Vehicle position recognizing device and vehicle position recognizing method

A vehicle position recognition apparatus comprising:

• image information capturing means for capturing image information including at least the surface of a road picked up by an imaging device mounted on a vehicle;
• feature-of-road information acquiring means for acquiring feature-of-road information relating to at least one ground object, in the vicinity of the area represented by the captured image information, from map information stored as information correlated with each of multiple different positions across the width of the road;
• image information recognizing means for image recognition processing of the captured image information, and for recognizing an image corresponding to the at least one ground object included in the captured image information;
• and
• vehicle position pinpointing means for pinpointing the position of the vehicle widthwise of the road on the basis of an item of the acquired feature-of-road information having the highest consistency with the captured image information, from among items of feature-of-road information for each of the multiple different widthwise positions, and taking that position represented by the item of feature-of-road information of highest consistency, as the actual position of the vehicle widthwise of the road.

A vehicle position recognition apparatus comprising:

• image information capturing means for capturing image information including at least the surface of a road picked up by an imaging device mounted on a vehicle;
• image information recognizing means for image recognition processing of the captured image information, and for recognizing an image of at least one ground object included in the captured image information;
• vehicle position estimating means for estimating the position of the vehicle widthwise of the road, based on information from one or both of (1) vehicle information acquiring means for acquiring information from the vehicle relating to a route currently traveled by the vehicle, and (2) previous route acquiring means for acquiring information relating to routes previously traveled by the vehicle;
• and
• vehicle position pinpointing means for pinpointing the position of the vehicle based on the position of the image corresponding to the at least one ground object which has been recognized by said image information recognizing means, and on the estimation by said vehicle position estimating means.

A vehicle position recognizing method comprising:

• capturing image information including at least the surface of a road, said image information having been picked up by an imaging device mounted on a vehicle;
• acquiring feature-of-road information relating to at least one ground object in the vicinity of the area represented by the captured image information from stored map information;
• image recognition processing the captured image information to recognize an image corresponding to the at least one ground object included in the captured image information;
• and
• pinpointing the position of the vehicle widthwise of the road, based on the acquired feature-of-road information, and on the position of the image, within the captured image information, which has been recognized in said image recognition processing.

A vehicle position recognizing method comprising:

• capturing image information including at least the surface of a road, said image information having been picked up by an imaging device mounted on a vehicle;
• acquiring items of feature-of-road information relating to at least one ground object, in the vicinity of the area represented by the captured image information, from map information stored as items of information for each of multiple different positions traversing the width of the road;
• image recognition processing the captured image information to recognize an image of an object corresponding to the at least one ground object;
• and
• pinpointing the position of the vehicle widthwise of the road on the basis of identification of one item of feature-of-road information having the highest consistency, among the acquired items of feature-of-road information, with the position in the captured image information of the image which has been recognized in said image information recognition processing, and taking the position corresponding to the identified item of feature-of-the-road information as the position of the vehicle widthwise of the road.

A vehicle position recognizing method comprising:

• capturing image information including at least the surface of a road, said image information having been picked up by an imaging device mounted on a vehicle;
• image recognition processing the captured image information to recognize the image of at least one ground object included in the captured image information;
• estimating the position of the vehicle widthwise of the road based on information from one or both of (1) information acquired from the vehicle relating to a route currently traveled by the vehicle, and (2) information relating to routes previously traveled by the vehicle;
• and
• pinpointing the position of the vehicle widthwise of the road, based on the position in the captured image information of the image of the at least one ground object which has been recognized in the image recognition processing, and on the estimated position.