Parking assistance device and vehicle provided with such a device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10442465-B2
Application number	US-201515311789-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 3, 2015
Priority date	Jun 4, 2014
Publication date	Oct 15, 2019
Grant date	Oct 15, 2019

Abstract

A device capable of equipping a vehicle comprises: a first sensor placed on the side of the vehicle facing the entrance of the space, the sensor, which may be a lidar, makes distance and orientation measurements of said vehicle with respect to the space based on the reconstruction of a cloud of points belonging to the surface of said walls; a series of sensors placed on the lateral sides of the vehicle to measure the distance from the sides to the lateral walls of the parking space, these sensors possibly being ultrasound or optical; processing means calculating the position and the relative orientation of the vehicle with respect to the walls as a function of the measurements by the various sensors and as a function of the various parking phases.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A device for assisting with parking of a vehicle within a parking space provided with at least one lateral wall having longitudinally distributed geometric features, said device being capable of equipping a vehicle, the device comprising at least:
a rear sensor placed on a rear side of said vehicle facing the entrance of said space, the measuring beam of said sensor scanning said space, said rear sensor making measurements of a distance and orientation of said vehicle with respect to said parking space based on a reconstruction of a cloud of points belonging to a surface of said at least one wall;
a series of lateral sensors placed on at least one lateral side of said vehicle configured to measure the distance from said at least one lateral side to said at least one lateral wall, the measuring beams of said lateral sensors scanning said inner walls;
a processor configured to calculate the position and the relative orientation of said vehicle with respect to said at least one lateral wall in at least three separate phases:
an approach phase, wherein said at least one lateral wall is scanned by the measuring beam of said rear sensor to detect an entrance of the parking space, and the relative position and orientation are calculated with respect to the position and orientation of a general form of said at least one lateral wall deduced from said cloud;
an entry phase of inserting the rear of the vehicle into the parking space, wherein the position and the relative orientation are at least calculated with respect to the position and orientation of simple geometric forms deduced from said cloud, as a function of said geometric features; and
an advancing phase of advancing the vehicle to a final parking position, wherein the processor calculates a relative position and orientation by comparing said cloud with a memorized model of said at least one lateral wall and calculating another position and another relative orientation based on the distance measurements made by the lateral sensors,

wherein said processor comprises a data fusion module that carries out spatio-temporal filtering of the relative position and orientation calculations produced from the rear and lateral sensors, the calculations thus filtered giving information on the position and orientation of said vehicle in order to control its movement.

2. The device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said rear sensor is a lidar sensor.

3. The device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said rear sensor is formed from at least one video sensor.

4. The device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said rear sensor is a radar sensor.

5. The device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the lateral sensors are ultrasound sensors.

6. The device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the lateral sensors are optical telemetry sensors.

7. The device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the spatio-temporal filtering is carried out using a Kalman filter.

8. The device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the spatio-temporal filtering is carried out using a Monte Carlo method.

9. The device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the processor calculates a relative position and orientation from the distance measurements made by the lateral sensors during the entry phase.

10. The device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the processor calculates a relative position and orientation by comparing said cloud with the memorized model by an algorithm for estimating the transformation between clouds of points.

11. The device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the measurements obtained by said rear sensor are sampled in a first period and the measurements obtained from the lateral sensors are sampled in a second period.

12. The device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the lateral sensors are positioned with increasing spacing between two consecutive lateral sensors, starting from the rear side.

13. The device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the processor carries out consistency checks in time and space between the successive calculations of relative position and orientation obtained from measurements by said rear sensor and between the successive calculations of relative position and orientation obtained from measurements by the lateral sensors, the consistent calculations being delivered to said data fusion module.

14. The device as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising at least one odometer, placed on a wheel of the vehicle, the processor carrying out the estimation of the movement speed vector of said vehicle based on wheel speed measurements produced by the odometer, said estimation producing an estimate of the position and orientation of said vehicle that is taken into account by the data fusion module so as to define the position and relative orientation of said vehicle in order to control its movement.

15. A vehicle comprising a monitoring and control system for assisting with driving, wherein the vehicle is equipped with a device as claimed in claim 1 , said system providing information on the positions and orientation of said vehicle to said monitoring and control system.

16. The vehicle as claimed in claim 15 , wherein the vehicle is automatically driven.

17. The vehicle as claimed in claim 15 , wherein the vehicle is composed of a cab and a trailer, said rear and lateral sensors being placed on said trailer.

Assignees

• Commissariat Energie Atomique

Inventors

• Dhome Yoann
• Burger Brice
• Sayd Patrick

Classifications

• B60T8/1708

  for lorries or tractor-trailer combinations · CPC title

• B62D15/0285 Primary

  Parking performed automatically · CPC title

• G05D1/0246

  using a video camera in combination with image processing means · CPC title

• G05D1/024

  in combination with a laser (lasers per se H01S) · CPC title

• G01C22/025

  Differential odometers · CPC title