EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT RECOGNITION DEVICE FOR VEHICLE, AND LIGHT DISTRIBUTION CONTROL SYSTEM USING SAME

• Main Authors: OGATA TAKEHITO, OTSUKA YUJI, OHTSUJI SHINYA
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 07.09.2016
• Subjects: ARRANGEMENT OF SIGNALLING OR LIGHTING DEVICES, THE MOUNTING ORSUPPORTING THEREOF OR CIRCUITS THEREFOR, FOR VEHICLES INGENERAL; CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PHYSICS; SIGNALLING; TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS; TRANSPORTING; VEHICLES IN GENERAL; VEHICLES, VEHICLE FITTINGS, OR VEHICLE PARTS, NOT OTHERWISEPROVIDED FOR

It is an object of the present invention to provide an external environment recognizing device for vehicle that can prevent, for example, reflected light of a reflector from being misrecognized as an oncoming vehicle even on a road where a white line and information of a navigation system are not obtained and a light distribution control system using the external environment recognizing device for vehicle. An external environment recognizing device for vehicle according to the present invention includes an image acquiring unit configured to acquire an image obtained by picking up an image of an area ahead of an own vehicle, a light-source extracting unit configured to extract a light source from the acquired image, an own-vehicle-speed acquiring unit configured to acquire own vehicle speed, an oncoming-vehicle-presence-possible-region estimating unit configured to estimate an oncoming vehicle presence possible region on the basis of the own vehicle speed, and an oncoming-vehicle detecting unit configured to detect an oncoming vehicle on the basis of the oncoming vehicle presence possible region and the light source. The oncoming-vehicle-presence-possible-region estimating unit estimates the oncoming vehicle presence possible region on the basis of the own vehicle speed, a minimum curvature radius of a traveling road corresponding to a speed limit determined in advance, and traffic information indicating whether driving on the traveling road is driving on the right side or driving on the left side.