Patent ID: 6879706

Claim:
An apparatus for detecting a traffic lane mark for an automotive vehicle, comprising: a photograph device to photograph a situation of a running road in a vehicular forward direction; a traffic lane detection window setting section that once sets one traffic lane detection window on an image data photographed by the photograph device; a window internal traffic lane detecting section that detects a traffic lane mark passing through the traffic lane detection window set by the traffic lane detection window setting section on the basis of a luminance information on each point within the traffic lane detection window, the window lane detection setting section setting a plurality of other traffic lane detection windows in accordance with the one traffic lane detection window through which the traffic lane mark is passed and the window internal traffic lane detecting section detecting the traffic lane mark passing through each of the other traffic lane detection windows set by the traffic lane detection window setting section on the basis of the luminance information on each point of the other traffic lane detection windows; a noise detection window setting section that sets at least one noise detection window at a position which abuts each of the traffic lane detection windows set by the traffic lane detection window setting section; an edge intensity detecting section that detects an edge intensity within each noise detection window set by the noise detection window setting section; a weight value modifying section that modifies a weight value to each of the traffic lane detection windows in accordance with the edge intensity in the related one of the noise detection windows; and a road contour calculating section that calculates a road contour using any of the traffic lane marks detected by the window internal traffic lane detecting section and the weight value modified by the weight value modifying section.