Vehicle lane position detection system

A method of determining position of an automotive vehicle in a highway lane, comprising the steps of:

• mounting a sensor array comprising a plurality of sensor elements on the vehicle;
• generating an image of the highway lane ahead of the vehicle, said image comprising data values input from said plurality of sensor elements;
• providing a resistive network having a plurality of nodes;
• connecting each of said sensor elements to a corresponding node of said resistive network with a data path having a data path switch;
• smoothing said input data values to provide smoothed data values on said nodes of said resistive network;
• opening said data path switch in each of said data paths where the difference between said sensor input data value and said smoothed data value on said corresponding node exceeds a predetermined value;
• determining position of said open switches in said image;
• and
• computing and outputting data in real time indicating position of the vehicle in the highway lane based on said open switch positions in said image.

A method of determining position of an automotive vehicle in a highway lane, comprising the steps of:

• mounting a sensor array comprising a plurality of sensor elements on the vehicle;
• generating an image of the lane ahead of the vehicle from said sensor array, said image comprising data values input from said plurality of sensor elements;
• connecting a resistive network to said sensor array with a plurality of data path switches, said resistive network comprising a plurality of nodes, each of said nodes connected to a corresponding one of said sensor elements by one of said data path switches;
• smoothing said input data values to provide smoothed data values on said nodes;
• opening corresponding ones of said data path switches when the difference between said smoothed data value on said node and said corresponding sensor input data value exceeds a predetermined value;
• performing a transform to determine highway lane marks from the positions of said open data path switches in said image;
• determining position of said highway lane marks in said image;
• and
• computing and outputting data in real time indicating position of the vehicle in the highway lane based on said highway lane mark position in said image.