Patent ID: 7248962

Claim:
System for evaluating the traffic environment of a motor vehicle and for influencing the speed of the motor vehicle in its own traffic lane, comprising an electronic control unit (ECU) operable to determine the number of traffic lanes of a road upon which the motor vehicle is traveling and operable to determine along which of said determined traffic lanes the system motor vehicle is traveling, which is connected to a signal transmitter that produces a signal characteristic of the desired speed of the motor vehicle, a signal transmitter that produces a signal characteristic of the yaw of the motor vehicle about its vertical axis, a signal transmitter that produces a signal characteristic of the articles situated, in the direction of travel of the motor vehicle, in front of the motor vehicle in terms of their spacing and orientation relative to the motor vehicle and which is at least one of the speed relative to the speed of the system motor vehicle the spacing relative to the system motor vehicle; and the angular offset or the cross track distance relative to the vehicle longitudinal axis of the system motor vehicle, and a signal transmitter that produces a signal characteristic of the speed of at least one wheel of the motor vehicle, and which is connected to at least one control device, which influences the performance of the motor vehicle, in order to supply said device with output signals derived from the performance of the motor vehicle situated in front of the system motor vehicle, in which in the electronic control unit (ECU) the behaviour of the other articles moving in the space in front of the system motor vehicle is evaluated in order to infer therefrom how many traffic lanes the road has and along which of said traffic lanes the system motor vehicle is moving, wherein in the electronic control unit (ECU) from the existing traffic lanes in each case at most two moving articles are selected and designated as priority articles once they have been detected as moving in front of the system motor vehicle for a period of time exceeding a minimum value.