The present disclosure relates to the technical field of autonomous driving and, more particularly, to a vehicle and a side-rearview mirror for mounting at the vehicle.
A self-driving car can realize 360-degree perception of surrounding environment through multiple sensors, and perform autonomous navigation to lead passengers to their destinations. Many companies are now designing their own autonomous driving systems, in which selection and location design of different types of sensors have significant impact on modules such as calibration of the multiple sensors, environmental perception, control decision, etc. A good autonomous driving sensor system should meet the following conditions: 1) realizing 360-degree perception of the surrounding environment without blind spots; 2) providing reliable and stable environmental perception data with little redundancy; 3) performing sensor calibration conveniently and quickly, and meeting needs of real-time calibration result verification.
With continuous upgrade of autonomous driving, more environment sensors will be mounted at future vehicles. Arrangement of a sensor at the vehicle needs to meet requirements of sensor accuracy and stability, and should avoid affecting vehicle appearance style as much as possible.
Most existing autonomous driving sensors are arranged externally, and the sensors are arranged through vehicle roof structural members or by remodeling vehicle bodies, so that structure is complex, remodeling workload is large, and the vehicle appearance style is affected. Also, an external sensor arrangement scheme cannot realize quick disassembly, assembly, maintenance, and replacement.
In accordance with the disclosure, there is provided a side-rearview mirror including a sensor and a housing with a cavity. The sensor includes a LIDAR accommodated in the cavity and configured to detect environment information of one side of a vehicle. One side of the side-rearview mirror facing a side-rear direction of the vehicle includes a non-mirror surface.
In order to explain the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present disclosure more clearly, accompanying drawings used in the description of the embodiments are briefly described. Obviously, the drawings in the following description are some embodiments of the present disclosure, and other drawings can be obtained from these drawings without any inventive effort for those of ordinary skill in the art.
In order to make the objectives, technical solutions, and advantages of the present disclosure more obvious, exemplary embodiments according to the present disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Obviously, the described embodiments are some of rather than all the embodiments of the present disclosure. It should be noted that the present disclosure is not limited by the exemplary embodiments described herein. Based on the embodiments of the present disclosure described in the present disclosure, all other embodiments obtained by those of ordinary skill in the art without inventive effort shall fall within the scope of the present disclosure.
In the following description, a lot of specific details are given in order to provide a more thorough understanding of the present disclosure. However, it is obvious to those skilled in the art that the present disclosure can be implemented without one or more of these details. In some other examples, some technical features known in the art are not described in order to avoid confusion with the present disclosure.
It should be noted that the present disclosure can be implemented in different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments described here. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that the disclosure will be thorough and complete, and the scope of the present disclosure will be fully conveyed to those skilled in the art.
The terms used herein is for the purpose of describing specific embodiments only and is not as a limitation of the present disclosure. As used herein, the singular forms of “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended to include plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It should also be understood that the terms “comprising,” and/or “including”, when used in this specification, determine the existence of the described features, integers, steps, operations, elements and/or components, but do not exclude the existence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups. As used herein, the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of related listed items.
In order to provide a thorough understanding of the present disclosure, detailed steps and detailed structures will be presented in the following description to explain the technical solutions of the present disclosure. Some embodiments of the present disclosure are described in detail as follows. However, in addition to these detailed descriptions, the present disclosure may also have other embodiments.
In order to solve the above problems, the present disclosure provides a side-rearview mirror for mounting at a vehicle, which includes a LIDAR, a vision sensor, and a housing. The LIDAR is configured to detect environment information at one side of the vehicle, and the vision sensor is configured to obtain an environment image at one side of the vehicle. The housing has a cavity formed therein, and the LIDAR and the vision sensor are accommodated in the cavity.
Or the side-rearview mirror includes a LIDAR and a housing, where the LIDAR is configured to detect the environment information at one side of the vehicle. The housing has a cavity formed therein, and the LIDAR is accommodated in the cavity. Also, one side of the side-rearview mirror facing a side-rear direction of the vehicle is a non-mirror surface.
