Image recognizing apparatus and method that informs the driver that the image is not recognized when it is determined that a disturbance occurs in the image

1. An image recognizing apparatus, comprising:

a camera configured to output at least one of a front image and a rear image of a vehicle;

an disturbance estimator configured to output an image which is estimated as a disturbance according to a visibility of an image output from the camera;

a disturbance classifier configured to output a cause of disturbance according to brightness of pixels in the disturbance estimated image;

a disturbance result determiner configured to determine whether the disturbance is generated in the image in accordance with accumulated cause of the disturbance; and

an image recognizer configured to inform the driver that the image is not recognized when it is determined that disturbance occurs in the image,

wherein:

the disturbance estimator is configured to convert an image output from the camera into a gray image;

the disturbance estimator measures a brightness variation between adjacent pixels of the image in the region of interest of the gray image using a brightness variation map to output an image which is estimated as disturbance;

the disturbance classifier is configured to calculate a disturbed light size from the disturbance estimated image to detect fog; the image recognizing apparatus further comprises a foreign substance detector configured to detect illumination of white light in the disturbance estimated image and to compare brightness/color data to detect a foreign substance on a lens of the camera; and

the disturbance result determiner is configured to store the detection number of fog in a first buffer and the detection number of foreign substance in a second buffer, and determine whether either of the detection number of fog or the detection number of foreign substance exceeds a predetermined number to determine whether the disturbance occurs in the image.

2. The image recognizing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein, when a number of pixels having at least a predetermined brightness level in the set region of the disturbance estimated image is greater than or equal to a predetermined threshold value, the disturbance classifier determines that the disturbance estimated image is saturated.

3. The image recognizing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein, when the number of the pixels having at least a predetermined brightness level set in the disturbance estimated image is less than a predetermined ratio, the disturbance classifier determines that the disturbance estimated image has low luminance.

4. The image recognizing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein, when the disturbance of the disturbance estimated image is determined, the disturbance classifier determines the disturbance result of the image by storing whether there is disturbance in a first buffer.

5. The image recognizing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the disturbance classifier is configured to output one result for every frame of the image to the first buffer.

6. The image recognizing apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the foreign substance detector outputs one result for every five frames of the image to the second buffer.

7. An image recognizing method, comprising:

outputting at least one of a front image and a rear image of a vehicle;

outputting an image which is estimated as a disturbance in according to a visibility of an image;

outputting a cause of disturbance according to a brightness of a pixel in the disturbance estimated image; and

outputting different results according to the cause of disturbance to a first buffer and a second buffer to accumulatively store the results,

wherein:

in the outputting of a disturbance estimated image, the image is converted into a gray image and a region of interest is set in the gray image;

in the outputting of a disturbance estimated image, a brightness variation between adjacent pixels in the region of interest of the gray image is measured using a brightness variation map to output an image which is estimated as disturbance;

in the accumulatively storing of a cause of disturbance, the result is stored in the first and second buffers depending on whether a foreign substance in a camera which photographs the image is detected, fog, and image disturbance; and

when the number of times of detecting a foreign substance is greater than a number of normal results from the result which is stored in the buffer, it is determined that the foreign substance is present in the image so that the image has low luminance.

8. The image recognizing method of claim 7 , wherein in the outputting of a cause of disturbance, when a number of pixels having at least a predetermined brightness level set in the set region of the disturbance estimated image is greater than or equal to a predetermined threshold value, it is determined that the disturbance estimated image is saturated.

9. The image recognizing method of claim 7 , wherein in the outputting of a cause of disturbance, when the number of the pixels having at least a predetermined brightness level set in the disturbance estimated image is less than a predetermined value, it is determined that the disturbance estimated image has low luminance.

10. The image recognizing method of claim 7 , wherein in the accumulatively storing of a cause of disturbance, five results for every frame of the image are stored in the first and second buffers.

11. The image recognizing method of claim 7 , wherein, when the number of normal result is greater than the number of times of detecting fog and image disturbance from the result which is stored in the buffer, it is determined that the image is saturated.

12. The image recognizing method of claim 7 , further comprising informing a driver that the image is not recognized when the disturbance is generated in the image.