Patent ID: 8370021

Claim:
An obstacle detecting device comprising: a distance measuring sensor arranged adjacent to a rotation axis of a door of a vehicle, the sensor measuring a distance to an object in a direction corresponding to a scanning angle by scanning a scanning plane; a memory to store a standard angle defined when the sensor is mounted at a normal position, and a comparison distance defined between a mounting position of the sensor and an end of the door in the direction corresponding to the scanning angle when the sensor is mounted at the normal position; an initializing portion to obtain a distance-shortest scanning angle defined by a shortest value of measured distance distances which are measured by the distance measuring sensor; a correcting portion to correct the scanning angle, when the distance-shortest scanning angle is different from the standard angle; and an object determining portion to determine the object to be an obstacle having a possibility to contact with the door, when a distance measured by the sensor measuring sensor is equal to or shorter than a corrected comparison distance which is defined by correcting the comparison distance to correspond to the corrected scanning angle.