Patent ID: 8264336

Claim:
A vehicle-mounted alarm generating apparatus comprising: an extracting section configured to extract a road boundary marking representing a boundary of a lane from an image of a picture of a road surface ahead of a vehicle; a position setting section configured to set a first position of said road boundary marking and a second position of said road boundary marking more distant from said vehicle than said first position in accordance with extraction results by said extracting section; a first alarm generating section configured to generate a first alarm when a distance between said vehicle and said first position becomes shorter than a predetermined first distance; a second alarm generating section configured to generate a second alarm, when a distance between said vehicle and said second position becomes shorter than a predetermined second distance, configuration of said second alarm being different from a configuration of said first alarm; and a behavior information acquiring section configured to acquire information representing behavior of said vehicle, said first alarm generating section being configured to calculate a first reaching time needed for said vehicle to reach said first position on the basis of extraction results by said extracting section and said behavior information, and determine that a distance between said vehicle and said first position becomes shorter than said first distance when said calculated first reaching time becomes shorter than a first predetermined threshold, said second alarm generating section being configured to calculate a second reaching time needed for said vehicle to reach said second position on the basis of extraction results by said extracting section and said behavior information, and determine that a distance between said vehicle and said second position becomes shorter than said second distance when said calculated second reaching time becomes shorter than a second predetermined threshold.