Patent ID: 8090537

Claim:
An obstacle avoidance path computing apparatus comprising: a microprocessor including a preceding object detecting section configured to detect a preceding object state and a movement velocity of a preceding object existing in front of a host vehicle as preceding object information; a host vehicle information detecting section configured to detect a host vehicle traveling state as host vehicle information; a preceding object arrival region estimating section configured to calculate an estimated arrival region representing a plurality of possible locations within which the preceding object could arrive at a single moment in time after a prescribed amount of time has elapsed since the preceding object information was detected, based on an estimated attribute of the preceding object from the preceding object state and the movement velocity of the preceding object, the estimated arrival region being larger than the preceding object in a direction transverse to a current host vehicle traveling direction; and a preceding object avoidance path setting section configured to calculate an avoidance path that will not encroach on the estimated arrival region based on the preceding object information and the host vehicle information.