Denso Corporation

Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Yukihiko Yamada

Yosuke Ito

Akitoshi Minemura

Jun Tsuchida

Masayuki Shimizu

An estimated time-to-collision (TTC) calculation apparatus includes a distance acquisition unit, relative velocity acquisition unit, relative acceleration acquisition unit, and estimated TTC calculation unit. The distance acquisition unit acquires a distance X between the own vehicle and an object. The relative velocity acquisition unit acquires a relative velocity V of the object with respect to the own vehicle. The relative acceleration acquisition unit acquires a relative acceleration &#x3b2; of the object with respect to the own vehicle. The estimated TTC calculation unit calculates an estimated TTC t until the own vehicle collides with the object. In this apparatus and method, the estimated TTC calculation unit calculates t, based on the distance X and the relative velocity V, when the own vehicle is accelerating, and when the own vehicle is decelerating, calculates t based on the distance X, the relative velocity V, and the relative acceleration &#x3b2;.

Estimated time-to-collision (TTC) calculation apparatus and estimated TTC calculation method

A warning control apparatus includes a learning section that learns a collision avoidance timing at which a driver of an own vehicle starts to perform an operation for avoiding collision with a front object based on a distance to this object and a speed of the own vehicle, a threshold setting section that determines whether the driver tends to start a collision avoidance operation early or late based on the learned collision avoidance timing, sets an avoidance warning threshold larger than a basic threshold upon determining that the vehicle driver tends to start the collision avoidance operation early, and sets the avoidance warning threshold smaller than the basic threshold in the contrary case, and a warning control section that causes a warning device to issue a warning at a warning timing set so as to become early as the avoidance warning threshold set by the threshold setting section becomes large.

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Kariya, Japan

Yukihiko Yamada