Apparatus for assisting driving of vehicle and method thereof

A method of assisting driving of a vehicle, the method comprising:

• obtaining image data by a camera installed in the vehicle, the camera having a rear field of view of the vehicle;
• identifying a rear object that interferes with a driving of the vehicle and determining at least one of a size and a weight of the rear object based on processing the image data;
• adaptively adjusting at least one of a first reference time and a second reference time, stored in a memory, based on the determined the size or the weight of the rear object,
• wherein the adaptively adjusting comprises increasing the first reference time and the second reference time when it is determined that either the size or the weight of the rear object is relatively larger or heavier, in response to an increased risk of damage associated with the relatively larger or heavier rear object;
• outputting a message for inducing a lane change of the vehicle based on an expected collision time remaining until a collision between the vehicle and the rear object being less than or equal to the adaptively adjusted first reference time;
• and
• applying a first torque for performing the lane change of the vehicle based on the expected collision time being less than or equal to the adaptively adjusted second reference time.

A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing instructions, the instructions comprising:

• obtaining image data by a camera installed in a vehicle and having a rear field of view of the vehicle;
• identifying a rear object that interferes with a driving of the vehicle and determining at least one of a size and a weight of the rear object based on processing the image data;
• adaptively adjusting at least one of a first reference time and a second reference time based on the determined the size or the weight of the rear object,
• wherein the adaptively adjusting comprises increasing at least one of the first reference time and the second reference time when it is determined that either the size or the weight of the rear object is relatively larger or heavier, in response to an increased risk of damage associated with the relatively larger or heavier rear object;
• outputting a message for inducing a lane change of the vehicle based on an expected collision time remaining until a collision between the vehicle and the rear object being less than or equal to the adaptively adjusted first reference time;
• and
• applying a first torque for performing the lane change of the vehicle based on the expected collision time being less than or equal to the adaptively adjusted second reference time that is smaller than the first reference time.