1. An obstacle sensor comprising: a line light irradiating unit comprising a light-emitting unit, and a first conical mirror, an apex of which is disposed towards the light-emitting unit in a light irradiation direction of the light-emitting unit and which converts light emitted from the light-emitting unit into line light irradiated in all directions; and a reflected light receiving unit comprising a second conical mirror to condense light, that is irradiated from the first conical mirror and is then reflected from an obstacle, a lens, that is spaced from the apex of the second conical mirror by a predetermined distance and transmits the reflected light, and an imaging unit to image the reflected light that passes through the lens, wherein the line light irradiating unit and the reflected light receiving unit are arranged in a row in a vertical line or are arranged at different positions in a vertical line or horizontal line, and wherein the first conical mirror is formed by joining two or more conical fragments having different bottom diameters.
2. The obstacle sensor according to claim 1, wherein the line light irradiating unit further comprises:
a slit or an axicon lens disposed between the light-emitting unit and the first conical mirror to form light irradiated from the light-emitting unit in the form of a ring.
3. The obstacle sensor according to claim 1, wherein the line light irradiating unit further comprises:
a slit having at least one groove disposed between the light-emitting unit and the first conical mirror.
4. The obstacle sensor according to claim 3, wherein the slit has a groove having a ring, cross (+), circular or linear (\u2212) shape.
5. The obstacle sensor according to claim 1, further comprising:
a rotator to rotate the first conical mirror.
6. The obstacle sensor according to claim 1, wherein an angle of two sides formed on the apex on the vertical cross-section of the first conical mirror is about 88 to about 90 degrees.
7. The obstacle sensor according to claim 1, wherein the lens of the reflected light receiving unit is spaced from the apex of the second conical mirror by a focal distance of the lens.
8. The obstacle sensor according to claim 1, wherein the surface of lens or the second conical mirror of the reflected light receiving unit is coated with a band pass filter to transmit only wavelength of the reflected light.
9. The obstacle sensor according to claim 1, wherein the apex of the first conical mirror of the line light irradiating unit and the apex of the second conical mirror of the reflected light receiving unit are disposed in opposite directions.
10. The obstacle sensor according to claim 1, wherein the apex of the first conical mirror of the line light irradiating unit and the apex of the second conical mirror of the reflected light receiving unit are disposed in one direction.
11. The obstacle sensor according to claim 9, wherein the apex of the first conical mirror of the line light irradiating unit and the apex of the second conical mirror of the reflected light receiving unit face each other.
12. The obstacle sensor according to claim 1, wherein the lens of the reflected light receiving unit is a wide-angle lens.
13. The obstacle sensor according to claim 1, further comprising:
a structure having a hole smaller than an irradiation cross-section area of light irradiated from the light-emitting unit,
wherein the hole is disposed between the light-emitting unit and the first conical mirror in a light irradiation path of the light-emitting unit.
14. The obstacle sensor according to claim 1, wherein the line light irradiating unit or the light-emitting unit is inclined at a predetermined angle from a perpendicular line that is vertical to the ground.
15. The obstacle sensor according to claim 1, further comprising:
an obstacle sensing control unit to analyze an image recorded on the imaging unit and thereby extract the distance or shape of the obstacle.
16. The obstacle sensor according to claim 15, wherein the line light irradiating unit is provided in plural at different heights from the ground and the obstacle sensing control unit analyzes an image recorded on the imaging unit and determines a height of the obstacle.
17. A robot cleaner comprising an obstacle sensor to sense obstacles and a driving control unit to control driving based on the sensing results of the obstacle sensor,
wherein the obstacle sensor comprises:
a line light irradiating unit comprising a light-emitting unit, a light-emitting driving unit to drive the light-emitting unit, and a first conical mirror, an apex of which is disposed towards the light-emitting unit in a light irradiation direction of the light-emitting unit and which converts light emitted from the light-emitting unit into line light irradiated in all directions; and
a reflected light receiving unit comprising a second conical mirror to condense light, that is irradiated from the first conical mirror and is then reflected from an obstacle, a lens, that is spaced from the apex of the second conical mirror by a predetermined distance and transmits the reflected light, an imaging unit to image the reflected light that passes through the lens, and an image processing unit to process the image obtained in the imaging unit; and
an obstacle sensing control unit to analyze the image recorded in the imaging unit and thereby extract the distance or shape of the obstacle,
wherein the line light irradiating unit and the reflected light receiving unit are arranged in a row in a vertical line or are arranged at different positions in a vertical line or horizontal line, and
wherein the first conical mirror is formed by joining two or more conical fragments having different bottom diameters.
18. The robot cleaner according to claim 17, wherein the apex of the first conical mirror of the line light irradiating unit and the apex of the second conical mirror of the reflected light receiving unit are disposed in the opposite directions.
19. The robot cleaner according to claim 17, wherein the line light irradiating unit is mounted on the bottom of the front surface of the robot cleaner and the reflected light receiving unit is mounted on the top of the front surface of the robot cleaner.
