Intelligent vehicles with advanced vehicle camera systems for underbody hazard and foreign object detection

A motor vehicle, comprising:

• a vehicle body with a plurality of road wheels mounted to the vehicle body;
• a propulsion system with a prime mover mounted to the vehicle body and operable to drive one or more of the road wheels to thereby propel the motor vehicle;
• a steering system mounted to the vehicle body and operable to steer the vehicle;
• a camera system including an end camera and a side camera, the end camera mounted proximate a front or rear end of the vehicle body, and the side camera mounted proximate a left or right side of the vehicle body, the end and side cameras each being configured to capture images of a respective outboard-facing camera view from the motor vehicle;
• and
• a vehicle controller communicatively connected to the propulsion system the steering system, and the camera system, the vehicle controller being programmed to:
• receive, from the camera system, camera signals indicative of real-time images of the outboard-facing camera views captured by the end and side cameras, the end and side cameras each having a respective full-frame area;
• determine a respective region of interest (ROI) inset within and fixed at a predefined location of each of the outboard-facing camera views of the end and side cameras, the ROIs each including a respective delineated camera frame having an ROI area smaller than the respective full-frame area of the corresponding camera;
• analyze the ROIs to detect if a foreign object and/or hazard is present in any of the outboard-facing camera views of the end and side cameras;
• responsive to detecting the foreign object and/or hazard, track movement of the foreign object and/or hazard to determine if the foreign object and/or hazard moves towards or is in an underbody region of the motor vehicle;
• and
• responsive to determining the foreign object and/or hazard is moving towards or is in the underbody region, transmit an alert to the driver and/or a control signal to the propulsion system and/or the steering system to take preventative action calibrated to prevent collision of the motor vehicle with and/or remove the foreign object and/or hazard from the underbody region of the motor vehicle.