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Vehicular front monitoring apparatus

  • US 6,265,991 B1
  • Filed: 05/09/2000
  • Issued: 07/24/2001
  • Est. Priority Date: 12/10/1999
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
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1. A vehicular front monitoring apparatus, comprising:

  • a distance measuring unit which radiates electromagnetic waves in plural directions and detects distances from an own-vehicle to a plurality of objects around the own-vehicle and lateral positions of the objects relative to a running direction of the own-vehicle to measure object positional data (xi, yi) on coordinates defined by the running direction (yi) and a lateral direction (xi) to the running direction;

    a road curvature estimating unit which estimates the curvature of a road ahead of the own-vehicle by setting a plane defined by a lateral shift from a center line of the own-vehicle and the curvature of the road and performing a Hough transform of the measured object positional data, wherein a memory array is defined by dividing the plane into a plurality of zones of a mesh pattern and the curvature of the road is determined by an array element having a maximum occurrence is sought and an array number corresponding to the array element is selected; and

    a lane determining unit which determines whether other vehicles running ahead of said own vehicle are in the same lane as the own-vehicle or not.

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