ECE DAY '09 Active Optical's NightOpt Part 2

Team 10: Active Optical
NightOpt

Team Members: Vivek Ashar, Esteban Gonzalez, Kenneth Hopkins, Jonathan Lee, Fabio Malangone
Customer: Mikhail Gurevich, Zepfrog

Depth perception, color recognition, and peripheral vision are often compromised after sunset. Given that a drivers reaction time depends immensely on vision, the reduction of this factor has proven to be costly. NightOpt will contribute to the solution to the high accident rate at night by greatly improving a drivers visibility. NightOpt is a system, both hardware and software, which once installed in a car, will alert the driver of signs ahead of the vehicle. By using an active infrared camera, a clear video of the scenery ahead (up to 100 meters) can be displayed to the driver as the most basic form of enhancement to nighttime driving using the NightOpt system. NightOpt incorporates image processing techniques to allow the system to highlight important information such as road signs and road lines. Some night vision enhancement systems have already been developed by manufacturers such as Cadillac and Raytheon, but those systems do not incorporate active object detection. NightOpts additions to previous technologies will make it a feasible competitor in the growing market for night vision and driving safety systems.

For more information:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMrH3cxkUfo
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqa_pBvmo4Q

Category:

Science & Technology