Traveling road boundary estimation apparatus and traveling assistance system using same

Abstract

The present invention provides a traveling road boundary estimation apparatus that is capable of estimating the position and shape of a traveling road boundary highly reliably, and a traveling assistance system. The present invention has: a boundary feature map generation unit that generates, on the basis of an image acquired from an external sensor, a boundary feature map for storing a feature amount regarding the presence of a traveling road boundary, for each grid of the image or an image generated by converting the image into an image of another visual point; a boundary candidate setting unit that sets, as boundary candidates, a plurality of paths continuous in a depth direction from a coming-within-sight detection start-end position to a given detection tail end position, the positions both falling within a preset sensor view angle; a boundary likelihood evaluation unit that calculates, for each of the boundary candidates, a boundary likelihood evaluation value obtained by adding the feature amount of a relevant boundary feature map and a continuity evaluation value for the depth-direction together; and a traveling road boundary determination unit that determines a traveling road boundary by comparing the boundary likelihood evaluation values of the boundary candidates calculated by the boundary likelihood evaluation unit.