US Patent 11676300 Method for real-time tow ball detection

A method for determining a position of a tow ball in an image. The method includes obtaining at least one real-time image from a vehicle. The at least one real-time image is processed with a controller on the vehicle to obtain a feature patch (f) describing at least one real-time image. A convolution is performed of the feature patch (f) and each filter (h) from a set of filters (H) with the filter (h) being based on data representative of known tow hitches fixed to the vehicle. A location of a tow ball on the tow hitch is identified in the at least one real-time image is based on the convolution between the feature patch (f) and each filter (h) from the set of filters (H).