Head lamp cut off position correction system for vehicle and method thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9376053-B2
Application number	US-201414491502-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 19, 2014
Priority date	Dec 18, 2013
Publication date	Jun 28, 2016
Grant date	Jun 28, 2016

Abstract

A head lamp cut off position correction system for a vehicle includes a head lamp switch configured to output a turn-on/off signal of a head lamp. A vehicle speed detector is configured to detect a driving vehicle speed. A video input is configured to detect a video of a front of the vehicle while driving. A controller is configured to determine an actual cut off position of a head lamp low beam by analyzing a video image detected by the video input, compares the determined cut off position and a cut off control value of the head lamp low beam depending on a height of the vehicle, and corrects the cut off position. An actuator aligns a beam position of the head lamp upward or downward by control from the controller.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A head lamp cut off position correction system for a vehicle, comprising:
a head lamp switch configured to output a turn-on/off signal of a head lamp;
a vehicle speed detector configured to detect a driving vehicle speed;
a video input configured to detect a video of a front of the vehicle while driving;
a controller configured to determine an actual cut off position of a head lamp low beam by analyzing a video image detected by the video input, compare the determined actual cut off position and a cut off control value of the head lamp low beam depending on a height of the vehicle, and correct the cut off position; and
an actuator configured to align a beam position of the head lamp upward or downward by control of the controller.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the controller synthetically determines surrounding illumination, the presence of a streetlamp, the presence of a preceding/oncoming vehicle, and an acceleration in order to determine a reliable cut off position of the head lamp low beam, and calculates the actual cut off position of the head lamp low beam from the video image only when there is no surrounding light and no other surrounding vehicles.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the controller divides a bright part and a dark part of each pixel by analyzing the video image under a cruising condition to calculate the actual cut off position of the head lamp low beam.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the controller calculates the actual cut off position of the head lamp low beam at the set number of times or more by analyzing the video image and thereafter, averages the calculated cut off position to apply the averaged cut off position to a cut off distance.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the controller calculates a cut off position of a control value output depending on the vehicle height by applying an irradiation angle of the head lamp low beam and a height from the ground.

6. A head lamp cut off position correction method, comprising steps of:
analyzing a video image by capturing a video of a road in front of a vehicle while night driving with a head lamp being turned on;
determining whether a current driving condition satisfies a determination condition of a cut off position of a head lamp low beam;
determining an actual cut off position of the head lamp low beam by dividing a bright part and a dark part of a video image pixel when the cut off position of the head lamp low beam satisfies the determination condition;
extracting a deviation by comparing a cut off position control value of the head lamp low beam depending on a height of the vehicle and the actual cut off position of the head lamp low beam calculated by analyzing the video image; and
aligning the cut off position through an actuator by calculating a cut off position correction value of the head lamp low beam in accordance with the extracted deviation.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein:
the determination condition of the cut off position of the head lamp low beam is determined as a case in which there is surrounding light and no other surrounding vehicle and a state in which the vehicle continuously cruises.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein:
the actual cut off position of the head lamp low beam is applied with a value acquired by averaging cut off positions calculated repeatedly at the set number of times or more.

9. The method of claim 6 , wherein:
a cut off position of a control value output depending on the vehicle height is calculated by applying an irradiation angle of the head lamp low beam and a height from the ground.

10. A head lamp cut off position correction system for the vehicle comprising:
a vehicle speed detector configured to detect a driving vehicle speed;
a video input configured to detect the front video;
a controller configured to correct the cut off position of the head lamp low beam; and
an actuator configured to align the cut off position of the head lamp low beam upward/downward by control of the controller,
wherein the controller operates in accordance with a set program to determine the actual cut off position of the head lamp low beam by executing the method of claim 6 , compares the determined cut off position and a cut off control value of the head lamp low beam depending on the height of the vehicle, and corrects the cut off position.

Assignees

• Hyundai Motor Co Ltd

Inventors

• Min Jae Woong

Classifications

• B60Q2300/42

  oncoming vehicle · CPC title

• B60Q2300/3321

  Detection of streetlights · CPC title

• B60Q2300/112

  Vehicle speed · CPC title

• B60Q2300/114

  Vehicle acceleration or deceleration · CPC title

• B60Q1/143 Primary

  combined with another condition, e.g. using vehicle recognition from camera images or activation of wipers · CPC title