Patent ID: 8781643

Claim:
A vehicle control device that controls vehicle behavior in such a manner that, when a host vehicle approaches an obstacle, the host vehicle does not come into contact with the obstacle, the vehicle control device comprising: obstacle detection means that detects a size of an obstacle which is existing around the host vehicle and a relative position and a relative speed of the detected obstacle with respect to the host vehicle; vehicle motion detection means that detects a motion state of the host vehicle; and obstacle virtual linking means that virtually links a plurality of obstacles detected by the obstacle detection means and recognizes the plurality of obstacles as one obstacle, wherein the obstacle virtual linking means comprises obstacle link length setting means that sets an obstacle link length, which serves as a determination criterion for linking obstacles with each other, and determines the obstacle link length based on the relative position and relative speed of an obstacle with respect to the host vehicle, as well as on the size of the host vehicle, and the obstacle virtual linking means executes a linking of the plurality of obstacles if a gap between the plurality of obstacles is shorter than the obstacle link length, whereas the obstacle virtual linking means does not execute the linking of the plurality of obstacles if a gap between the plurality of obstacles is longer than the obstacle link length, wherein the vehicle behavior is controlled based on the results of such determination.