BMW's Night Vision Pedestrian Recognition System

**Grrrmachine** · 08-24-2008, 06:00 AM

For those of you who haven't heard of this:

New BMW Technology

Their night vision camera uses software algorithms to calculate whether a particular shape is a person, and if so, where their location is relative to the car and if your speed and yaw rate are factors putting them in danger. If so, it gives you a subtle alert (big yellow warning triangle.)

Considering the technologies available to most CarPC users now (IR cameras, motion sensors, vehicle data on the fly), how difficult would it be to implement something like this? I'm presuming it's more of a software than a hardware problem, but either way, I wouldn't know where to begin. Could it be used to recognise traffic signs too?

**bes51659** · 08-24-2008, 06:47 AM

I've seen it! It's excellent. But why not use the the head-up-display to just highlight living/warm objects! An overlay to what you acctually see! In sweden we also have to look out for elks!

Someone took such a BMW camera apart and has pictures on his site. Now, who was it...

Could something like this be converted...

Maybe, but not in my budget! Great project though :-)

**Grrrmachine** · 08-24-2008, 07:12 AM

Integrating with HUD would be great, but only if the HUD projected over the entire windscreen, rather than just a small square in front of the steering wheel. That way it would be like seeing through the Terminator's eyes

For now though, how feasible is it to build a camera recognition system?

**bes51659** · 08-24-2008, 07:36 AM

You need an IR camera, and DSP system. I do not think it is feasable to do it in a PC out of pure processor load. Dedicated hardware is probably what you need with composite video in and out. And a USB port to communicate when there is an alarm situation. An eval board from texas? I do not dare suggesting any...

Maybe the first increment is to find a IR camera? A bit pricy maybe...