Patent 10268902 was granted and assigned to Clarion (company) on April, 2019 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An outside recognition system configured to include a camera installed on a vehicle, to analyze an image from the camera, and to recognize surroundings of the vehicle based on an analysis result of the image from the camera comprises a dirtiness detection unit which determines, as at least one reference line, at least one line on a part of at least one object that does not change in the image from the camera even if the vehicle travels, determines an observation line that corresponds to each of the at least one reference line with the image from the camera, calculates an amount by which the observation line is displaced from each of the at least one reference line, and detects whether dirt adheres to the camera based on the amount of displacement.