US 7,720,580 · Granted 2010-05-18
How Donnelly's Smart Camera Became Your Car's Watchful Eye
A camera mounted on your vehicle watches the road and uses smart algorithms to spot important details—like obstacles or lane markings—by filtering out unnecessary data. The camera adjusts what it pays attention to based on how you're turning the wheel, making it faster and more useful.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers an imaging system that captures exterior scenes through a vehicle-mounted camera sensor, processes the captured image data algorithmically to create a reduced dataset, and then selectively extracts information from that reduced dataset. What's protected here is the specific method of steering-angle-dependent image reduction—the system's ability to adjust which visual information it prioritizes based on real-time steering input.
Why it matters
This patent tackles a core challenge in automotive vision systems: processing camera data fast enough for real-time safety decisions without drowning in unnecessary information. By linking image processing to steering angle, the system becomes more efficient and responsive. This kind of intelligent vision filtering is foundational to modern driver-assistance features and autonomous driving technology.
Real-world use
When your car's lane-keeping assist or collision-warning system activates, it's likely using principles from patents like this one to intelligently analyze what the camera sees and react in milliseconds.
Original USPTO abstract
An imaging system for a vehicle includes an imaging array sensor and a control. The image array sensor comprises a plurality of photo-sensing pixels and is positioned at the vehicle with a field of view exteriorly of the vehicle. The imaging array sensor is operable to capture an image of a scene occurring exteriorly of the vehicle. The captured image comprises an image data set representative of the exterior scene. The control algorithmically processes the image data set to a reduced image data set of the image data set. The control processes the reduced image data set to extract information from the reduced image data set. The control selects the reduced image data set based on a steering angle of the vehicle.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 7,720,580
- Filing date
- 2005-12-22
- Grant date
- 2010-05-18
- Assignee
- Donnelly Corporation
- Inventor(s)
- HIGGINS-LUTHMAN MICHAEL J.
- CPC class
- G06V20/588
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