The present disclosure improves the side-rearview mirror of the vehicle, and integrates the LIDAR, or the LIDAR and vision camera into a redesigned side-rearview mirror structure. The structure and arrangement are optimized while ensuring that use requirements of sensor can be met, so that the entire sensor is more integrated, smaller in volume, and has less impact on appearance of the vehicle. With such improvement, the side-rearview mirror has a high degree of integration, compact structure, and reasonable arrangement, which solves the problems of complex structure, large volume, and impact on appearance of conventional arrangement of current autonomous vehicles. Multiple sensors are integrated into one side-rearview mirror, so that the whole side-rearview mirror can be quickly mounted, removed, and maintained, and a protection effect on the sensors can be achieved.
Hereinafter, the side-rearview mirror for mounting at the vehicle in the present disclosure will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the case of no conflict, the following embodiments and features in the embodiments can be combined with each other.
The side-rearview mirror for mounting at the vehicle is configured to sense surrounding environment of the vehicle, for example, to collect vehicle information and surrounding environment information, where the surrounding environment information includes image information and three-dimensional coordinate information of the surrounding environment. It should be noted that, in addition to being mounted at the vehicle, the side-rearview mirror can also be applied to other mobile platforms for detecting environment in a rear-side direction.
In
In the present disclosure, the side-rearview mirror is arranged in a region and position where a rearview mirror is conventionally placed at the vehicle, for example, the side-rearview mirror is usually arranged at a side of a front part of the vehicle, for directly obtaining the surrounding environment information in a rear side, a left/right side, a lower side, etc. of the vehicle.
In some embodiments, as shown in
Mounting position of the side-rearview mirror is at a position closer to the front side of the vehicle, preferentially meeting a viewing angle coverage of the rear-side direction. Mounting angle and field of view angle of the side-rearview mirror are shown in
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the LIDAR at least includes a first LIDAR and a second LIDAR integrated within the housing, and field of view angles of the first LIDAR and the second LIDAR at least partially overlap, so as to ensure that there is no detection blind spot between the first LIDAR and the second LIDAR.
In some embodiments, the field of view angles of the first LIDAR and the second LIDAR are overlapped as little as possible, so as to increase a range of a total field of view angle after the first LIDAR and the second LIDAR are combined.
For example, an overlap range of the field of view angles of the first LIDAR and the second LIDAR is less than 10°, and more specifically, in some embodiments of the present disclosure, the overlap range of the field of view angles of the first LIDAR and the second LIDAR is 5°.
Positional relationship between the first LIDAR and the second LIDAR can be set according to actual needs, for example, according to a key area and direction for detection. In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the first LIDAR and the second LIDAR are arranged such that their optical axes are perpendicular to each other. As shown in
Correspondingly, the side-rearview mirror also includes a LIDAR base 114 configured to fix and mount the LIDAR, and the LIDAR base 114 is fixed at a support structure.
Further, in some embodiments of the present disclosure, the LIDAR base 114 includes a bottom housing for placing the LIDAR, and the LIDAR is fixed by being clamped in the bottom housing of the LIDAR base 114. In some other embodiments, the LIDAR and the LIDAR base 114 may also include other fixation structures, such as bolts and nuts.
In some embodiments, arrangement of the LIDAR base 114 matches arrangement of the LIDAR, for example, two bottom housings of the LIDAR base where two LIDARs are mounted are also perpendicular to each other.
After the first LIDAR and the second LIDAR are fixedly mounted, a combined field of view angle of the first LIDAR and the second LIDAR is greater than or equal to 155°.
The field of view angle of the first LIDAR is greater than or equal to 80°, and/or the field of view angle of the second LIDAR is greater than or equal to 80°.
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, as shown in
Further, a boundary of the field of view angle of any one of the first LIDAR and the second LIDAR is parallel to an extension direction of a vehicle body. For example, the boundary of the field of view angle of one of the first LIDAR and the second LIDAR that is closer to the rear side of the vehicle body is parallel to the extension direction of the vehicle body, as shown in
After being mounted at the LIDAR base, the LIDAR is accommodated in the cavity formed by the housing, and the housing and arrangement of the LIDAR and the vision sensor in the cavity will be respectively described below.
