Denso Corporation

Nippondenso Co., Ltd.

Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Yoshiaki Hoashi

Yoshie Samukawa

Noriaki Shirai

Toyohito Nozawa

Keiji Matsuoka

Mamoru Shimamoto

Takeshi Matsui

Eiji Teramura

Tsutomu Natsume

Hiroshi Ohkata

Nobuharu Kawai

Hitoshi Yamada

Takamoto Watanabe

Yoshihisa Nomura

Noriyuki Ozaki

Nobuyoshi Onogi

Katsuhiro Morikawa

Takamasa Ando

Takekazu Terui

Akifumi Ueno

Kiyokazu Takagi

Toshiyuki Kaneiwa

Hiroyuki Tarumi

Akira Kurahashi

Masakazu Tago

Tamotsu Mizuno

Katsuji Kosaka

Fumiaki Mizuno

Hirosi Ando

Tadashi Hyodo

A semiconductor laser light source module includes an emission unit provided with an upper electrode and a lower electrode, emitting a laser light in one direction; a laser diode having a plurality of emission units arranged in a state where emission directions of the laser light are aligned; a plurality of package side electrodes that supply current to respective emission units; and a plurality of first wires that electrically connect respective upper electrodes of the plurality of emission units with the package side electrodes corresponding to the upper electrodes individually. One first wire that connects one emission unit in the arranged emission units with one of package side electrodes corresponding to the one emission unit, and the other first wire that connects the other emission unit adjacent to the one emission unit with one of package side electrodes corresponding to the other emission unit are non-parallel in plan view.

Semiconductor laser light source module, semiconductor laser apparatus

An optical distance measuring device includes a light emitting element in which a plurality of light emitting unitsthat emit light are arranged so that a gap is present between adjacent ones of the light emitting units, a transmission unit through which the light is transmitted, a drive unit that changes a positional relationship between the light emitting element and the transmission unit, and a light receiving unit that receives reflected light of the light. The drive unit changes the positional relationship between the light emitting element and the transmission unit, thereby changing an irradiation path of the light along an arrangement direction.

Optical distance measuring device

A detection apparatus detects a tilt of a LiDAR apparatus that is mounted to a vehicle. The detection apparatus includes a distance image acquiring unit, a surroundings information acquiring unit, and a detecting unit. The distance image acquiring unit acquires a distance image that is expressed by a detection point group that is detected by the LiDAR apparatus. The surroundings information acquiring unit acquires surroundings information on a periphery of a traveling route of the vehicle. The detecting unit that determines the tilt of the LiDAR apparatus based on the acquired distance image and the acquired surroundings information.

Apparatus and method for detecting tilt of LiDAR apparatus mounted to vehicle

An optical scanning device is provided in a pulse distance measurement radar apparatus. The optical scanning device includes reflectors that are arranged right outside a scanning angle of an optical beam, an optical detector that is arranged at a position where reflected light from the reflectors reaches, and a scanning angle detector that detects the scanning angle of the optical beam based on result of detection by the optical detector.

Optical scanning device

An optical radar device for scanning an object that reduces the effects of stray light is provided. The optical radar device has a light source, a light scanning section, a light path change section, a light receiver, and an opposite phase signal adder. The opposite phase signal adder adds an opposite phase signal to the output signal from the light receiver. A rise timing of the opposite phase signal is delayed by a predetermined time relative to an output timing of the pulse light, and the opposite phase signal has an opposite phase with respect to a phase of the reflected light.

Optical radar device

A laser array circuit decreases the size of a circuit pattern. A laser-diode (LD) driving switching element with a low on resistance is used in common with and switches conduction and non-conduction of a large current to each of a plurality of charge capacitors and charge switching elements that accumulate charge in the charge capacitors in respective drive circuits. An LD array and the LD driving switching element are closely located on a light-emitting board. By laying out the LD array and charge capacitors considering only the positional relationship therebetween, the size of a circuit pattern including LDs and the charge capacitors can be decreased.

Laser array circuit

In an object recognition apparatus for a vehicle which uses intensities of reflected waves from reflecting objects to make a recognition on whether a reflecting object is a vehicle or a non-vehicle, a plurality of transmission waves are emitted to receive a plurality of reflected waves from the reflecting objects, and a decision is made as to whether or not the reflecting object producing the plurality of reflected waves is a unitary reflecting object. If the decision shows a unitary reflecting object, the highest intensity of intensities of the reflected waves from the unitary reflecting object is compared with a reference intensity to makes a decision on whether the reflecting object is a vehicle or a non-vehicle. This enables univocally making a decision for each unitary reflecting object as to whether the reflecting object is more likely to be a vehicle or to be a non-vehicle, thus improving the recognition accuracy.

