Forward recognition camera as dashcam?

Has anyone found a way to extract a usable video signal from the Forward Recognition Camera, the windshield-mounted camera found on vehicles with Toyota Safety Sense-P?

The camera occupies the ideal spot for a dashcam, but I have no idea if would be suitable for this purpose. In particular, I’d be interested to know the camera’s resolution and frame rate, and whether it is monochrome or color; the published information from Toyota describes the camera only as “CMOS,” with no other details.

The Repair Manual and Electrical Wiring Diagram disclose only heater, power, ground, and CAN bus connections on the connector (O7) for the camera ECU:

O7-1 (HTR)
O7-7 (IGB)
O7-10 (GND)
O7-5 (CA1P)
O7-11 (CA1N)
O7-6 (CANH)
O7-12 (CANL)​

Considering the limited bitrates for CAN and the system description in the Repair Manual, it seems clear that the machine vision algorithms are run inside the camera ECU, with only the results, not full-motion video, being sent across the CAN bus.

It is tantalizing to have a twelve-position connector with five unknown pins, though—but not quite enough to spend $800 on a spare camera to investigate on the bench.

 

Thanks for the link to the information about Continental’s camera system. I’m not sure that is the one, however—the 2016 Prius liftback with TSS-P, at least, seems to use a camera ECU made by DENSO.

For my car, the parts catalog says the Forward Recognition Camera is Toyota part number 8646C-47010. I found a junkyard selling one, and in their photos, the part is marked with that number, “DENSO,” “036500-7372,” and “MADE IN JAPAN.” They also wanted $700 for it, which is still too much to spend just for a component teardown.

You are correct about European signs: in Europe, the Prius has a Road Sign Assist feature, which the owner’s manual describes as being able to detect speed limit and no overtaking signs. Considering the diversity of American traffic signs, even for speed limits, I’m not surprised this feature is omitted from the U.S. vehicles.

 

I found a press release announcing that DENSO would be using a Toshiba image recognition processor in an active safety system for vehicles on the market in Fall 2015.

Toshiba’s overview datasheet and catalog page says more about the TMPV7506XBG processor and its applications; the Video Input Interface section of the datasheet includes this information:

I have no idea, however, if this is the chip used in the Prius.

 

To update this thread, here’s a link to the slides from a presentation on “Accessing Toyota Vehicle Control History and Collision Avoidance Data,” given at a seminar earlier this year sponsored by the Institute of Police Technology and Management:

https://iptm.unf.edu/uploadedFiles/symposium/handouts/Ruth-AccessingToyotaVehicleControlHistoryandCollisionAvoidanceData.pdf

The presentation includes some sample images from Toyota Safety Sense forward cameras, and it describes how to use a Toyota Techstream diagnostic system to extract and view the stored images and data. The required PCS Data Viewer application seems to be included only with versions of Techstream from techinfo.toyota.com, not with versions from toyota-tech.eu.

I tried the procedure and didn’t find any stored images, but as slide 87 (PDF page 45) mentions, “For Images to be recorded and linked the VEHICLE must brake,” and I don’t think that’s ever happened on my car.