A novel network design for future IP-based driver assistance camera systems

The current in-vehicle driver assistance network system is realized via point-to-point connections. Due to the growing number of cameras, the in-vehicle network systems are becoming increasingly complex, inflexible and costly. In our previous work, we have proposed an IP over Ethernet (IP/Ethernet) in-vehicle network system and have shown the necessity of video compression for driver assistance cameras. In this paper, all existing camera systems in the car are presented and classified. Their current connections are introduced and a new network topology based on IP/Ethernet is proposed to interconnect the cameras. We also investigate how video codecs in the car should be parametrized in order to avoid negative effects for driver assistance image processing algorithms while reducing the overall cost. The results show compression ratio regions that do not negatively affect the image processing tasks but instead improve their performance.