Vehicle driving support apparatus

A vehicle driving support apparatus comprising:

• a surroundings monitoring sensor configured to acquire target object information including position information indicative of a longitudinal distance with respect to an own vehicle of a preceding vehicle traveling in a front area of said own vehicle and a lateral distance with respect to said own vehicle of said preceding vehicle, and a target object ID for identifying said preceding vehicle;
• and
• an electronic control unit including a processor programmed to, every time a predetermined time elapses:
• specify a following-travel steering target vehicle from among one or more of said preceding vehicles based on said target object information and a traveling direction of said own vehicle which is extrapolated based on a driving state of said own vehicle;
• acquire said target object ID of said specified following-travel steering vehicle as a target vehicle ID;
• and
• perform a following-travel steering control to change a steering angle of said own vehicle in such a manner that said own vehicle travels along a target traveling line,
• wherein,
• said electronic control unit is further programmed to:
• determine whether or not a present target vehicle ID which is said target vehicle ID lastly acquired and a previous target vehicle ID which is said target vehicle ID acquired before said present target vehicle ID is acquired are different from each other,
• when it is determined that said present target vehicle ID and said previous target vehicle ID are identical to each other, produce a traveling trajectory of said preceding vehicle having said present target vehicle ID based on said position information of said preceding vehicle having said present target vehicle ID and determine said target traveling line based on said produced traveling trajectory of said preceding vehicle having said present target vehicle ID;
• when it is determined that said present target vehicle ID and said previous target vehicle ID are different from each other, retain an already-present traveling trajectory and determine said target traveling line based on said retained already-present traveling trajectory for a specific period from a determination time point at which it is determined that said present target vehicle ID and said previous target vehicle ID are different from each other to a time point at which a first time elapses from said determination time point, said already-present traveling trajectory being said traveling trajectory produced based on said position information of said preceding vehicle having said previous target vehicle ID up to said determination time point;
• and
• when, in said specific period, a specific situation occurs where said preceding vehicle having an identical target object ID continues being specified as said following-travel steering target vehicle over a second time shorter than said first time in an area having a distance which is equal to or smaller than a predetermined threshold distance in a lane width direction with respect to said target traveling line determined based on said retained traveling trajectory, produce said traveling trajectory of said preceding vehicle having said identical target object ID in such a manner that said traveling trajectory of said preceding vehicle having said identical target object ID is continuous with said already-present traveling trajectory based on said position information of said preceding vehicle having said identical target object ID and said retained already-present traveling trajectory and determine said target traveling line based on said produced traveling trajectory of said preceding vehicle having said identical target object ID.