Traffic light recognizing apparatus

A traffic light recognizing apparatus to be applied to a vehicle, the traffic light recognizing apparatus comprising:

• an imager configured to perform a color imaging to capture an image of a driving environment in front of the vehicle;
• a lighting region detector configured to detect a lighting region in a traffic light body of a traffic light on the image captured by the imager;
• a first lamp detector configured to detect a lamp in an ON state among lamps arranged in the traffic light body based on the lighting region;
• a first search area setter configured to set search areas having same dimensions as the lamp in the ON state at specific positions on the image that are horizontally and vertically aligned with the lamp in the ON state and are according to a lighting color of the lighting region;
• a second lamp detector configured to evaluate, a luminance at an edge of each of the search areas and a luminance in a center of each of the search areas, and detect lamps in an OFF state among the lamps arranged in the traffic light body;
• and
• an orientation determiner configured to determine whether the traffic light body is disposed in a horizontal or vertical orientation based on an arrangement of the lamp in the ON state and the lamps in the OFF state.