Road vertical contour detection

A computerized method for detecting a vertical deviation of a road surface, the method performed by a driver assistance system mountable in a host vehicle while the host vehicle is moving, wherein the driver assistance system includes a camera operatively connectible to a processor, the method comprising:

• capturing from the camera a plurality of consecutive image frames including a first image of the road and a second image of the road;
• based on the host vehicle motion,warping the second image toward the first image to produce thereby a warped second image;
• tracking image points of the road in the first image and corresponding image points of the road in the warped second image;
• computing optical flow between the warped second image to the first image;
• comparing the optical flow with an optical flow based on a planar or bi-quadratic road surface model of the road to produce thereby a residual optical flow;
• and
• computing the vertical deviation of the road surface from said residual optical flow.