Denso Corporation

Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Naotsugu Shimizu

Koichiro Suzuki

Takayuki Kitamura

Seiya Fujitsu

Koji Takeuchi

Iwao Izumikawa

Masaki Kawakami

A driving assistance device includes: an object detecting part that detects an object behind and/or to the left and/or right rear of a host vehicle; an area setting part that sets a warning area behind and/or to the left or right rear of the host vehicle; a notification part that issues a notification when an object is detected within the warning area by the object detecting part; and an area changing part that calculates, based on a variation in curvature of a traveling trajectory of the host vehicle, an area reliable distance defining an area with high reliability, based on the area reliable distance, sets a reference position, and based on a lateral line extending in a turning radius direction of the host vehicle at the reference position, changes a rear end of the warning area.

Driving assistance device

A wall shape measurement device includes a wall distance acquisition part, a wall shape calculation part, a sudden change determination part, and an extrapolation part. The wall distance acquisition part repeatedly determines whether a wall-like object installed along the road is detected, and acquires, in response to the wall-like object being detected, a wall distance value indicating the distance to the wall-like object. The wall shape calculation part calculates a plurality of wall shape values using the traveling track of the vehicle and a plurality of past wall distance values. The sudden change determination part determines whether the wall distance value is suddenly changed, based on a preset sudden change determination condition. In response to the wall distance value being suddenly changed, the extrapolation part extrapolates wall shape values after it is determined that the wall distance value is suddenly changed.

Wall shape measurement device

A monitoring area setting apparatus is mountable to an own vehicle and sets a monitoring area that indicates an area for monitoring objects in a vicinity of the own vehicle. The monitoring area setting apparatus acquires (i) at least either of a vehicle-width movement amount that indicates an amount of movement in a vehicle-width direction of the own vehicle and an inclination amount that indicates a degree of inclination of the own vehicle relative to an extending direction of a road on which the own vehicle is traveling, and (ii) information that the own vehicle has changed traffic lanes. The monitoring area setting apparatus sets the monitoring area taking into consideration at least either of the vehicle-width movement amount and the inclination amount in response to the own vehicle changing traffic lanes.

Monitoring area setting apparatus

A feature quantity calculation unit calculates one or more predetermined types of feature quantities using information correlated to respective extracted peaks. An environment determination unit calculates a specific environment probability from a calculation result of the feature quantity calculation unit using the positive distribution and a non-specific environment probability from a calculation result of the feature quantity calculation unit using the negative distribution. The environment determination unit further determines whether the mobile body is in the specific environment or the non-specific environment in accordance with a result of integration of the specific environment probability and the non-specific environment probability which are calculated for respective feature quantities.

Radar apparatus

A measurement apparatus repeatedly executes measurement determination of whether measurement of a wall object has succeeded. If the wall-object measurement has succeeded, the measurement apparatus calculates an instantaneous wall-distance value indicative of a distance of the wall object from the own object. Otherwise, if the wall-object measurement has not succeeded, the measurement apparatus executes first extrapolation of an additional instantaneous wall-distance value. The measurement apparatus prevents an additional execution of the first extrapolation upon determination that the frequency of continuously repeated executions of the first extrapolation is not less than a prevention threshold frequency. The measurement apparatus sets, if the result of the measurement determination is correct, a correct-state threshold as the prevention threshold frequency, and sets, if the result of the measurement determination is incorrect, an incorrect-state threshold as the prevention threshold frequency; the incorrect-state threshold is smaller than the correct-state threshold.

Wall profile measurement apparatus

A moving object detection apparatus estimates, based on observed-point positions indicated respectively by a plurality of pieces of observed-point information, a tracking trajectory tracking movement of a moving object. The apparatus stores, based on received electric powers indicated respectively by the pieces of the observed-point information, a maximum received-electric-power. The apparatus determines, for each of the pieces of the observed-point information, whether a received-electric-power difference is greater than a drop determination value. The apparatus also determines, for each of the pieces of the observed-point information, whether the received electric power indicated by the piece of the observed-point information is not higher than a recognition determination value. When the received-electric-power difference is determined to be greater than the drop determination value and the received electric power is determined to be not higher than the recognition determination value, the apparatus suppresses the degree of tracking the observed points in the tracking trajectory.

Moving object detection apparatus

An object detection apparatus is configured to be mounted to a vehicle to detect objects existing around the vehicle. The object detection apparatus includes an output acquisition unit, an accuracy estimation unit, a weighting setting unit and a position calculation unit. The output acquisition unit is configured to acquire output signals from a plurality of radar sensors mounted respectively at different positions in the vehicle. The accuracy estimation unit is configured to estimate, based on the output signals from the radar sensors, detection accuracies of the radar sensors. The weighting setting unit is configured to set, according to the detection accuracies of the radar sensors, weighting for the output signals from the radar sensors. The position calculation unit is configured to calculate a position of an object by using in combination the output signals from the radar sensors reflecting the set weighting.

