Vehicle environment monitoring apparatus

A vehicle environment monitoring apparatus including a computer having an interface circuit for accessing data of an image picked up by a single camera mounted on a vehicle, and detecting a monitored object in an environment around the vehicle by the computer, the computer executing:

• first image portion extracting processing of extracting a first image portion having a predetermined feature value from each of a first picked-up image and a second picked-up image picked up by the camera at different time points;
• second image portion extracting processing of extracting, from each of the first and second picked-up images, a second image portion having a change rate of not greater than a predetermined level in relative positional relation with the first image portion between the first and second picked-up images;
• and
• object detecting processing of detecting an area including the first and second image portions in the first or second picked-up image as an image area of the same monitored object in the environment around the vehicle.

A vehicle environment monitoring program for causing a computer having an interface circuit for accessing data of an image picked up by a single camera mounted on a vehicle to implement a function of detecting a monitored object in an environment around the vehicle from the image, the program causing the computer to serve as:

• a first image portion extracting processing unit to extract a first image portion having a predetermined feature value from each of a first picked-up image and a second picked-up image picked up by the camera at different time points;
• a second image portion extracting processing unit to extract, from each of the first and second picked-up images, a second image portion having a change rate of not greater than a predetermined level in relative positional relation with the first image portion between the first and second picked-up images;
• and
• an object detecting processing unit to detect an area including the first and second image portions in the first or second picked-up image as an image area of the same monitored object in the environment around the vehicle.

A vehicle environment monitoring method for detecting a monitored object in an environment around a vehicle by a computer having an interface circuit for accessing data of an image picked up by a single camera mounted on the vehicle, the method comprising:

• a first image portion extracting step, executed by the computer, of extracting a first image portion having a predetermined feature value from each of a first picked-up image and a second picked-up image picked up by the camera at different time points;
• a second image portion extracting step, executed by the computer, of extracting, from each of the first and second picked-up images, a second image portion having a change rate of not greater than a predetermined level in relative positional relation with the first image portion between the first and second picked-up images;
• and
• an object detecting step, executed by the computer, of detecting an area including the first and second image portions in the first or second picked-up image as an image area of the same monitored object in the environment around the vehicle.