Road shape prediction apparatus, other-vehicle route prediction apparatus, and driving assistance apparatus

An other-vehicle route prediction apparatus comprising:

• a communicator provided in a reference vehicle to receive, through wireless communication, positional information pieces about other vehicles from the other vehicles that exist on a road on which the reference vehicle travels and that are in the vicinity of the reference vehicle;
• and
• a processor configured to execute:
• a reference-vehicle route predictor to predict a route of the reference vehicle, based on at least one of a driving state of the reference vehicle and a positional relationship between the reference vehicle and the other vehicles existing in the vicinity of the reference vehicle;
• an other-vehicle route predictor to predict the routes of the other vehicles existing in the vicinity of the reference vehicle, based on the positional information pieces, on about the other vehicles existing in the vicinity of the reference vehicle, that are obtained from the communicator;
• and
• an other-vehicle route prediction priority determiner to determine the priorities of areas in the vicinity of the reference vehicle in the case where the other-vehicle route predictor predicts the routes of the other vehicles for the route, of the reference vehicle, that is predicted by the reference-vehicle route predictor,
• wherein the other-vehicle route prediction priority determiner determines the priorities of the areas based on the driving state of the reference vehicle,
• wherein the other-vehicle route predictor predicts the routes of the other vehicles in such a way that the amount of positional information about a first other vehicle existing in the area, the priority, determined by the other-vehicle route prediction priority determiner, of which is high is made to be larger than the amount of positional information about a second other vehicle existing in an area other than the high-priority area, and
• wherein the other-vehicle route predictor predicts the routes of the other vehicles in such a way that the amount of positional information about a third other vehicle existing in the area, the priority, determined by the other-vehicle route prediction priority determiner, of which is low is made to be smaller than the amount of positional information on the first other vehicle existing in the high-priority area.

A driving assistance apparatus comprising:

• a communicator provided in a reference vehicle to receive, through wireless communication, positional information pieces about other vehicles from the other vehicles that exist on a road on which the reference vehicle travels and that are in the vicinity of the reference vehicle;
• and
• a processor configured to execute:
• a reference-vehicle route predictor to predict a route of the reference vehicle, based on at least one of a driving state of the reference vehicle and a positional relationship between the reference vehicle and the other vehicles existing in the vicinity of the reference vehicle,
• a road shape predictor to predict the shape of the road on which the reference vehicle travels, based on the positional information pieces, on the other vehicles existing in the vicinity of the reference vehicle, that are obtained from the communicator,
• a road shape prediction priority determiner to determine the priorities of areas in the vicinity of the reference vehicle, for which the road shape predictor predicts the shape of the road,
• an other-vehicle route predictor to predict the routes of the other vehicles existing in the vicinity of the reference vehicle, based on the positional information pieces, on about the other vehicles existing in the vicinity of the reference vehicle, that are obtained from the communicator,
• an other-vehicle route prediction priority determiner to determine the priorities of areas in the vicinity of the reference vehicle, for which the other-vehicle route predictor predicts the routes of the other vehicles,
• a collision determiner to determine a risk of collision between the reference vehicle and the other vehicles, based on the route, of the reference vehicle, that is predicted by the reference-vehicle route predictor and the routes, of the other vehicles, that are predicted by the other-vehicle route predictor, and
• a driving assistor to perform driving assistance for the reference vehicle in accordance with the risk of collision, determined by the collision determiner,
• wherein the road shape predictor predicts the shape of the road in such a way that the amount of positional information about a first other vehicle existing in the area, the priority, determined by the road shape prediction priority determiner, of which is high is made to be larger than the amount of positional information about a second other vehicle existing in an area other than the high-priority area, and
• wherein the road shape predictor predicts the shape of the road in such a way that the amount of positional information about a third other vehicle existing in the area, the priority, determined by the road shape prediction priority determiner, of which is low is made to be smaller than the amount of positional information about the first other vehicle existing in the high-priority area.