Patent ID: 8115394

Claim:
A headlamp controller comprising: a headlamp unit configured to illuminate a front area of a vehicle with a light distribution pattern that is controllable; an image capturing camera configured to capture an image of the front area of the vehicle and output a captured image; and a light distribution controller configured to control the headlamp unit to change the light distribution pattern by performing a calculation based on the captured image output from the image capturing camera, the light distribution controller comprising: a road shape detecting unit configured to detect a road shape based on the captured image; a reference optical flow generating unit configured to generate a reference optical flow for a target object belonging to one of attributes based on the road shape detected by the road shape detecting unit; a bright point optical flow measuring unit configured to measure an optical flow of a bright point defined as a target in the captured image; and an attribute determining unit configured to compare the reference optical flow with the optical flow of the bright point and determine which one of the attributes the optical flow of the bright point belongs.