Patent ID: 9387855
Filing Date: 2016-07-12
CPC Classification: B60W,B62D

Claim Text:
1. A vehicle control apparatus that controls a steering apparatus of a vehicle to make the vehicle to perform automated cruise, the apparatus comprising: a switching signal receiving unit that receives a signal from a switching device disposed in the vehicle, the switching device being a switch that switches a cruise mode between a manual cruise mode and an automated cruise mode; a vehicle information receiving unit that receives vehicle information that is information regarding travelling of the vehicle; a vehicle positional information receiving unit that receives vehicle positional information indicating a widthwise relative positional relationship between a lane in which the vehicle is travelling and the vehicle in the lane; and a steering control signal output unit that outputs a signal for controlling the steering apparatus of the vehicle, wherein the vehicle control apparatus starts making a determination as to whether the automated cruise mode or the manual cruise mode is to be selected as the cruise mode, in response to a switching signal input into the switching signal receiving unit, wherein the vehicle control apparatus makes the determination based on both or one of the vehicle information input into the vehicle information receiving unit and the vehicle positional information input into the vehicle positional information receiving unit, and wherein when it is determined that the automated cruised mode is to be selected as the cruise mode, the vehicle control apparatus starts the automated cruise control of the vehicle by switching the cruise mode to the automated cruise mode and outputting a steering control signal from the steering control signal output unit to start control of the steering apparatus.