detect the face image.
15. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 13 wherein the driver's face detection means comprises status examination means to check
whether driver's eye is open or closed; the nose position on driver's face; and driver's head orientation .
16. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 11 wherein the signal generator means generates a warning signal when there is any abnormality detected based on the output of the status examination means.
17. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 16 wherein the warning signal can be an acoustic signal or a video signal or a photonic signal or a haptic signal.
18. The Driver Assistance System method as claimed in claim 11 wherein Driver State Monitoring
method, the method comprising
capturing the image of a driver;

extracting the desired image from the image based on the predetermined values; processing the extracted image; and estimating the extraction of the correct position of the eye from the extracted image and or orientation of the driver's face based on the predetermined values.; and
generating a predetermined signal based upon the output signal generated by the estimation.
19. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 1 wherein Collision Warning System, the system
comprising
at least one image acquisition means for capturing the image of the objects on the road;
a real time image processing means 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 for generating a predetermined signal based upon the output signal from the real time processor.
20. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 19 wherein the image acquisition means
is a camera or radar sensors installed on the front upper portion of the vehicle and take the
forward view of the road.
21. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 19 wherein the real time processing
means uses image perspective mapping (IPM) to form the desired image of the detected
object.
22. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 21 computes the equivalent Calibrated
Longitudinal distance in meters of the detected object, based on the image perspective
mapping (IPM) image potential edge information.

23. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 19 wherein the signal generator means generates a safe signal if the calibrated longitudinal distance is greater than the reference value.
24. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 19 wherein the signal generator means generates a warning signal if the calibrated longitudinal distance is less than the reference value.
25. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 23 and 24 wherein the generated signals can be an acoustic signal, a video signal, a photonic signal or a haptic signal.
26. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 19. 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.
27. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 1 wherein means for High Beam
Detection (104) which counters the glaring effect of host vehicle head light on road surface
and on outgoing vehicles rear surface.
28. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 1 wherein Panoramic View and blind
spot elimination System, the system comprising
at least three image acquisition means for capturing the image of the road;

a real time image processing means including an extraction means for extracting the desired road image area from the image based on the predetermined values; and the processor for processing the extracted images by mosaicing all the images and filtering the overlapped portions; and
a display means for displaying the panoramic view based upon the output generated by the processor.
29. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 28 wherein the image acquisition means is
a camera installed on the left side of the vehicle, right side of the vehicle and on the rear side
of the vehicle.
30. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 28 wherein the real time processing means to correct the depth of the three images.
31. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 28 wherein the real time processing means corrects the base of the three images.
32. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 30 and 31 combines the all corrected images into one image.
33. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 28 wherein the display device displays the panoramic view of the image for driver's assistance to eliminate the blind spots on the road.
34. The Driver Assistance method as claimed in claim 28 for Panoramic View and blind spot
elimination, the method comprising
capturing the image of the road;

extracting the desired road image area from the image based on the predetermined values; and processing the extracted images by mosaicing all the images and filtering the overlapped portions; and
displaying the panoramic view based upon the output generated by the processor.
35. The Driver Assistance System as claimed in claim 1 means for Zebra Sign Detection (106) which detects the zebra sign on the road in advance to alert the driver.