Patent ID: 8611609

Claim:
A lane line estimating apparatus comprising: an imaging unit mounted on a vehicle and configured to image an external environment of the vehicle; a storage unit configured to store data of a lane-line width for each of plural predetermined lane-line types; a lane-line candidate point setting unit configured to detect left-hand and right-hand lane-line detection points on a driving lane, on which the vehicle runs, based upon an image of the external environment imaged by the imaging unit, and to set lane-line candidate points on locations, at a space of the lane-line width for each of plural predetermined lane-line types on lane-lines opposite to the detected left-hand and right-hand lane-line detection points; a curve approximation processing unit configured to obtain a curve approximation equation based upon the lane-line detection points and the lane-line candidate points set on a lane-line of the lane-line detection points, in order to set virtual lines on lane-lines on a left side and on a right side of the driving lane from the curve approximation equation; and a lane-line type estimating unit configured to obtain a dispersion of the virtual lines set by the curve approximation processing unit so as to estimate the lane-line type of at least one of the left-hand and right-hand virtual lines from the pair of left-hand and right-hand virtual lines indicating a smallest dispersion.