An opening is provided at a side wall of one side of the second housing in contact with the first housing. The opening is configured to introduce a power connection structure for connecting the vision sensor with an external power source into the first housing 107, and to pull the second housing 108 to tightly attach to the first housing 107 by fixing the power connection structure, thereby fixing the second housing 108. In some other embodiments, other connection structures for fixing can also be provided between the first housing 107 and the second housing 108, which will not be repeated herein.
A plurality of windows 105 are provided at both the first housing and the second housing, which are configured to reveal the LIDAR and the vision sensor.
Specifically, shape of the window 105 matches shape of the sensor to be exposed. For example, as shown in
In order to further prevent water vapor, dust, particles, etc. from entering the housing, the window needs to be further sealed, for example, a sealing structure is also provided at the window to seal a gap between the LIDAR and the vision sensor and a housing middle frame, which further protects the LIDAR and the visual sensor.
The sealing structure can be a commonly used sealing material, for example, a sealant or a sealing strip can be used to fill the gap between the LIDAR and the vision sensor and the housing middle frame.
The housing includes a housing upper cover 102, a housing lower cover 104, and a housing middle frame 103 arranged at an edge position between the housing upper cover 102 and the housing lower cover 104 to enclose the cavity.
More specifically, after the housing upper cover 102, the housing lower cover 104, and the housing middle frame 103 enclose the cavity, a partition is provided between the housing upper cover 102 and the housing lower cover 104, so that the cavity is divided into the first cavity and the second cavity that are independent of each other.
In some other embodiments, the first housing and the second housing each include the housing upper cover 102, the housing lower cover 104, and the housing middle frame 103. After the first cavity and the second cavity independent of each other are each enclosed, the first housing and the second housing are detachably assembled into one body.
The first housing and the second housing will be described in detail below.
The first housing includes a first housing upper cover 1021, a first housing lower cover 1041, and a first housing middle frame 1031.
As shown in
The housing upper cover is also provided with other structures, such as connection holes, etc.
As shown in
The window configured to reveal the LIDAR is arranged in the first housing middle frame 1031.
Further, a top surface and a bottom surface of the first housing middle frame 1031 are respectively provided with connection holes, such as screw holes, through which the first housing middle frame 1031 is fixedly connected to the first housing upper cover 1021 and the first housing lower cover 1041.
In some embodiments, in order to better dissipate heat from the LIDAR, a grid structure is also provided at a side wall of the first housing middle frame 1031 to accelerate heat dissipation generated by the LIDAR. The grid structure can also be used as reinforcement ribs to improve strength of the first housing middle frame 1031, so as to increase its pressure bearing capacity.
The grid structure can be a plurality of protrusions regularly arranged at the side wall of the first housing middle frame 1031, for example, a plurality of mutually parallel protruding strips are arranged at the side wall of the first housing middle frame 1031 from top to bottom, where the protruding strips can be cylindrical or plate-shaped, and are not limited to one.
As shown in
Further, a support structure 109 for supporting the LIDAR is also provided above the first housing lower cover 1041, as shown in
Specifically, the flat plate part is arranged in parallel or substantially parallel to the first housing lower cover 1041 and the first housing upper cover 1021 with the same shape.
Further, the connection plate is arranged at an end away from the connection of the second housing, as shown in
Length of the connection plate in the vertical direction is greater than thickness of the flat plate part so as to protrude from upper and lower surfaces of the flat plate part.
A mounting structure is also arranged at the side wall of the first housing middle frame 1031 close to the vehicle. The mounting structure includes a notch arranged at bottom of the side wall, and a protrusion protruding from a surface of the side wall is arranged at the notch. Bottom of the mounting structure is not provided with the protrusion, but is also a notch, as shown in
When the support structure is arranged between the first housing lower cover 1041 and the first housing middle frame 1031, a part of the connection plate located above the flat plate part enters the mounting structure and is covered by the mounting structure.
Further, as shown in
The rib plate is a triangle, as shown in
Further, the reinforcement structure 111 is arranged at a side wall of the connection plate proximal to the cavity, and the reinforcement structure 111 is arranged at side walls of the connection plate at upper and lower ends of the flat plate part, as shown in
Further, a heat dissipation structure 106 is provided at a surface of the support structure close to the housing lower cover for heat dissipation and cooling of the sensor.
