Autonomous driving system

An autonomous driving system comprising:

• a camera that images a situation around the vehicle;
• and
• an electronic control unit configured to:
• acquire driving environment information indicating a driving environment for a vehicle, the driving environment includes a number of surrounding vehicles, the driving environment information includes image information imaged by the camera;
• and
• control autonomous driving of the vehicle based on the driving environment information,
• wherein a forward event is an event that exists in front of the vehicle and causes the electronic control unit to change a travel state of the vehicle,
• wherein the electronic control unit is configured to perform:
• event detection processing that detects the forward event based on the driving environment information;
• visually-recognizing timing estimation processing that estimates a visually-recognizing timing at which a driver of the vehicle is able to visually-recognize the forward event;
• and
• travel control processing that proposes or executes, at or after the visually-recognizing timing, travel control that changes the travel state according to the forward event,
• wherein the visually-recognizing timing estimation processing includes:
• processing that recognizes, based on the image information, an item indicating the forward event;
• and
• processing that regards a timing after a first timing when the item is recognized as the visually-recognizing timing,
• wherein the visually-recognizing timing is after the first timing by a delay time,
• wherein the electronic control unit variably sets the delay time according to the driving environment such that the delay time increases as the number of surrounding vehicles becomes larger.

A method comprising:

• capturing image information, by a camera, to image a situation around a vehicle;
• acquiring, by an electronic control unit, driving environment information indicating a driving environment for a vehicle, the driving environment information includes the image information, the driving environment includes visibility that depends on weather or hour;
• controlling, by the electronic control unit, autonomous driving of the vehicle based on the driving environment information;
• detecting, by the electronic control unit, a forward event based on the driving environment information, the forward event is an event that exists in front of the vehicle and causes the electronic control unit to change a travel state of the vehicle;
• estimating, by the electronic control unit, a visually-recognizing timing at which a driver of the vehicle is able to visually-recognize the forward event by:
• recognizing, by the electronic control unit, an item indicating the forward event based on the image information, and
• processing, by the electronic control unit, that regards a timing after a first timing when the item is recognized as the visually-recognizing timing;
• and
• executing, by the electronic control unit, travel control that changes the travel state of the vehicle according to the forward event at or after the visually-recognizing timing,
• wherein the visually-recognizing timing is after the first timing by a delay time, and
• wherein the delay time is variably set according to the driving environment such that the delay time increases as the visibility becomes lower.