Nighttime Vehicle Distance Alarm System

Keeping safe distance between two cars is an important topic for car accident prevention. This paper presents a practical nighttime vehicle distance measuring method based on a single CCD image. The method combines the image-based distance measuring system (IBDMS) with nighttime vehicle distance alarm system. To solve the nighttime feature extraction problem, the proposed method uses two taillights as the feature. Based on the proportionality of similar triangles, distance between a CCD camera and taillight of the vehicle ahead can be measured. The method focuses on detecting taillight and differentiating the targeted vehicle from others on the basis of partial image analysis instead of whole image processing. As a result, high-speed processing and simple configuration of the proposed method have been achieved as demonstrated in this paper.