In some embodiments, the heat dissipation structure 106 includes a heat sink and/or a fan.
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the heat dissipation structure 106 is a heat dissipation plate with a plate structure, and an extension direction of the plate structure is perpendicular to an extension direction of the flat plate part.
Further, the LIDAR base is fixed at the support structure.
The second housing will be described in detail below. Second housing can be arranged in a manner similar to that for the first housing, for example, the second housing includes a second housing upper cover, a second housing lower cover, and a second housing middle frame to enclose the second cavity.
In some other embodiments of the present disclosure, other parts of the second housing than the second housing upper cover may be integrally formed, as shown in
The window at the second housing may be a window protruding from a surface of the second cavity to accommodate a camera lens in the vision sensor.
The vision sensor 12 includes a camera, as shown in
The camera may have a fisheye lens, which is a lens with a focal length of 16 mm or less and a viewing angle close to or equal to 180°, and is a wide-angle lens. In order to reach a maximum photographing viewing angle of the lens, the lens of the camera protrudes to the front and is exposed through the window at the second housing.
In some embodiments, the vision sensor also includes an image display element arranged outside the housing, which is communicatively connected with the camera and is configured to display the environment image obtained by the camera.
In some embodiments, the side-rearview mirror also includes a cleaning structure, which is arranged at a periphery of the camera and is configured to detect and/or clean the camera.
In some embodiments, the cleaning structure includes a cleaning nozzle and a pipe to clean the camera, and the pipe is configured to connect to a vehicle water tank.
For example, in some embodiments, the pipe is connected to the vehicle water tank that cleans a front windshield.
In some embodiments, the cleaning structure also includes a detection element configured to detect cleanliness of the camera, determine whether cleaning is required according to detection result, and trigger the cleaning nozzle if cleaning is required.
The vision sensor 12 also includes the power connection structure which is a U-shaped structure as shown in
The manner in which the side-rearview mirror is mounted at the vehicle will be described in detail below. As shown in
The fixation structure 112 includes a first surface and a second surface arranged oppositely, where the first surface is configured to be fixedly mounted at the vehicle, and the second surface is configured to mount the housing.
A fixation connection member is provided at the first surface of the fixation structure, which is configured to connect with a matching fixation connection member at the vehicle. When the two are fixedly connected, the side-rearview mirror is fixed at the vehicle. The fixation connection member may be a bolt or a nut, and the matching fixation connection member may correspondingly a nut or a bolt. In some other embodiments, the fixation connection member and the matching fixation connection member may also be another matching structure that can be used for fixation, such as a slot structure, etc.
In some embodiments, a mounting shaft is provided at the housing, and a mounting shaft hole is provided at the second surface, where the housing is sleeved and fixedly mounted in the mounting shaft hole via the mounting shaft.
In some embodiments of the present disclosure, as shown in
In some embodiments, as shown in
In some other embodiments of the present disclosure, the side-rearview mirror includes the sensor and the housing, where the sensor includes the LIDAR configured to detect the environment information at one side of the vehicle. The housing has the cavity formed therein, and the LIDAR is accommodated in the cavity. Also, one side of the side-rearview mirror facing the side-rear direction of the vehicle is a non-mirror surface.
It should be understood that one side of the side-rearview mirror facing the side-rear direction of the vehicle is a non-mirror surface, which may be that the side-rearview mirror does not include a reflective mirror surface. The side-rearview mirror only obtains the environment information around the vehicle through the sensor rather than the reflective mirror surface.
For both the LIDAR and the housing, reference can be made to related description in the foregoing embodiments. Also, the sensor in the side-rearview mirror may also include the vision sensor, and for which, reference can be made to related description in the foregoing embodiments.
