Cruise control device and cruise control method for vehicles

A cruise control method for providing a following control of a target leading vehicle by a following vehicle, the following vehicle equipped with an image capturing device configured to capture an image of the view ahead of the following vehicle, the cruise control method comprising:

• recognizing a lane defining line defining a lane on which the following vehicle is traveling based on the image captured by the image capturing device;
• selecting/canceling a vehicle traveling ahead of the following vehicle as/from being the target leading vehicle for providing the following control based on the relative position of the following vehicle in the vehicle width direction with respect to a recognized defining line which is the lane defining line,
• a vehicle ahead of the following vehicle on the lane to which the following vehicle is moving being selected as the target leading vehicle, and
• a vehicle ahead of the following vehicle within the lane from which the own vehicle is moving being canceled from being the target leading vehicle;
• and
• outputting a control signal to control a vehicle speed of the following vehicle to keep a distance between the following vehicle and the target leading vehicle.

A cruise control device for providing a following control of a target leading vehicle by a following vehicle, the following vehicle equipped with an image capturing device configured to capture an image of the view ahead of the following vehicle, the cruise control device comprising:

• a non-transitory computer-readable memory;
• a processor communicable to the non-transitory computer-readable memory;
• and
• a set of computer-executable instructions stored on the non-transitory computer-readable memory that cause the processor to implement:
• recognizing a lane defining line defining a lane on which the following vehicle is traveling, based on the image captured by the image capturing device;
• selecting/canceling a vehicle traveling ahead of the following vehicle as/from being the target leading vehicle for providing the following control based on the relative position of the following vehicle in the vehicle width direction with respect to a recognized defining line which is the lane defining line,
• a vehicle ahead of the following vehicle within the lane to which the following vehicle moving being selected as the target leading vehicle, and
• a vehicle ahead of the following vehicle within the lane from which the own vehicle is moving being canceled from being the target leading vehicle;
• and
• outputting a control signal to control a vehicle speed of the following vehicle to keep a distance between the following vehicle and the target leading vehicle.