Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Yoshihide Aoyanagi

Shinya Kawamata

Ryuji Funayama

Shin Satori

Tadayoshi Komatsuda

A distance measuring apparatus () optically detects a measuring target, thereby measuring an object distance, which is the distance to the measuring target. The orientation of an optical axis of a lens is set to be different from an advancing direction of light incident from the measuring target. The lens is configured to form an image from the incident light, thereby obtaining an image of the measuring target. The distance measuring apparatus includes an imaging relative quantity calculating means () for obtaining an imaging position indicative of a position of the image with respect to the lens for each of a plurality of wavelengths possessed by the incident light, thereby calculating an imaging relative quantity, which is a quantity indicative of a relative relationship between the imaging positions; storage means () for storing correlation information (), which is information determined by a chromatic aberration characteristic of the lens and the orientation of the optical axis in order to indicate a correlation between the imaging relative quantity and the object distance; and distance calculating means () for calculating the object distance by checking the imaging relative quantity against the correlation information ().

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Sapporo, Japan

Yoshihide Aoyanagi