A Wide Front View Range Black Box with Two Cameras

摘要

We propose a black box with a wide range view using two camera lenses for automobile's black box. In the proposed scheme, the view range of the black box is larger than 200° which is wider view range compared with commercially available black boxes of which view range is about 120°. To catch side views and a rear view, several black boxes have been proposed such as two channel, three channel, and four channel black boxes. The proposed black box uses two camera lenses to get front view, which enable the proposed black box to catch left and right side views, eliminating side view cameras which are needed for three and four channel black boxes. In the proposed black box, we make each camera face outward to extend the front view from the automobile's front but limit the amount of turning not to miss the front view. In the design of two cameras in the proposed black box, we derive an equation regarding the skew angle of cameras from the horizontal line which connects two cameras, taking into account the length of a bonnet and the distance between two cameras. The proposed black box catches front images from the front of an automobile's bonnet. To show two images on a display as one whole image, we adjust two images from the two cameras through image processing, such as image clipping, vertical movement to get rid of vertical offset, and brightness control. We believe that the proposed black box has larger front view range than commercially available black boxes and is advantageous over previous black boxes in terms of black box size, cost, power consumption, installation, etc.