Patent ID: 7515066

Claim:
An apparatus for providing information about situations around a vehicle to a user in the vehicle, the apparatus being mounted in the vehicle and comprising: a situation information providing unit configured to detect an occurrence of each of a plurality of predetermined situations around the vehicle on the basis of output from a plurality of sensors and provide information about the detected occurrence to the user; a failure detecting unit configured to detect a failure in each of the sensors; a warning unit configured to calculate the situation whose occurrence cannot be detected normally by the situation information providing unit due to a failure in any of the sensors when the failure detecting unit detects the failure in a sensor, and warn the user that an occurrence of the calculated situation cannot be detected normally, wherein the situation whose occurrence cannot be detected normally is calculated on the basis of output from normally-operating sensors; a storage unit; a history storing unit configured to store a history in the storage unit every time the situation information providing unit detects an occurrence of the situation, each history including output values of the sensors used to detect the occurrence of the situation and being associated with the occurred situation; and an estimated situation information providing unit configured to provide the user with information indicating the possibility that the situation has occurred, the situation being associated with a history among the histories stored in the storage unit, the output values of normally-operating sensors among the output values of all of the sensors in the history being equal or approximate to the output values of the corresponding sensors.