Object recognition apparatus for vehicle and distance measurement apparatus

An object recognition apparatus in a subject vehicle includes a radar unit for transmitting a plurality of laser beams in a scan range spread in horizontal and vertical directions of the subject vehicle and receiving a reflection, a recognition unit for recognizing the object in front of the subject vehicle based on the reflection, a determination sub-unit in the radar unit, a calculation sub-unit in the radar unit; and an adjustment sub-unit in the radar unit. The radar unit is so disposed in the subject vehicle with a center axis of one of the plurality of the laser beams aligned with a target angle that the determination sub-unit uses coverage in the vertical direction of the laser beam being sufficient for variation of heights of the reflector on the object at a first distance detected by the radar unit as the predetermined condition for selecting of the object.

Object recognition apparatus for motor vehicle

Inter-vehicle control apparatus and distance measurement apparatus

An object detecting apparatus for a vehicle has a light radiation unit and a light receiver unit disposed in a case for detecting an object or a distance to the object. When a vehicle is at a stop, the apparatus detects an output power of a laser light radiated from the light radiation unit by the light receiving unit and feedback-controls the output power of the laser light to a predetermined level based on the detected output power of the laser light. The feedback control is effected by an amplifier circuit, a pulse width detector circuit and a current regulator circuit. Thus, the output power of the laser light is reduced not to damage human eyes when the vehicle is at a stop.

Object detecting apparatus having light radiation power regulating function

An object detecting apparatus detects an object by using a laser beam emitted from a laser diode. The apparatus has a current adjuster. An amount of electric current supplied from the current adjuster to the laser diode is controlled to change an intensity of the laser beam, and is adjusted by a feedforward control based on a signal from a temperature sensor in the apparatus to compensate a drift of the laser diode characteristics.

Object detecting apparatus having a current adjuster for controlling amount of electric current supplied to a laser device in compensation for a diversity of current-luminosity characteristics of the laser device

An object recognition apparatus for vehicles is provided which is equipped with a radar. The apparatus is designed to detect adhesion of any dirt to the radar which will disturbs emission of radar waves to and reception radar echoes from a target. When the number of radar waves is great which cause the times required by the radar waves to travel to and return from a target to be measured as being shorter than a predetermined period of time and the intensities of the radar returns to be greater than a predetermined value, it is determined that the dirt is adhered to the radar, thereby improving the accuracy of detecting the adhesion of dirt to the radar.

Object recognition apparatus designed to detect adhesion of dirt to radar

A radar system of a vehicle has a zero-cross comparator, an integrator, and a sensor. The comparator compares a light reception signal output from each one of photoreceptive elements with a predetermined standard signal and outputs a comparison signal indicating two different states corresponding to a result of the comparison. The integrator samples the comparison signal and converts the comparison signal into one-bit digital data. The integrator integrates the digital data for each photoreceptive element. The sensor compares the integrated data of each photoreceptive element with a predetermined integration standard value. The sensor senses a reflection object based on the integrated data equal to or greater than the integration standard value.

Vehicular radar system

An integrator of a vehicular radar system has multiple switches and multiple capacitors, which are connected with the switches, for each one of photoreceptive elements. The integrator integrates light reception signals, which are output from the photoreceptive elements, by switching the switches to a connected state one after another in a predetermined order at a predetermined time interval until a predetermined time passes after every emission of the laser light and by switching the switches to the connected state one after another in a predetermined order at a predetermined time interval if the laser light is emitted predetermined times. Thus, the integrator can integrate the light reception signals, which are output from the multiple photoreceptive elements, in parallel.

A light receiver apparatus for a vehicle comprises a photo diode for receiving an incident light form a surrounding environment, a FET connected in series with the photo diode and a filter for extracting an a.c. signal from a received light signal developed at a junction with the photo diode when a reverse-bias voltage is applied to the photo diode. The a.c. signal is produced by removing from the received light signal a signal corresponding to a background light in the incident light. The FET varies a resistance thereof in accordance with the received light signal so that a d.c. signal in the received light signal is regulated to a fixed level irrespective of the intensity of the background light in the received light.

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Kariya, Japan

Yoshiaki Hoashi