A distributed omnidirectional vision sensor

We describe an omnidirectional vision sensor for vehicle applications such as driver assist systems. The system is composed of four hyperbolic mirrors and uses a single camera to image the 360/spl deg/ scene around the vehicle. This is achieved by having each of the hyperbolic mirrors image about one third of the field of view, and having all four of them sharing one common focal point, where an imaging device is positioned. Several constraints and requirements were taken into consideration in the design of the distributed omnidirectional system. First, the design that we present can practically be mounted on a commercial vehicle. Second, it satisfies - to an approximation - the single viewpoint constraint. Third, it requires a single camera to image the whole field of view. A simulation was also done to plot the field of view as a function of the various system parameters.