摘要 |
<p><P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To avoid an erroneous detection that its own vehicle possibly makes contact with an obstacle when it is in a state that its own vehicle will obviously take avoiding action of contact with the obstacle. <P>SOLUTION: This obstacle detector estimates a route of its own vehicle based on the steering angle (steps S1-S3) and predicts the route of the vehicle when steering to the right or left by a prescribed amount of change according to the steering angle change amount usually taken by the driver from the route of its own vehicle. A range where the estimated vehicle traveling routes in the left and right direction are overlapped is set to a caution needed region E<SP>*</SP>(step S4). When there exists a detected object in the caution needed region E<SP>*</SP>, the detector determines the possibility of collision based on the distance and the relative speed between the detected object and its own vehicle. When it is smaller than a threshold, an alarm is issued (steps S6-S9), and on the contrary, when the detected object is not positioned within the caution needed region E<SP>*</SP>, no alarm is issued (step 10). <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO</p> |