Patent ID: 7778753
Filing Date: 2010-08-17
Classification: B60T,B60W,B62D,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A vehicle operation assisting system which assists an obstacle avoiding operation of a vehicle moving in an initial traveling direction, and a traveling direction-restoring operation following the avoiding operation, said system comprising: obstacle detecting means for detecting an obstacle ahead of a subject vehicle; avoiding operation determining means for determining initiation of the obstacle avoiding operation by a driver, based on a brake pedal signal, a steering angle signal, a speed signal, and an actual time to collision; restoring operation determining means for determining initiation of the traveling direction-restoring operation after avoiding the obstacle, based on at least a difference between a target lateral movement distance and an offset lateral distance detected by a radar device being zero or less, and the actual time to collision being less than a predetermined value, and the radar device having lost sense of the obstacle; avoiding moving amount calculating means for calculating a necessary lateral distance that the vehicle should be moved in order to avoid the obstacle based on an output of the obstacle detecting means, based on the lateral width of the obstacle detected by the radar device, a subject vehicle lateral width, and a predetermined margin; and vehicle movement control means for controlling lateral movement of the vehicle based on the lateral distance calculated by the avoiding moving amount calculating means, wherein said vehicle operation assisting system is configured and arranged such that during an emergency obstacle-avoidance situation, until the restoring operation determining means determines the initiation of the traveling direction-restoring operation after the avoiding operation determining means determines the initiation of the avoiding operation, the vehicle movement control means selectively operates at least a braking device so as to generate a difference in braking forces applied to left and right wheels to control lateral movement of the vehicle in order to avoid collision with the obstacle; and after the restoring operation determining means determines the initiation of the traveling direction-restoring operation, the vehicle movement control means operates at least a power steering device to control the lateral movement of the vehicle in order to resume the initial traveling direction; wherein the restoring operation determining means compares an offset lateral distance from a center of the obstacle with respect to a center line of the subject vehicle, and a target lateral moving distance calculated from the lateral width of the obstacle and the lateral width of the subject vehicle; and determines the initiation of the restoring operation when the offset lateral distance exceeds the target lateral moving distance.