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Driving assistance apparatus

  • US 8,600,673 B2
  • Filed: 05/29/2008
  • Issued: 12/03/2013
  • Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2007
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A driving assistance apparatus comprising:

  • a marking information storage section which stores position information with respect to road markings formed on a road, with the position of each road marking being stored associated with at least one marking-target distance which is the distance along the road between the road marking and a control target, a particular road marking having more than one associated control target when each associated control target for that particular road marking is located on a different branch road from the road on which the road marking is located;

    an image acquisition section which is mounted on the vehicle, and which acquires an image of the vehicle'"'"'s surroundings;

    a road marking detection section which detects, based upon an image acquired by the image acquisition section, a road marking formed on the road on which the vehicle is traveling;

    a road information storage section which stores information with respect to the road;

    a road divergence determination section which determines, based upon the road information, whether or not the road diverges forward of the vehicle;

    a marking-target distance acquisition section which acquires, by the marking information storage section, a marking-target distance between the road marking and each control target which is associated with the road marking detected by the road marking detection section;

    a target-vehicle distance calculation section including a target count determination section configured such that, in a case in which the road divergence determination section has determined that the road diverges ahead, the target count determination section determines whether or not there are a plurality of control targets associated with the road marking detected by the road marking detection section, the target-vehicle distance calculation section being configured such that;

    in a case in which there are a plurality of control targets associated with a road marking, the acquired marking-target distances for each of the associated control targets are compared, an associated control target whose marking-target distance is smaller than the marking target distance for each of the other associated control targets by at least a predetermined distance is selected, and a target-vehicle distance, which is the distance along the road between the vehicle and the selected control target, is calculated; and

    a driving assistance section which assists the user to drive the vehicle based upon the calculation results calculated by the target-vehicle distance calculation section.

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