Patent ID: 8489286

Claim:
A vehicle operation supporting device for a vehicle travelling on a road with travel lanes comprising: a side obstacle detector for detecting a presence of an obstacle in a lane on a side of the vehicle; an intention detector that detects an intention of the driver to change from a current lane to the lane of the obstacle; a future position predictor that predicts a future position of the vehicle after a prescribed time passes starting from when the obstacle is detected by the side obstacle detector; and an obstacle avoiding controller configured to perform the following control: determine whether the vehicle may enter the lane of the obstacle based on the future position of the vehicle predicted by the future position predictor; determine a control start timing responsive to determining that the vehicle may enter the lane of the obstacle; apply obstacle avoiding control to prevent approach of the vehicle to the obstacle responsive to the control start timing; and shorten the control start timing of the obstacle avoiding control when the intention detector detects that the driver intends to enter the lane of the obstacle, in part by modifying at least one parameter utilized by the future position predictor or the obstacle avoiding controller wherein the intention of the driver to change from the current lane to the lane of the obstacle is a probability that the driver intends to enter the lane of the obstacle; and wherein the obstacle avoiding controller is configured to shorten the control start timing as the probability that the driver intends to enter the lane of the obstacle increases.