Patent ID: 7463138

Claim:
An adaptive speed control system of a vehicle comprising: a cruise control system operable to generally maintain a selected speed of the subject vehicle; a control responsive to an image capture device capable of detecting lane markers or objects or other vehicles along the road surface, said control being operable to adjust said cruise control system to a lower speed than said selected speed in response to an output of said image capture device indicative of at least one of (a) the subject vehicle approaching an object or other vehicle and (b) change in road conditions in front of the subject vehicle; and wherein said control processes images captured by said image capture device, said captured images comprising image data representative of the exterior scene, said control processing a subset of said image data, said subset being representative of a target zone of interest, said control processing said subset to detect at least one of (a) lane markers within said target zone and (b) objects or other vehicles present exteriorly of the subject vehicle and within said target zone.