Patent ID: 11919533
Assignee: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
Field: Transport (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  G | IPC B  G

Claim 7:
8. An alert apparatus for a host vehicle comprising:
a surrounding sensor configured to acquire surrounding information including information on an object that is present in a frontward area of said host vehicle and information on demarcation line on a road on which said host vehicle is traveling;
turn signal indicators, each of which state being changed from an operation stopped state to an operating state by a predetermined operation of a driver of said host vehicle;
an alerting device configured to alert said driver of a presence of another vehicle said driver should be cautious of; and
a control unit for controlling said alerting device configured to:
determine whether an oncoming vehicle is present based on said surrounding information, wherein said oncoming vehicle is another vehicle that is traveling in an oncoming lane with respect to a traveling lane in which said host vehicle is traveling so as to approach said host vehicle from a position ahead of said host vehicle and whose predicted traveling path is predicted to pass through on a specific direction side which is one of a rightward direction side with respect to a current position of said host vehicle and a leftward direction side with respect to said current position of said host vehicle; and
cause said alerting device to start alerting when it is determined that a specific condition becomes satisfied, wherein said specific condition is a condition to be satisfied when one of said turn signal indicators corresponding to said specific direction side are in said operating state, it is determined that said oncoming vehicle is present, and when it is predicted that said host vehicle is likely to start making a turn to said specific direction side or when it is determined that said driver of said host vehicle should notice a presence of said oncoming vehicle before said host vehicle starts making a turn to said specific direction side,

wherein,
said control unit is configured to:
determine whether or not a ready-to-turn condition is satisfied based on said surrounding information, wherein said ready-to-turn condition is a condition to be satisfied when a specific demarcation line is included in a specific area and a speed of said host vehicle is lower than a predetermined first threshold speed, said specific demarcation line is a demarcation line on said specific direction side among a pair of demarcation lines that define said traveling lane, and said specific area is a part of an area through which said host vehicle passes when said host vehicle makes said turn to said specific direction side and has been determined in advance with respect to said host vehicle; and
determine that said specific condition becomes satisfied when it is determined that said ready-to-turn condition is satisfied.