Object detection apparatus and method

An object detection apparatus comprising:

• an information generation circuitry which, in operation, calculates a reflection intensity with respect to each cell of cells, the cells being obtained by dividing a distance from a radar apparatus into predetermined intervals with respect to each transmission direction of a radar signal transmitted by the radar apparatus, the reflection intensity being a representative value of power of one or more received signals, the one or more received signals being the radar signal reflected by an object and being received by the radar apparatus, and generates power profile information for each cell of the cells by using the reflection intensities;
• a capture region calculation circuitry which, in operation, identifies a cell having a local highest reflection intensity in the power profile information, from among the cells as a capture point for capturing the object and identifies one or more cells surrounding the capture point as a capture region;
• an edge extraction circuitry which, in operation, extracts edges of the object included in an image captured by a camera apparatus;
• a marker calculation circuitry which, in operation, converts the capture region into a partial region of the image based on a coverage of the radar apparatus and a coverage of the camera apparatus and determines the partial region which is a region of the image corresponding to the capture region, as a marker;
• a component region calculation circuitry which, in operation, determines component regions corresponding to components of the object by extending the marker by using the edges as boundaries;
• a grouping circuitry which, in operation, groups the component regions into a target object region;
• and
• an object identification circuitry which, in operation, identifies the object from the target object region and outputs the identification result.