Patent Document ID: 9064419
Application ID: 14114058
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A driver condition determination device that determines whether a driver of a vehicle has degraded consciousness, comprising: a proximity calculating section that calculates the proximity to a preceding vehicle positioned in front of the vehicle, using a proximity sense indicator that is an indicator that indicates a sense of proximity of the vehicle to the preceding vehicle; an operation condition detecting section that detects an accelerating operation condition of the driver corresponding to the proximity of the vehicle to the preceding vehicle; and a degraded consciousness determining section that determines that the driver has the degraded consciousness when a gap between the accelerating operation condition of the driver detected by the operation condition detecting section and a normal accelerating operation condition exceeds a preset value, wherein the proximity sense indicator is calculated by the following Expression PRE =(Vr +α. Vs +β·Ax)/D n and PRE represents the proximity sense indicator, Vr represents the relative speed of the host vehicle with respect to the preceding vehicle, Vs represents the vehicle speed of the host vehicle, Ax represents the relative acceleration of the host vehicle with respect to the preceding vehicle, D represents the inter-vehicle distance between the host vehicle and the preceding vehicle, Gt and 13 are predetermined coefficients, and n is a predetermined positive real number of 1 or less.