In-vehicle vision processors for driver assistance systems

This paper describes existing designs and future design trends of in-vehicle vision processors for driver assistance systems. First, requirements of vision processors for driver assistance systems are summarized. Next, the characteristics of vision tasks for safety are described. Then several in-vehicle vision processor LSI implementations are reviewed, and the design approach of one of them, the IMAPCAR highly parallel processor, is further described in detail. Finally, future trends of in-vehicle vision processors focusing on their architectures and application coverage expansion such as integration of vision for safety, Digital TV codec, and 3D graphics functions of future car navigation, are discussed.