Patent ID: 8026799

Claim:
A vehicle collision determination apparatus comprising: a distance acquisition unit acquiring a distance between a subject vehicle and a front object that exists in front of the subject vehicle; a relative speed acquisition unit acquiring a relative speed of the subject vehicle relative to the front object; a lateral acceleration detector detecting a lateral acceleration for accelerating the subject vehicle in a lateral direction; a lateral acceleration dependent relative speed calculation unit calculating the relative speed under an influence of the lateral acceleration, wherein the relative speed of the subject vehicle changes depending on an increase and decrease of the lateral acceleration; a collision risk index calculation unit calculating a collision risk index for representing a risk of collision of the subject vehicle with the front object based on the distance acquired by the distance acquisition unit, the relative speed acquired by the relative speed acquisition unit, and the relative speed under the influence of the lateral acceleration calculated by the lateral acceleration dependent relative speed calculation unit; and a collision determination unit determining the risk of collision of the subject vehicle with the front object by utilizing the collision risk index calculated by the collision risk index calculation unit; wherein the collision risk index calculation unit calculates a collision risk index TTC_gy by using an equation in the following when a parameter D represents the distance, a parameter Vr represents the relative speed, and a parameter Vr_y represents the lateral acceleration dependent relative speed TTC — gy=D /( Vr−Vr — y ) [Equation].