Patent ID: 8542128

Claim:
A parking assisting apparatus for assisting parking of a vehicle moving in a forward direction, comprising: obstacle detecting means for detecting an obstacle near the vehicle moving in the forward direction; parking space detecting means for detecting a parking space based on detected results of the obstacle detecting means; deflection angle calculating means for calculating a deflection angle α that represents a change amount of a direction of the vehicle in a predetermined travel distance before a current position of the vehicle, the deflection angle α being calculated based on an output from each of a steering angle sensor and a vehicle speed sensor; and information outputting means for outputting an initial notice that informs a driver that the parking space exists adjacent to the obstacle detected by the obstacle detecting means, wherein the information outputting means determines whether to output the initial notice based on the deflection angle α calculated by the deflection angle calculating means, and wherein the initial notice is output if the parking space adjacent to the obstacle detected by the obstacle detecting means is detected by the parking space detecting means, and if an absolute value of the deflection angle α calculated by the deflection angle calculating means is within a predetermined range of 0<|α|<θ1, where θ1 is a predetermined value.