Sony Patent | System and method to provide driving assistance

Patent: System and method to provide driving assistance

Publication Number: 10181266

Publication Date: 2019-01-15

Applicants: Sony

Abstract

Various aspects of a system and method to provide driving assistance are disclosed herein. The system comprises one or more circuits in an electronic control unit used in a vehicle configured to detect one or more actions associated with the vehicle based on one or more signals generated by one or more sensors embedded in the vehicle. The electronic control unit may be further configured to control the activation of an imaging device located on the vehicle at an opposite side of a driver of the vehicle, based on the detected one or more actions. The imaging device is operable to capture one or more images in a forward-facing direction of the vehicle.

Background

Recent advancements in the field of telematics have led to the development of systems that are able to assist a driver to maneuver a vehicle based on traffic conditions. For such assistance, current methods use rear-view cameras to capture the traffic conditions behind the vehicle while in motion. Based on the images captured by the rear-view cameras, the vehicle may be reasonably equipped to be maneuvered without any potential risk of an accident.

In certain scenarios, an ego vehicle may attempt to overtake or undertake a vehicle moving ahead of the ego vehicle. However, the field-of-view available to the driver of the ego vehicle may be limited due to the vehicle. Therefore, the driver of the ego vehicle may not have sufficient information about the road and/or traffic conditions present ahead of the vehicle. In other scenarios, the driver may be required to take a turn towards a passenger side of the ego vehicle. In case the turn is a tight turn and towards the inside part of the road, the view of the road and/or the road surface just beyond the turn may be limited due to the sharp angle of the turn. In such scenarios, the driver may not be able to visualize the road and/or the traffic conditions at the turn due to a blind spot towards the passenger side. Thus, it may be desirable by the driver to obtain sufficient information about the traffic condition present on the road surface. It may be further desirable by the driver to have sufficient information about the shoulder of the road on the inside of the turn towards the passenger side of the ego vehicle.

Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of described systems with some aspects of the present disclosure, as set forth in the remainder of the present application and with reference to the drawings.

Summary

A system and a method to provide driving assistance is provided substantially as shown in, and/or described in connection with, at least one of the figures, as set forth more completely in the claims.

These and other features and advantages of the present disclosure may be appreciated from a review of the following detailed description of the present disclosure, along with the accompanying figures in which like reference numerals refer to like parts throughout.