US 6,424,273 · Granted 2002-07-23
The Lane-Change Camera That Sees What You Can't
Imagine a camera on your car that watches the blind spot next to you and tells you if it's safe to change lanes. This patent protects a system that uses a camera to spot nearby cars and trucks, measures how far away they are, and displays a warning on a screen so the driver knows whether to move over.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a complete system for lane-change safety that combines: a camera positioned to see areas beside and near the vehicle, software that identifies objects in that field of view, a distance-measurement component that calculates how far away those objects are, and a display that shows the driver both the camera image and clear alerts about what objects are nearby and how far away they are. Anyone building a similar blind-spot monitoring setup using these exact components together would be infringing.
Why it matters
This patent came out in 2002, right as automakers were beginning to explore camera-based safety systems beyond basic mirrors. At the time, most cars had no electronic blind-spot warning at all, so this represented an early claim on the specific approach of combining vision detection, distance measurement, and driver display into one integrated safety tool. It helped establish the foundation for the blind-spot camera systems that became standard equipment in modern vehicles.
Real-world use
When you're sitting in a car and a small camera icon lights up on the dashboard or mirror to alert you that a vehicle is in your blind spot, that system's roots trace back to this patent's combination of seeing, measuring, and warning.
Original USPTO abstract
A vehicular vision system to aid a driver of a vehicle to determine whether it is safe to change lanes includes a camera having a field of view such that the field of view corresponds to at least a portion of an area proximate the vehicle. The system also includes an object identifier electrically coupled to the camera, a distance determiner which determines a distance of the object which is in the field of the camera, and a display electrically coupled to the camera which displays an image generated by the camera and provides an indication of the type of object which is in the field of view of the camera and the distance of the object from the vehicle.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 6,424,273
- Filing date
- 2001-03-30
- Grant date
- 2002-07-23
- Assignee
- Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
- Inventor(s)
- GUTTA SRINIVAS, TRAJKOVIC MIROSLAV, COLMENAREZ ANTONIO
- CPC class
- B60R1/26
Want to file your own patent?
If you're working on any automotive safety or sensor idea, scan it through our patent checker to see what's already locked down in this fast-moving field.
Free patentability scan