| 摘要 |
A mobile range finder for use on a first vehicle detects a relative distance to a second vehicle at a position in a monitoring direction in front of the first vehicle. A vanishing point is determined by extracting, for example, the continuous or intermittently continuous white lines dividing traffic lanes on the road on the basis of spatial changes in the features of the scene ahead of the first vehicle, and the angle of elevation of the optical axis of an optical picture information generating device such as a TV camera is obtained on the basis of the determined vanishing point to thereby detect the distance to a designated position in which the second vehicle will appear. Accodingly, it is possible to effect accurate detection of a distance independently of the conditions of the first vehicle, such as pitching. |