The present disclosure improves the side-rearview mirror of the vehicle, and integrates the LIDAR, or the LIDAR and vision camera into a redesigned side-rearview mirror structure. The structure and arrangement are optimized while ensuring that use requirements of sensor can be met, so that the entire sensor is more integrated, smaller in volume, and has less impact on appearance of the vehicle. With such improvement, the side-rearview mirror has a high degree of integration, compact structure, and reasonable arrangement, which solves the problems of complex structure, large volume, and impact on appearance of conventional arrangement of current autonomous vehicles. Multiple sensors are integrated into one side-rearview mirror, so that the whole side-rearview mirror can be quickly assembled, disassembled, and maintained, and a protection effect on the sensors can be achieved.
Although the exemplary embodiments have been described herein with reference to the accompanying drawings, it should be understood that the exemplary embodiments described above are merely exemplary, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure thereto. Those of ordinary skill in the art can make various changes and modifications therein without departing from the scope and spirit of the present disclosure. All these changes and modifications are intended to be included within the scope of the present disclosure as claimed in the appended claims.
Those of ordinary skill in the art may realize that the units and algorithm steps of the examples described in the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented by electronic hardware or a combination of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether these functions are executed by hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solutions. Professionals and technicians can use different methods for each specific application to implement the described functions, but such implementation should not be considered beyond the scope of the present disclosure.
It should be understood that, in some embodiments provided by the present disclosure, the disclosed device and method can be implemented in other manners. For example, the example device described above is only illustrative. For example, the division of the modules or units is only a logical function division, and there may be other divisions in actual implementation, e.g., multiple units or components may be combined or integrated into another device, or some features may be omitted or not performed.
In the specification provided here, a lot of specific details are described. However, it can be understood that the embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented without these specific details. In some embodiments, well-known methods, structures, and technologies are not shown in detail, so as not to obscure the understanding of this specification.
Similarly, it should be understood that in order to simplify the present disclosure and help the understanding of one or more of the various aspects of the disclosure, the various features of the present disclosure are sometimes grouped together into a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof in the description of the exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. However, the method of the present disclosure should not be construed as reflecting the intention that the claimed disclosure requires more features than those explicitly stated in each claim. More precisely, as reflected in the corresponding claims, the point of the disclosure is that the corresponding technical problems can be solved with features that are less than all the features of a single disclosed embodiment. Therefore, the claims following the specific embodiments are thus explicitly incorporated into the specific embodiments, where each claim itself serves as a separate embodiment of the present disclosure.
Those skilled in the art can understand all features, other than those mutually exclusive, disclosed in this specification (including the accompanying claims, abstract, and drawings) and all processes or units of any method or device disclosed can be employed in any combination. Unless expressly stated otherwise, each feature disclosed in this specification (including the accompanying claims, abstract, and drawings) may be replaced by an alternative feature providing the same, equivalent, or similar purpose.
In addition, those skilled in the art can understand that although some embodiments described herein include certain features included in other embodiments rather than other features, the combination of features of different embodiments means that they are within the scope of the present disclosure and form different embodiments. For example, in the claims, any one of the claimed embodiments can be used in any combination.
The various component embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented by hardware, or by software module running on one or more processors, or by a combination thereof. Those skilled in the art should understand that a microprocessor or a digital signal processor (DSP) may be used in practice to implement some or all of the functions of some modules according to the embodiments of the present disclosure. The present disclosure can also be implemented as a device program (for example, a computer program and a computer program product) for executing part or all of the methods described herein. Such a program implementing the present disclosure may be stored on a computer-readable medium, or may have the form of one or more signals. Such signals can be downloaded from an Internet website, or provided in carrier signals, or provided in any other form.
It should be noted that the embodiments described above illustrate rather than limit the present disclosure, and those skilled in the art can design alternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the appended claims. In the claims, any reference symbols placed between parentheses shall not be constructed as a limitation to the claims. The present disclosure can be implemented by means of hardware including several different elements and by means of a suitably programmed computer. In the unit claims listing several devices, several of these devices may be embodied in the same hardware item. The use of the words first, second, and third, etc. do not indicate any order. These words can be interpreted as names.
This application is a continuation of International Application No. PCT/CN2019/077495, filed Mar. 8, 2019, the entire content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | PCT/CN2019/077495 | Mar 2019 | US |
Child | 17468915 | US |