An Inertially Stabilised Vehicle Camera System - Hardware, Algorithms, Test Drives

Safety has always been a mayor topic in research on driver assistance systems. Recently the automotive industry introduced systems based on cameras like BMW\´s "night vision". The next step will be to use lenses with higher focal length in order to get a closer look at points of interest which will have to be tracked. Due to their small aperture angle, these cameras are very sensitive to motion and need active stabilisation. This paper presents a pivotable camera platform stabilised by an inertial measurement unit. In order to allow for loose production tolerance and thus a reduction in production costs, a biologically inspired algorithm adapts the camera control. Additionally we describe first test drives on motorways with the stabilised camera.