Patent ID: 7136753

Claim:
An inter-vehicle control apparatus comprising: radar means for emitting a plurality of transmission waves throughout a predetermined angular range in each of vertical and horizontal directions of a vehicle to, on the basis of reflected waves thereof, detect distances to reflecting objects, angles in said vertical and horizontal directions and intensities of said reflected waves; decision means for, when a plurality of reflecting objects satisfy a predetermined unity condition, making a decision that said plurality of reflecting objects constitute a unitary reflecting object; selection means for selecting the highest intensity of intensities of reflected waves corresponding to said reflecting objects decided to be a unitary reflecting object in said decision means; recognition means for, on the basis of at least a shape of said reflecting object, recognizing that said reflecting object is a preceding vehicle; calculation means for calculating a relative speed with respect to said preceding vehicle in time series on the basis of a variation of said distance to said preceding vehicle and for calculating an average relative speed by averaging a plurality of relative speed calculated in time series; inter-vehicle control means for implementing inter-vehicle control on the basis of said distance to said preceding vehicle and said average relative speed; and stability decision means for making a decision as to a recognition stability on said preceding vehicle on the basis of whether or not the highest intensity of said reflected wave selected by said selection means with respect to said preceding vehicle exceeds a predetermined reference intensity, wherein, when said stability decision means makes a decision that said preceding vehicle recognition stability is high, said calculation means enhances the influence of the latest relative speed in calculating said average relative speed.