Patent ID: 9302673
Filing Date: 2016-04-05
CPC Classification: B60W

Claim Text:
1. An apparatus for controlling a vehicle to travel behind another vehicle, the apparatus comprising: a detector detecting other vehicles existing around the controlled vehicle; and a controller communicably connected to the detector, the controller being configured to: cause the controlled vehicle to track one of the other vehicles as a target vehicle if one of the other vehicles meets a predetermined target-vehicle selecting condition, the predetermined target-vehicle selecting condition being required for selecting one of the other vehicles as the target vehicle; recognize an environment of a predicted travel road on which the controlled vehicle is predicted to travel using conditions of the predicted travel road; determine whether the predicted travel road allows lane changes based on the recognized environment of the predicted travel road; and adjust the target-vehicle selecting condition based on a result of the determination to change the target-vehicle selecting condition to make the selecting of the one of the other vehicles as the target vehicle more difficult when the determination that the predicted travel road does not allow lane changes is made.