Patent ID: 8144195

Claim:
A vehicle zone monitoring apparatus that detects a physical body present in the vicinity of the vehicle from infrared images photographed by a photographing device, comprising: an object extraction device that extracts an object that emits infrared radiation from said infrared images; an artificial structure identifying device that compares an image of a search zone in proximity to said object extracted by said object extraction device, to a reference image of a pre-registered artificial structure which serves as an element that defines an artificial structure, and that identifies said object as an artificial structure if: within said search zone in proximity to said object, a section having a high correlation with said reference image exists; and a distance between said vehicle and said object is equal to a distance between said vehicle and said section having the high correlation with said reference image; and an artificial structure eliminating device that eliminates objects identified to be artificial structure by said artificial structure identifying device from the object extracted by said object extracting device.