Patent ID: 7054730

Claim:
An irradiating direction control apparatus of a lighting unit for a vehicle, said apparatus changing an irradiating direction of the lighting unit depending on an attitude of the vehicle that is based on information detected by vehicle height detecting means, said apparatus comprising: identifying means for determining a change in a load state of the vehicle corresponding to at least one of a passenger or a carrying capacity; storage means for storing data indicative of an installation error of the vehicle height detecting means, based on a difference between a reference vehicle height value corresponding to a load state of the vehicle determined by the identifying means and an actual vehicle height value, by using the reference vehicle height value in performing an initialization for eliminating an influence of the installation error on control performed by said control apparatus; and irradiation control means for obtaining the attitude of the vehicle based on an operation from vehicle height data corrected by using the data stored in the storage means for the data detected by the vehicle height detecting means and for controlling a direction of an optical axis of irradiation of the lighting unit for the vehicle, based on a result of the operation, wherein the reference vehicle height value changes when at least one of an operating signal in an initialization on an assembly line of the vehicle or a signal indicative of a state of a power source is detected, and said vehicle height changes when the signal is not detected.