US 12,403,733 B2
Vehicle hitching assist apparatus, vehicle hitching assist method, and vehicle hitching assist system
Taku Takahama, Yokohama (JP)
Assigned to Hitachi Astemo, Ltd., Hitachinaka (JP)
Appl. No. 17/270,266
Filed by Hitachi Astemo, Ltd., Hitachinaka (JP)
PCT Filed Jul. 22, 2019, PCT No. PCT/JP2019/028610
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Feb. 22, 2021,
PCT Pub. No. WO2020/039814, PCT Pub. Date Feb. 27, 2020.
Claims priority of application No. 2018-156122 (JP), filed on Aug. 23, 2018.
Prior Publication US 2021/0339588 A1, Nov. 4, 2021
Int. Cl. B60D 1/36 (2006.01); B60D 1/62 (2006.01); B62D 15/02 (2006.01); G05D 1/00 (2024.01)
CPC B60D 1/36 (2013.01) [B60D 1/62 (2013.01); B62D 15/02 (2013.01); G05D 1/0221 (2013.01); G05D 1/0231 (2013.01)] 9 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An apparatus comprising:
a vehicle hitching assist apparatus, the vehicle hitching assist apparatus being arranged in a vehicle equipped with a hitch, the vehicle hitching assist apparatus also being configured to assist in hitching between the vehicle including a first hitch portion and a trailer including a second hitch portion connected to the first hitch portion, wherein the vehicle hitching assist apparatus comprises
a microcomputer configured to execute a first mode and a second mode,
wherein the first mode configured to, when an image pattern of the second hitch portion is acquired, detect a position of the second hitch portion based on a comparison between the image pattern and a first image acquired by an external world perception sensor mounted on a rear portion of the vehicle, and output a steering instruction for assisting in the hitching between the trailer and the vehicle based on the detected position of the second hitch portion to a steering controller of the vehicle; and
the second mode configured to, when the image pattern is not acquired, issue a notification for prompting a driver of the vehicle to manually hitch the trailer and the vehicle,
wherein the vehicle hitching assist apparatus learns the image pattern of only the second hitch portion that is provided on the trailer, when the first hitch portion is hidden from the image acquired by the external world perception sensor when the trailer and the vehicle are hitched manually in the second mode, and
wherein the vehicle hitching assist apparatus repeats processing that dates back from an immediately preceding image toward the first image among images of the external world perception sensor that have been recorded in a course of the hitching by a driver's operation and extracts a region shaped similarly to an image region of the second hitch portion extracted in the immediately preceding image from the first image as the image region of the second hitch portion, thereby learning the image pattern of the second hitch portion for each of a plurality of conditions corresponding to different distances from the vehicle.