Patent ID: 7224309

Claim:
A preceding-vehicle detecting apparatus comprising: a recognizer configured to recognize a measuring-target point group which is assumable to be a preceding vehicle; and a decider configured to decide, the measuring-target point group having been continuously recognized by the recognizing part over a significant period of time, to be the preceding vehicle, wherein the recognizer comprises: a transmitting part emitting scan waves in a forward direction of an own vehicle; a receiving part receiving reflected waves of the scan waves; a measuring-target-point setting part setting measuring-target points based on the reflected waves; a distance calculating part calculating a distance from the own vehicle to each measuring-target point and the position of the measuring-target point, based on the reflected waves; a distance-change calculating part calculating changes between the distances in a previous cycle and those in a current cycle, respectively; a relative-velocity calculating part calculating a relative velocity of each measuring-target point with respect to the own vehicle, based on the applicable distance change; a by-velocity group generating part grouping the measuring-target points by relative velocities, thereby generating by-velocity groups; a measuring-target-point-group generating part single-connecting measuring-target points with each other in each by-velocity group based on positions of the measuring-target points, thereby generating measuring-target point groups, respectively; and a measuring-target-point-group extracting part extracting those measuring-target point groups among the measuring-target point groups, which meet the conditions for preceding vehicle, respectively; and wherein the decider comprises a temporal continuity judging part regarding that measuring-target point group as a preceding vehicle, which has been continuously extracted a first prescribed number of times or more times.