Patent ID: 7162361

Claim:
System for evaluating a traffic environment of a motor vehicle and for influencing travel speed of the motor vehicle in its own traffic lane, comprising: an electronic control unit (ECU), which is connected to: a signal transmitter that produces a signal characteristic of a desired speed of the motor vehicle, a signal transmitter that produces a signal characteristic of a yaw of the motor vehicle about its vertical axis, a signal transmitter that produces a signal characteristic of articles situated, in a direction of travel of the motor vehicle, in front of the motor vehicle in terms of their spacing and orientation relative to the motor vehicle and which is indicative of at least one of a speed relative to the speed of the system motor vehicle, a spacing relative to the system motor vehicle, and an angular offset or a cross track distance relative to a vehicle longitudinal axis of the system motor vehicle, and a signal transmitter that produces a signal characteristic of the speed of at least one wheel of the motor vehicle, wherein the electronic control unit (ECU) is connected to at least one control device, which influences the performance of the motor vehicle, in order to supply said device with output signals derived from the performance of another motor vehicle situated in front of the system motor vehicle, and wherein, in the electronic control unit (ECU): a quantity that bears a relationship to a curvature of the traffic lane of the system motor vehicle is supplied as an input signal (K(t)) in parallel to a plurality of timing elements having different time constants, and the output signals of the timing elements and the input signal (K(t)) are compared with one another.