A Novel Camera-Based Rear Vision System for Lane Changes with 180 Degree Field of View

摘要

When changing lanes and merging, the distance to other vehicles must be judged accurately. This paper presents a novel rear vision system that uses a camera and a LCD monitor to assist drivers with those maneuvers and judgments by showing the complete rear situation in one image. This is achieved by a novel transformation of an image from a fisheye camera with a 180-degree field of view. The resulting image provides for viewing sizes similar to conventional door mirrors, minimizes blindspots, and is free of unwanted distortions. As a first step in system validation, the system was tested during lane changes while driving and in an experiment in which seven drivers compared the distance of a vehicle seen behind them to a lead vehicle (while parked). Despite having the widest field of view of the compared systems, distance judgements were as accurate (22% relative error) as with door mirrors (23%). In both cases, rear vehicles appeared to be closer than their real distance, whereas conventional rear cameras made them appear farther away than in reality (by 30%). The results confirmed the potential of the proposed system to achieve accurate situation awareness.