Control system to automatically dim vehicle head lamps
AssigneeGentex Corporation
InventorsJoseph S. Stam, Jon H. Bechtel, John K. Roberts
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An automatic vehicle head lamp dimming system which includes an optical system and an imaging processing system. The optical system is configured to discriminate between head lamps and tail lamps and focus the light rays from the head lamps and tail lamps on different portions of a pixel sensor array. The optical system as well as the image processing system provides for relatively increased discrimination of head lamps and tail lamps of other vehicles and also enables the high beam head lamps of the control vehicle to be controlled as a function of the distance as well as horizontal angular position of other vehicles relative to the controlled vehicle.
Claims30
A control system to control the brightness of the headlamps of a vehicle comprising:
- an image array sensor including a matrix of pixels;
- and
- an optical system configured to image the scene forward of the controlled vehicle onto said image array sensor,
- wherein said image array sensor reads out a subset of said pixels defining a subwindow and wherein the position of said subwindow within said image array sensor is selected to compensate for variations of the position of said optical system relative to said image array sensor.
A control system to control the brightness of the headlamps of a vehicle comprising:
- an image array sensor configurable to have variable sensitivities;
- an optical system configured to image the scene forward of the vehicle onto said image array sensor;
- and
- a processing system for processing images received from said image array sensor and for determining the sensitivity of said image array sensor, wherein a first sensitivity is selected when the high beams are substantially on and a second, different, sensitivity is selected when the high beams are substantially off.
A control system to control the brightness of the headlamps of a vehicle comprising:
- an image array sensor;
- an optical system configured to image the scene forward of the vehicle onto said image array sensor;
- and
- a processing system for:
- processing images received from said image array sensor,
- identifying light sources in said images,
- determining the brightness of said light sources within said images, and
- comparing the brightness of light sources detected within the image against a threshold that is a function of the current state of the headlamps.
A control system to control the brightness of the headlamps of a vehicle comprising:
- an image array sensor configurable to have variable sensitivities;
- an optical system configured to image the scene forward of the vehicle onto said image array sensor;
- and
- a processing system for processing images received from said image array sensor and determining the sensitivity of said image array sensor, wherein said processing system acquires a first image at a first sensitivity and at least one additional image at a second sensitivity different than the first sensitivity, the first and second sensitivities are selected as a function of the current state of the headlamps.
A control system to control the brightness of the headlamps of a vehicle comprising:
- an image array sensor;
- an optical system configured to image the scene forward of the vehicle onto said image array sensor;
- a processing system configured to:
- process images received from said image array sensor,
- identify light sources in said images,
- determine the brightness of the light sources within said images,
- generate a control signal to set the state of the high beam headlamps,
- compare the brightness of each identified light source to a threshold,
- if the brightness of the light source is below the threshold, verify the presence of a light source by acquiring and processing additional images prior to generating a control signal to reduce the brightness of the high beam headlamps, and
- if the brightness of the light source is above the threshold, generate a signal to reduce the brightness of the high beam headlamps immediately.
A control system to control the brightness of the headlamps of a vehicle comprising:
- an image array sensor;
- an optical system configured to image the scene forward of the vehicle onto said image array sensor;
- at least one continuously variable headlamp;
- and
- a processing system configured to:
- process images received from said image array sensor,
- identify light sources in the images,
- determine the brightness of the light sources within the images,
- selecting the brightness level of said continuously variable headlamp as a function of the brightness of light sources within the images, and
- generate a control signal to set the brightness of said continuously variable headlamp at the selected level.
A control system for controlling the brightness of headlamps of a vehicle comprising:
- an optical system configured to image the scene forward of the vehicle;
- and
- a processing system for processing images from said optical system for providing a control signal for controlling the brightness of the headlamps, wherein said processing system identifies light sources in the imaged scene and detects whether one or more of the light sources are powered by an alternating current power source.
A method of controlling the brightness of vehicle headlamps comprising the steps of:
- identifying light sources in front of the vehicle;
- determining whether the light sources are powered by an alternating current power source;
- and
- controlling the brightness of the vehicle headlamps as a function of the detection of light sources that are not powered by an alternating current power source.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.