FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to rear vision systems for vehicles and, more particularly, to rear vision systems that provide an alert to the driver of a vehicle that an object is detected rearward of the vehicle during a reverse travelling maneuver.

BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION

It is well known that the act of reversing a vehicle, such as backing out of a garage or driveway or parking space, can be dangerous, particularly if a child or pet wanders behind the vehicle before or during the reversing process. A variety of backup assist systems are known to assist the driver in detecting and/or seeing an object in the rearward path of the vehicle. For example, rear vision systems are known that capture images of a scene rearward of a vehicle (such as during a reverse driving maneuver) and display the images of the rearward scene to the driver of the vehicle to assist the driver during a reverse driving maneuver. Such systems may include a rearward facing camera or image sensor for capturing images of the rearward scene, and may include other types of sensors, such as ultrasonic sensors or radar sensors or the like, which may provide a distance sensing function or proximity sensing function. Examples of such vision and/or imaging systems are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,550,677; 5,877,897; 6,498,620; 5,670,935; 5,796,094; 6,396,397; 6,806,452; 6,690,268; 7,005,974; 7,123,168; 7,004,606; 6,946,978; 7,038,577; 6,353,392; 6,320,176; 6,313,454 and 6,824,281, which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.

Studies have indicated that drivers, during a reversing act, spend at least about 25 percent or thereabouts of the reverse driving time looking over their right shoulder (for left hand drive vehicles, such as used in the United States), and about 35 percent or thereabouts of the reverse driving time glancing at the rearview mirrors of the vehicle. The studies further indicate that, of the 35 percent of time the driver is viewing the rearview mirrors, the driver typically spends about 15 percent of that time viewing or glancing at the driver side exterior rearview mirror of the vehicle, about 15 percent of that time viewing or glancing at the passenger side exterior rearview mirror of the vehicle, and about 5 percent of that time viewing or glancing at the interior rearview mirror of the vehicle. In spite of the presence of known backup assist systems and rear vision systems, accidents still occur.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides an alert or prompting system for a vehicle equipped with a rear vision system comprising a rear mounted and rear viewing imaging sensor and a video display located in an interior cabin of the vehicle for displaying video images (captured by the rear viewing imaging sensor or camera) to a driver normally operating the vehicle of a scene occurring rearward of the vehicle when the driver is executing a backup reverse maneuver. The alert system alerts the driver of a vehicle that an object is potentially rearward of the vehicle during a backup maneuver. The alert system provides a visual alert device preferably at two or more of the rearview mirrors of the vehicle and alerts the driver that an object has potentially been detected rearward of the vehicle so the driver is alerted or prompted to check and verify the rearward scene on the video display screen that is displaying the images captured by the rear mounted camera or the like while backing up the vehicle, and thus the driver is alerted or prompted to verify whether or not the object that has been at least provisionally being detected presents a hazard or obstacle. The alert system may provide a visual alert device at each or all of the rearview mirror assemblies of the vehicle, such as at an interior rearview mirror assembly, a driver side exterior rearview mirror assembly and a passenger side exterior rearview mirror assembly.

During a reversing maneuver (such as when the driver selects a reverse gear of the vehicle and before and during reverse travel of the vehicle and while the reverse gear of the vehicle is selected), the driver of the reversing vehicle will likely glance at one of the mirror assemblies and thus will likely and readily notice the visible alert when the system is detecting an object (such as via machine vision processing of video image data captured by the rear mounted and rear viewing backup camera itself and/or responsive to non-vision sensors such as a radar sensor or an array of radar sensors and/or such as an ultrasonic sensor or an array of ultrasonic sensors and/or such as an infrared time-of-flight sensor or array of infrared time-of-flight sensors) and the alert devices are thus activated, and thus the driver will recognize that an object has been at least potentially or provisionally detected rearward of the vehicle and will know to or be prompted to look at the video display screen to determine by checking or viewing the displayed video images what the object is and where the object is located relative to the reversing vehicle and whether the object detected presents a potential hazard or obstacle in the contemplated rearward path of travel of the vehicle. Optionally, graphic overlays, such as static or dynamic graphic overlays (such as graphic overlays of the types described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,670,935; 5,949,331; 6,222,447 and 6,611,202; and/or PCT Application No. PCT/US08/76022, filed Sep. 11, 2008, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties) may augment and aid such determination by the driver.

These and other objects, advantages, purposes and features of the present invention will become apparent upon review of the following specification in conjunction with the drawings.

