Patent ID: 8527141

Claim:
A sensor calibration device that calibrates a distance-measuring sensor that is mounted in a vehicle, comprising: a calibratability determination portion that determines whether or not the distance-measuring sensor is in a calibratable state based on at least one of state of the vehicle and state of a road surface on which the vehicle is positioned; and a calibration execution portion that determines a correction coefficient to calibrate the distance-measuring sensor when the distance-measuring sensor is determined to be in the calibratable state, the correction coefficients being determined based on a pre-found distance between the distance-measuring sensor and the road surface on which the vehicle is positioned, the calibration execution portion mathematically applying the correction coefficient to a detected value detected by the distance-measuring sensor to generate a corrected value, wherein the distance-measuring sensor is a distance image sensor at least a portion of whose detection region is the road surface, and the calibratability determination portion determines whether or not the distance image sensor is in the calibratable state based on a result of detection by the distance image sensor, the calibratability determination portion determines whether or not the vehicle is substantially parallel to the road surface based on the result of detection by the distance image sensor, and then determines that the distance image sensor is in the calibratable state when the vehicle is substantially parallel to the road surface, and the calibratability determination portion determines that the vehicle is substantially parallel to the road surface when, regarding a plurality of pre-set photosensitive cells among photosensitive cells contained in the distance image sensor, an amount of change in distance detected by each of the pre-set photosensitive cells during a pre-set time is less than or equal to a pre-set threshold value.