Patent ID: 8762042
Filing Date: 2014-06-24
Classification: G01S,G05D,G06F

Abstract:
1. A periphery vehicle determination apparatus disposed in a host vehicle comprising: a behavior obtaining section that obtains a behavior related information of an immediately adjacent object of the host vehicle, wherein the immediately adjacent object refers to one of an immediately front object and an immediately following object, and the behavior related information includes at least one of a position of the immediately adjacent object and a speed related parameter of the immediately adjacent object; a vehicle-to-vehicle communication device that communicates with a plurality of periphery vehicles; an information obtaining section that obtains a plurality of vehicle information sets from the periphery vehicles via the vehicle-to-vehicle communication device, wherein each of the vehicle information sets includes an identification information of a respective one of the periphery vehicles; a specifying section that specifies one of the vehicle information sets obtained by the information obtaining section as being from an immediately adjacent vehicle based on the behavior related information of the immediately adjacent object obtained by the behavior obtaining section, and specifies the identification information of the immediately adjacent vehicle based on the vehicle information set specified as from the immediately adjacent vehicle, wherein the immediately adjacent vehicle is one of an immediately front vehicle and an immediately following vehicle, and the immediately front vehicle and the immediately following vehicle are part of the plurality of periphery vehicles; a transceiving section that transmits an immediately adjacent information of the host vehicle to the periphery vehicles and receives a plurality of immediately adjacent informations from the periphery vehicles via the vehicle-to-vehicle communication device, wherein the immediately adjacent information of the host vehicle includes an identification information of the host vehicle, the identification information of the immediately adjacent vehicle, and an anteroposterior relation between the host vehicle and the immediately adjacent vehicle; an anteroposterior relation determination section that specifies an anteroposterior relation of at least two of the periphery vehicles in a one-dimensional direction by correlating the immediately adjacent informations transmitted from the periphery vehicles according to a repeated identification information that is the identification information included in at least two of the immediately adjacent informations from the periphery vehicles, wherein the one-dimensional direction is defined as along the travel direction of the host vehicle at least one of a forward direction with respect to the host vehicle and a backward direction with respect to the host vehicle; a leading vehicle determination section that determines a leading vehicle of a subject convoy in which the host vehicle is included; and a combination determination section that determines whether to connect with a front convoy when the leading vehicle determination section determines that the host vehicle is the leading vehicle of the subject convoy, wherein, when the combination determination section determines to connect the subject convoy with the front convoy, the anteroposterior relation determination section determines an anteroposterior relation of the periphery vehicles included in a connected convoy, which is generated by connecting the subject convoy with the front convoy, by correlating the immediately adjacent informations from the periphery vehicles included in the connected convoy based on the repeated identification information that is the identification information included in at least two of the immediately adjacent informations.