Patent ID: 7212907

Claim:
System for the evaluation of the driving environment of a driver's vehicle and for influencing the speed of the driver's vehicle in its own lane, comprising: an electronic control unit (ECU) that is connected to a signal generator that generates a signal characteristic of a desired speed of the driver's vehicle, a signal generator that generates a signal characteristic of a turning rate of the driver's vehicle about its vertical axis, a signal generator that generates for objects located in the space in front of the driver's vehicle in a direction of travel of the driver's vehicle, a characteristic signal with respect to their distance and orientation relative to the driver's vehicle, which signal is at least one of a speed relative to a speed of the driver's vehicle, a distance relative to the driver's vehicle, and an angular displacement or a lateral deviation relative to a longitudinal axis of the driver's vehicle, and that is connected to a signal generator that generates a signal characteristic of a speed of at least one wheel of the driver's vehicle, and which is connected to at least one control device having an influence on a driving behaviour of the driver's vehicle, in order to feed output signals to the control device that are derived from a driving behaviour of a target vehicle located in front of the driver's vehicle, in which in order to define the mid line of the driver's vehicle's lane, in the space detected in front of the driver's vehicle the radius of curvature R of the path curve of the centre of gravity of the driver's vehicle is modified in the electronic control unit (ECU) on the basis of the change in bearing angle of objects travelling in front, and the absolute position of the objects travelling in front relative to an instantaneously predicted lane, characterised in that the extent to which changes in the radius of curvature are permissible also depends on the curve radius itself, wherein in the case of a very small curve radius a relatively high rate of change is permitted.