US 12,332,346 B2
Situational awareness system for an autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle
Philippe Arthur Jean Ghislain Chevalier, Deinze (BE); Geoffrey Ejzenberg, Lier (BE); and Noël Jans, Val-Meer (BE)
Assigned to BeHauIT Industrial Property Office B.V., Genk (BE); and Autonomous Knight BV, Genk (BE)
Appl. No. 17/784,400
Filed by BeHaulT Industrial Property Office B.V., Genk (BE); and Autonomous Knight BV, Genk (BE)
PCT Filed Dec. 7, 2020, PCT No. PCT/EP2020/084949
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Jun. 10, 2022,
PCT Pub. No. WO2021/116045, PCT Pub. Date Jun. 17, 2021.
Claims priority of application No. PCT/EP2019/084986 (WO), filed on Dec. 12, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2023/0020142 A1, Jan. 19, 2023
Int. Cl. G01S 13/931 (2020.01); G01S 13/89 (2006.01); G05D 1/00 (2024.01)
CPC G01S 13/931 (2013.01) [G01S 13/89 (2013.01); G05D 1/0088 (2013.01); G01S 2013/93271 (2020.01); G01S 2013/93272 (2020.01)] 30 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A situational awareness system for a vehicle, wherein the situational awareness system is configured to generate an imaging dataset for processing by a cyber-physical system for enabling semi-autonomous or autonomous operational mode of the vehicle, wherein the situational awareness system includes a sensors system comprising:
at least four short-range electro-optical units with identical electro-optical characteristics configured for imaging surroundings of the vehicle to obtain spatial information of objects in the surroundings. wherein the at least four short-range electro-optical units have fixed focal length operating in a specific wavelength band;
at least four ground-looking electro-optical units with identical electro-optical characteristics configured for imaging a ground area in a direct vicinity of the vehicle, wherein the at least four ground-looking electro-optical units have fixed focal length operating in a specific wavelength band;
at least two imaging radar units including at least a first imaging radar unit pointing in a frontward direction of the vehicle and a second imaging radar unit pointing in a rearward direction of the vehicle, the first imaging radar unit and the second imaging radar unit being configured to image objects; and
at least two long-range multi-spectral electro-optical units of fixed focal length including at least one first long-range multi-spectral electro-optical unit pointing in a forward direction of the vehicle configured for identification of spatial information of objects, and at least one second long-range multi-spectral electro-optical unit pointing in a rearward direction of the vehicle configured for identification of spatial information of objects, the at least two long-range multi-spectral electro-optical units including a first subunit configured for operating in at least one of a visible wavelength band or a visible-near-infrared wavelength band, a second subunit configured for operating in a thermal infrared wavelength band, and an optical splitter configured for separating wavelength bands to spectrally sensitive imaging sensors of the first and second subunits, and wherein the first subunit and the second subunit are arranged for co-axial spectral imaging of objects in a scene with, and wherein the first subunit and the second subunit have an equal instantaneous field of view and matching distortion, wherein a long-range multi-spectral electro-optical unit includes at least one optical stabilization arrangement, and wherein the long-range multi-spectral electro-optical unit further includes a laser range finder configured for optically ranging selected objects in the scene to provide the distance of the selected objects to the laser range finder; and
wherein the situational awareness system further includes a data synchronization system configured to synchronize the multi-spectral imaging dataset obtained by each unit and subunit of the sensors system, wherein the data synchronization system is configured to provide the synchronized multi-spectral imaging dataset aligned in space and time to the cyber-physical system of the vehicle.