Patent ID: 8396641
Filing Date: 2013-03-12
Classification: B60T,B60W

Abstract:
1. An inter-vehicle distance control device that captures a preceding vehicle in front of a vehicle having installed therein the inter-vehicle distance control device and performs a vehicle following control as maintaining an inter-vehicle distance from the preceding vehicle, the inter-vehicle distance control device comprising: a stop maintaining control unit configured to move an operation to a stop maintaining control that releases the vehicle following control and keeps a brake activation condition to maintain the vehicle stopped when the vehicle stops in a response to a stop of the preceding vehicle; a resetting acceptability determination unit configured to determine whether to accept resetting of the vehicle following control in a response to a driver's operation based on an acceleration of the preceding vehicle and one of the inter-vehicle distance between the vehicle and the preceding vehicle, and a vehicle speed of the preceding vehicle when the preceding vehicle starts to move during the stop maintaining control: a target vehicle speed setting unit configured to set a target vehicle speed of the vehicle following control based on at least the inter-vehicle distance between the vehicle and the preceding vehicle and the vehicle speed of the preceding vehicle; and a preceding vehicle speed estimation unit configured to estimate the vehicle speed of the preceding vehicle after a predetermined period of time based on the acceleration of the preceding vehicle and to output the estimated vehicle speed of the preceding vehicle as the vehicle speed of the preceding vehicle to the target vehicle speed setting unit, wherein, when the preceding vehicle starts to move during the stop maintaining control, the resetting acceptability determination unit compares the target vehicle speed set based on the estimated vehicle speed with a predetermined threshold and determines whether to accept resetting of the vehicle following control in the response to the driver's operation.