Systems and methods for determining the status of a turn lane traffic light

A vehicle, comprising:

• a body;
• at least one image capture device configured to acquire at least one image of an area forward of the vehicle, the area including a traffic lamp fixture having at least one traffic light;
• a data interface;
• and
• at least one processing device configured to:
• receive the at least one acquired image via the data interface;
• determine, based on analysis of the at least one image and at least one indicator of vehicle position, whether the vehicle is in a turn lane;
• perform image processing on the at least one image to determine whether an arrow exists in the at least one image within pixels of the image representative of the traffic light;
• determine, based on analysis of the at least one image, a status of the traffic light;
• and
• cause a system response based on the determination of the status of the traffic light, whether the traffic light includes an arrow, and whether the vehicle is in a turn lane.

A method for traffic light detection, the method comprising:

• acquiring, via at least one image capture device, at least one image of an area forward of a vehicle, the area including a traffic lamp fixture having at least one traffic light;
• determining, based on analysis of the at least one image and at least one indicator of vehicle position, whether the vehicle is in a turn lane;
• performing image processing on the at least one image to determine whether an arrow exists in the at least one image within pixels of the image representative of the traffic light;
• determining, based on analysis of the at least one image, a status of the traffic light;
• and
• causing a system response based on the determination of the status of the traffic light, whether the traffic light includes an arrow, and whether the vehicle is in a turn lane.