Object detection apparatus

A moving object detection apparatus repeatedly acquires, from a radar apparatus, observed-point information indicating observed-point positions that are positions of observed points where radar waves are reflected. The apparatus estimates, based on the observed-point positions indicated respectively by a plurality of pieces of the observed-point information and tracking filter coefficients indicating the degree of tracking the observed-point positions, a tracking trajectory tracking movement of a moving object corresponding to a plurality of the observed points. The apparatus determines whether distribution of the plurality of the observed points on both sides of the tracking trajectory is continuously biased to one side of the tracking trajectory. The apparatus sets the tracking filter coefficients so that the tracking degree is higher when the distribution of the plurality of the observed points is determined to be biased than when the distribution of the plurality of the observed points is determined to be not biased.

In a driving assistance apparatus, an area setter is configured to set a warning area on at least one of a left rear side and a right rear side of a subject vehicle. A notifier is configured to provide a notification in response to an object detector detecting an object in the warning area. A determiner is configured to determine initiation and completion of a turn at an intersection during turning of the subject vehicle at the intersection. An area changer is configured to, in response to the determiner determining the initiation of the turn, reduce the warning area in a direction approaching the subject vehicle, and in response to the determiner determining the completion of the turn, expand the reduced warning area according to a traveling state of the subject vehicle after the completion of the turn.

Driving assistance apparatus

An other lane monitoring device of the present disclosure includes an other vehicle acquisition section, a path acquisition section, a lane estimation section, and a position estimation section. The other vehicle acquisition section is configured to acquire other vehicle position information that indicates the current position of an other vehicle near the own vehicle. The path acquisition section is configured to acquire an own vehicle travel path that indicates a path along which the own vehicle has traveled. The lane estimation section is configured to use the own vehicle travel path as a basis for estimating an other lane area that is a lane where the other lane is present. The position estimation section is configured to estimate a future position of the other vehicle, assuming that the other vehicle moves along the own vehicle travel path or in the other lane area.

Other lane monitoring device

A surrounding monitoring radar device includes a signal generation unit, a spectrum generation unit, a cycle setting unit, a learning unit, and an update unit. At an update timing, the update unit updates a determination reference to a learned value calculated by the learning unit. the learning unit is configured to: set the learning value to an initial value at a start timing of the learning period; compare the learned value with a value of a noise floor of the generated frequency spectrum during the learning period; and update the learned value to the value of the noise floor upon the value of the noise floor being smaller than the learned value.

Surrounding monitoring radar device

A prevention section generates a prevention signal by performing an interference removal process of preventing an influence of radio wave interference with respect to a non-prevention signal acquired by an acquisition section from a radar sensor for each processing cycle. An analysis section performs a frequency analysis process by using the prevention signal when an operation mode is an interference mode and by using the non-prevention signal when the operation mode is a normal mode. A determination section determines, based on an analysis result obtained by the analysis section, whether radio wave interference is present. When the operation mode is the normal mode and the interference is determined to be present, a switching section switches the operation mode to the interference mode, maintains the interference mode during a certain number of processing cycles, and then switches the operation mode to the normal mode.

Interference prevention apparatus

An odometry acquiring unit acquires odometry information including a yaw rate applied to a vehicle and a steering angle of the vehicle. An estimate calculating unit calculates an estimate of a turning radius based on the steering angle and the yaw rate acquired by the odometry acquiring unit. A change rate calculating unit calculates a yaw change rate representing a degree of change in the yaw rate acquired by the odometry acquiring unit. A contribution adjusting unit makes an adjustment of decreasing a contribution of the yaw rate and increasing a contribution of the steering angle, to calculation of an estimate performed by the estimate calculating unit, as the yaw change rate increases.

Estimating apparatus

A periphery monitoring radar device includes a transmission unit, a reception unit, a spectrum generation unit, an azimuth calculation unit, an environment determination unit, and a position calculation unit. The transmission unit transmits a combination of transmission signals modulated using a plurality of modulation modes. The environment determination unit determines whether a peripheral environment is a complex environment from the degree of randomness of a frequency spectrum for each modulation mode. The position calculation unit removes, upon the peripheral environment for at least one modulation mode being determined to be the complex environment, at least one azimuth corresponding to the at least one modulation mode from the azimuths respectively calculated for modulation modes to thereby obtain at least one target azimuth that is at least one of the remaining azimuths except for the removed azimuth; and calculates a position of the vehicle based on the at least one target azimuth.

Periphery monitoring radar device

In an apparatus for monitoring an adjacent lane to a lane in which an own vehicle that is a vehicle carrying the apparatus is traveling, a travel trajectory calculation unit calculates a travel trajectory of the own vehicle based on odometry information of the own vehicle. An adjacent lane estimation unit estimates an adjacent-lane region based on the travel trajectory of the own vehicle. An other-vehicle determination unit determines whether or not a target (the other vehicle) is present in the adjacent lane based on a position of the target detected by an other-vehicle detector and the estimated adjacent-lane region.

Growing community of inventors

Kariya, Japan

Naotsugu Shimizu