Patent Document ID: 9064155
Application ID: 13821470
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A guidance device comprising: a marker object identification unit that identifies a marker object, the marker object being a mark of a guidance target point on a route that is set; an image acquisition unit that acquires a surrounding image of a vehicle; a recognition confidence level calculation unit that performs image recognition based on the surrounding image and a template used for image recognition of the marker object, and calculates a recognition confidence level used to determine if the marker object can be recognized in the surrounding image; an increase determination unit that determines if the recognition confidence level calculated based on the surrounding image acquired between a guidance output point and the guidance target point has increased as compared with the recognition confidence level calculated based on the surrounding image acquired at the guidance output point, the guidance output point being a position located before the guidance target point and provided for outputting guidance on the guidance target point; a storage unit that stores an image of the marker object, which is generated based on the surrounding image acquired at the guidance output point, as a new template for use in image recognition of the marker object if the increase determination unit determines that the recognition confidence level has increased; a recognition determination unit that, based on the recognition confidence level, determines whether the marker object can he recognized at the guidance output point; and a guidance unit that outputs guidance on the guidance target point using the marker object if the recognition determination unit determines that the marker object can be recognized, wherein if the recognition determination unit determines that the marker object cannot be recognized at the guidance output point, the storage unit stores an image of the marker object, generated based on the surrounding image acquired at the guidance output point, as the new template; and if the recognition determination unit determines that the marker object can be recognized at the guidance output point, the storage unit does not stores an image of the marker object as the new template.