External environment recognition device for vehicle and vehicle system using same

Abstract

An external environment recognition device for a vehicle and a vehicle system capable of assuring safety and reducing the processing load in a compatible manner are provided. An external environment recognition devicefor a vehicle includes: first collision determination meansfor computing a risk of collision of a host vehicle with a detected object in front of the host vehicle on the basis of information of a predicted course of the host vehicle and the detected object; and second collision determination meansfor determining whether the detected object enters the predicted course from the outside of the predicted course or not. This device further includes object selection meansfor selecting the detected object having a risk at least a first threshold and the detected object determined to enter the predicted course as selection candidate objects from among the detected objects, and for selecting the selection candidate object having a minimum relative distance to the host vehicle as a pedestrian determination request object from among the selected selection candidate objects. This device further includes pedestrian determination meansfor determining whether the selected pedestrian determination request object is a pedestrian or not using image information.