Utilizing Biomimetic Image Processing to Rapidly Detect Rollover Threats

Rollover incidents while driving their military vehicles has resulted in,soldiers incurring injuries or even losing their lives. A recent report identified that one cause of vehicle rollovers is the driver's inability to assess rollover threat, such as a cliff, soft ground, water, or culvert on the passenger side of the vehicle. The vehicle's width hinders the driver's field of view. To reduce the number of military vehicles rolling over, a road edge detection and driver warning system is being developed to warn the driver of potential rollover threats and keeps the driver from veering off the side of the road. This system utilizes a unique, ultra-fast, image-processing algorithm based on the neurobiology of insect vision, specifically the vision of a fly. The system consists of a Long-Wavelength Infrared (LWIR) camera and monochrome video camera system, a long-range laser scanner, a processing module in which a biomimetic image processor detects road edges in real-time, and a Driver's Vision Enhancer (DVE) which displays the road image, detected boundaries and road-side terrain steepness in real-time for the driver.