Apparatus for controlling the speed of vehicles

摘要

In a vehicle which sets a desired vehicle spacing and can perform automatic control of the speed to control the speed of the vehicle in order to maintain the desired vehicle spacing, a vehicle spacing which is to be set by a driver is recorded together with the vehicle speed at that time when automatic control of the speed is not being carried out. A multiplicity of sets of vehicle-speed and vehicle-spacing data is accumulated and the relationship between the speed of the vehicle and the vehicle spacing is calculated. With a view to the performance of automatic speed control, a vehicle spacing corresponding to the speed of the vehicle at that time is obtained from the calculated relationship and the vehicle spacing obtained is set in such a way that it is the desired vehicle spacing.