APPARATUS AND METHOD OF PREDICTING TURNS OF VEHICLE

摘要

An apparatus predicts a turn of a vehicle based on a picked-up image of a forward view of the vehicle. The forward view is imaged by an on-vehicle sensor to repeatedly acquire images. The acquired images include position coordinate information of a light source and information indicating whether the light source is a light source of a preceding vehicle or a light source of an oncoming vehicle. Based on such information, it is determined whether or not the light source is a light source of an oncoming vehicle newly appeared in the images and the light source is in a predetermined area near the left end or in a predetermined area near the right end in the images. When the determination result is affirmative, it is determined that there is a curve in the traveling direction of the vehicle.

主权项

1. An apparatus for predicting a turn of a vehicle on the basis of viewing field information indicating a viewing field in a forward direction of the vehicle, the information being acquired from a sensor installed in the vehicle, the apparatus comprising:
an information acquiring means that acquires information on a position coordinate of a surrounding object of the vehicle on the basis of the viewing field information, the surrounding object being present in the viewing field, and surrounding-object information indicating whether the surrounding object is a preceding vehicle or an oncoming vehicle; a determining means that determines whether or not the surrounding object is an oncoming vehicle and the surrounding object is in a predetermined area on the left side or in a predetermined area on the right side in a detection range of the viewing field, on the basis of the surrounding-object information acquired by the information acquiring means; and a predicting means that predicts there is a curve in a traveling direction of the vehicle when a determination result of the determining means is affirmative and predicts there is no possible turn of the vehicle when a determination result of the determining means is negative.