Drive assist apparatus for tracking moving objects temporarily obscured by nearby stationary objects

A drive assist apparatus comprising:

• a driving environment information obtaining unit configured to obtain driving environment information ahead of a vehicle;
• a target course setter configured to set a target course for autonomous driving set ahead of the vehicle;
• an object recognizer configured to recognize, based on the driving environment information, a moving object and a stationary object that are on a sidewalk;
• an object detection area setter configured to set an object detection area for detecting the moving object on the sidewalk ahead of the vehicle;
• and
• a driving control arithmetic unit configured to control a driving state of the vehicle in a case where the moving object on the sidewalk is detected in the object detection area, wherein
• the driving control arithmetic unit configured to:
• determine whether, due to movement of the vehicle, the moving object on the sidewalk at a position corresponding to a sharp curvature section of the target course where a curvature changes sharply is lost from view behind the stationary object closer to the vehicle than the moving object;
• in response to determining that the moving object is not lost from view behind the stationary object, set a first lost retention time period for retaining data of the moving object;
• in response to determining that the moving object is lost from view behind the stationary object, set a second lost retention time period for retaining the data of the moving object, the second lost retention time period being longer than the first lost retention period;
• and
• in response to the second lost retention time period being set for retaining the data of the moving object, set a passing speed while the vehicle passes the sharp curvature section of the target course to a value less than a speed set during the first lost retention time period,
• the object detection area setter comprises a stop area setter configured to set a stop area ahead of the vehicle, and
• the driving control arithmetic unit is configured to, under passing-sharp-curvature control, stop the vehicle in a case where the moving object is detected in the stop area, the moving object having moved from the sidewalk.