Vehicle detection based on perspective transformation using rear-view camera

In recent times, the number of vehicles with a rear-view camera has been increasing. The rear-view camera can be utilized as a sensor for monitoring a collision from behind the vehicle in a driving scene. To prevent rear-end collisions, we have been developing a technology that detects approaching vehicles from images obtained using an onboard rear-view camera. In conventional vehicle detection methods, often, camera-view images are used. However, it is difficult to accurately estimate the position of a distant approaching vehicle using such images. In this paper, we propose an improved method to accurately estimate the position of distant approaching vehicles by using virtual top-view images. The displacement of the vehicle in the top-view image is proportional to its speed. Thus, the proposed method can provide the accurate position of the distant vehicle. We describe the details of the proposed method and its availability by the experiment using actual images.