Patent ID: 8996294
Filing Date: 2015-03-31
Classification: B60K,B60W

Abstract:
1. An inter-vehicle distance maintenance supporting system for a host vehicle, comprising: an obstacle detector configured to detect an obstacle ahead of the host vehicle; an inter-vehicle distance detector configured to detect an inter-vehicle distance between said host vehicle and said obstacle; a confidence factor computing device configured to compute a confidence factor for treating the obstacle as a preceding vehicle ahead of the host vehicle based on a state of the obstacle detected by said obstacle detector, the confidence factor being a value representing the probability of the obstacle being in a predicted running path of the host vehicle; a confidence factor correcting part configured to correct said confidence factor based on a relative-position relationship between said host vehicle and said obstacle; a reaction force controller configured to apply a reaction force on an accelerator pedal of the host vehicle based on said inter-vehicle distance detected by said inter-vehicle distance detector and said confidence factor corrected by said confidence factor correcting part; a yaw rate detector configured to detect a yaw rate of said host vehicle, and wherein said confidence factor computing device is configured to use the yaw rate detected by the yaw rate detector to compute a predicted running path of said host vehicle, and compute said confidence factor from a relative position of said obstacle with respect to said predicted running path, wherein said confidence factor correcting part is configured to correct said confidence factor by filtering of said yaw rate; and an accelerator pedal depression detector configured to detect a depression degree of said accelerator pedal being greater than a predetermined value; wherein said confidence factor correcting part is configured to increase a cutoff frequency used in said filtering as said inter-vehicle distance becomes smaller, and wherein said confidence factor correcting part is configured to reduce said confidence factor when said accelerator pedal depression detector detects the depression degree being greater than the predetermined value thereby increasing the cutoff frequency.