Patent ID: 7136750
Filing Date: 2006-11-14
Classification: G01S

Abstract:
1. An obstacle detection apparatus for an automotive vehicle, comprising: an object position detecting section that detects a position of each object located in a forward detection zone of the vehicle; an image fetching section that fetches a situation of the forward detection zone in a form of an image; a noticeable object selecting section that selects only one of most noticeable objects for the vehicle on the basis of the detected position of each object; an image processing object tracking section that tracks the selected object of the noticeable object selecting section through an image processing for the fetched image; a first importance as obstacle calculating section that calculates a first importance as an obstacle, wherein the first importance represents a possibility that the selected object becomes an obstacle for the vehicle on the basis of an output result of the object position detecting section; a second importance as obstacle calculating section that calculates a second importance as an obstacle, wherein the second importance represents a possibility that the tracked object becomes the obstacle for the vehicle on the basis of an output result of the image fetching section; a same object determining section that determines whether the selected object of the noticeable object selecting section is the same as the tracked object of the image processing object tracking section; an image processing reliability outputting section that outputs a reliability of a processing state of the image processing object tracking section; and a tracking object selecting section that selects the object for the image processing object tracking section based on the first importance, the second importance, and the reliability when the same object determining section determines that the selected object is the same as the tracked object and selects the object for the image processing object tracking section based on the first importance and the second importance when the same object determining section determines that the selected object is different from the tracked object.