Patent ID: 8810653

Claim:
A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus which has a computer including an interface circuit for accessing an image obtained by a camera mounted on a vehicle and detects a material body existing around the vehicle by the computer, wherein the computer performs: an object extraction process for extracting an object from the image; a width calculation process for calculating widths of the object in a plurality of height positions spaced at vertical intervals of the object extracted in the object extraction process; an object type determination process for altering a preliminary determination that the type of the object is a pedestrian and determining the type of the object to be an other-than-pedestrian based on the widths calculated in the width calculation process, wherein the plurality of height positions include at least three height positions in an upper part, a center part, and a lower part of the object, the upper part being a position presumed to be a position of a head of a pedestrian in a case the object is presumed to be the pedestrian, the center part being a position presumed to be a position of a torso of the pedestrian in the case the object is presumed to be the pedestrian, the lower part being a position presumed to be a position of a leg of the pedestrian in the case the object is presumed to be the pedestrian, wherein the object type determination process unit determines the type of the object to be the other-than-pedestrian in a case where a width in the height position in the center part is larger than a width in the height position in the upper part, and also a width in the height position in the lower part is larger than the width in the height position in the center part; and a warning process which determines warning targets out of the objects extracted by the object extraction process unit and outputs warnings on the warning targets for a driver of the vehicle, wherein the warning process unit omits the object from the warning targets in the case where the object type determination process unit determines the object to be the other-than-pedestrian-type.