20. The robot cleaner according to claim 17, wherein the driving control unit receives a shape or distance of the obstacle from the obstacle sensor and determines a travel path based on the shape or distance of the obstacle.
21. The robot cleaner according to claim 17, wherein the line light irradiating unit is provided in plural at different heights from the ground and the obstacle sensing control unit analyzes an image recorded on the imaging unit and thereby determines a height of the obstacle.
22. The robot cleaner according to claim 17, wherein the obstacle sensing control unit transmits a control signal to the light-emitting driving unit to turn the light-emitting unit off, when the obstacle sensing control unit determines that the robot cleaner is lift from the ground.
23. The robot cleaner according to claim 17, wherein the obstacle sensing control unit transmits a control signal to the light-emitting driving unit to turn the light-emitting unit off, when the obstacle sensing control unit determines that a sensor window of the robot cleaner is detached.
24. The robot cleaner according to claim 17, further comprising:
a switch or a photo-interrupter adjacent to the sensor window,
wherein the obstacle sensing control unit analyzes a signal output from the switch or the photo interrupter and thereby determines detachment of the sensor window.
25. The robot cleaner according to claim 17, wherein the obstacle sensing control unit turns the light-emitting unit on, when the robot cleaner begins to travel, and turns the light-emitting unit off, when the robot cleaner finishes travel.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. An image processing apparatus comprising:
an image obtaining section that obtains an image data group including reference image data and parallax image data by image-capturing the same scene, the parallax image data having parallax with respect to a subject image of the reference image data, and at least one of the reference image data and the parallax image data being non-color image data lacking at least a part of primary color information for generating a color image;
a disparity amount operation section that calculates an amount of disparity that corresponds to parallax between the same subject images respectively of the reference image data and the parallax image data; and
an image converting section that converts the non-color image data to color image data, by implanting at least a part of the primary color information of one of the reference image data and the parallax image data to the other of the reference image data and the parallax image data based on the amount of disparity.
2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein
the image data group includes at least three types of image data, the three types of image data being the reference image data, first parallax image data having the parallax in one direction with respect to the reference image data, and second parallax image data having the parallax in another direction that is reverse to the one direction.
3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein
the first parallax image data and the second parallax image data are the non-color image data, and
the image converting section implants at least a part of the primary color information of the reference image data to the first parallax image data and the second parallax image data, thereby converting the first parallax image data and the second parallax image data to the color image data.
4. The image processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein
the first parallax image data and the second parallax image data are brightness image data that does not have the primary color information.
5. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein
the reference image data is the non-color image data, and
the image converting section implants at least a part of the primary color information of at least one of the first parallax image data and the second parallax image data to the reference image data, thereby converting the reference image data to the color image data.
6. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein
the reference image data, the first parallax image data, and the second parallax image data are the non-color image data, and
the image converting section implants at least a part of the primary color information of at least one of the first parallax image data and the second parallax image data to the reference image data, and implants at least a part of the primary color information of the reference image data to the first parallax image data and the second parallax image data, thereby converting the reference image data, the first parallax image data, and the second parallax image data to the color image data.
7. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein
the disparity amount operation section calculates the disparity amount of each of the reference image data, the first parallax image data, and the second parallax image data, after calculating the disparity amount of the first parallax image data and the second parallax image data.
8. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein
the disparity amount operation section generates a disparity map representing the disparity amount of the first parallax image data and the second parallax image data with respect to the reference image data, and
the image converting section implants the primary color information by referring to the disparity map.
9. An image capturing apparatus comprising:
an image capturing element that image-captures the same scene; and
an image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein
the image obtaining section obtains the image data group by generating the image data group from a signal outputted from the image capturing element.
10. The image capturing apparatus according to claim 9, wherein
the image capturing element includes:
photoelectric conversion elements arranged two dimensionally, and photoelectric converting incident light to an electric signal;
opening masks provided in a one-to-one relation to at least a part of the photoelectric conversion elements; and
color filters provided in a one-to-one relation to at least a part of the photoelectric conversion elements, wherein
openings of the opening masks provided to correspond to at least two of n (n being an integer equal to or greater than 3) photoelectric conversion elements adjacent to each other are included in one of color filter patterns including at least three types of the color filters transmitting respectively different wavelength regions, and are positioned to respectively transmit light fluxes from partial regions mutually different within sectional region of the incident light, and the groups of photoelectric conversion elements, each made up of a set of n photoelectric conversion elements, are periodically arranged.
11. An image processing program that makes a computer implement a procedure comprising:
obtaining an image data group including reference image data and parallax image data by image-capturing the same scene, the parallax image data having parallax with respect to a subject image of the reference image data, and at least one of the reference image data and the parallax image data being non-color image data lacking at least a part of primary color information for generating a color image;
calculating an amount of disparity that corresponds to parallax between the same subject images respectively of the reference image data and the parallax image data; and
converting the non-color image data to color image data, by implanting at least a part of the primary color information of one of the reference image data and the parallax image data to the other of the reference image data and the parallax image data based on the amount of disparity.