Road environment recognizing apparatus

A vehicle comprising:

• a camera that captures an image of a road environment along which the vehicle moves, the road environment containing a projecting object and surroundings thereof;
• an edge image generator that generates an edge image of the projecting object by extracting edge points from the image of the road environment captured by the camera, the edge points defining a border across which a luminance intensity changes from a luminance intensity of the surroundings to be a luminance intensity higher than or equal to a predetermined value;
• an area extractor that extracts a first area from the edge image, the first area being partitioned by the edge points and having a luminance intensity higher than the luminance intensity of the surroundings, the area extractor being capable of extracting a second area adjacent to the first area and having a luminance intensity lower than the luminance intensity of the surroundings;
• and
• an object recognizer that is configured to recognize an area in which the projecting object is considered to exist, based on a third area formed of the first area and the second area.

A method for recognizing a projecting object in a road environment:

• capturing an image of a road environment which contains a projecting object and surroundings thereof;
• generating an edge image of the projecting object by extracting edge points from the captured image of the road environment, the edge points defining a border across which a luminance intensity changes from a luminance intensity of the surroundings to be a luminance intensity higher than or equal to a predetermined value;
• extracting a first area from the edge image, the first area being partitioned by the edge points and having a luminance intensity higher than the luminance intensity of the surroundings;
• searching a second area adjacent to the first area and having a luminance intensity lower than the luminance intensity of the surroundings;
• and
• recognizing an area in which the projecting object is considered to exist based on a third area formed of the first area and the second area.