Vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus, method, and program

A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus, which is provided with a computer having an interface circuit for accessing data of images obtained by a plurality of image sensors mounted on a vehicle and detects objects existing around the vehicle by arithmetic processing performed by the computer, wherein the computer performs:

• an object extraction process of extracting the objects from a predetermined standard image of the images obtained by a plurality of the image sensors;
• a driving environment detection process of detecting a driving environment of the vehicle;
• and
• a standard image selection process of selecting anew a standard image for use in the process of the object extraction process out of the images obtained by a plurality of the image sensors according to the driving environment detected in the driving environment detection process.

A vehicle surroundings monitoring method which detects objects existing around a vehicle from images obtained by a plurality of image sensors mounted on the vehicle, comprising:

• an object extraction step of extracting the objects from a predetermined standard image of the images obtained by a plurality of the image sensors;
• a driving environment detection step of detecting a driving environment of the vehicle;
• and
• a standard image selection step of selecting anew a standard image for use in the process of the object extraction step out of the images obtained by a plurality of the image sensors according to the driving environment detected in the driving environment detection step.

A vehicle surroundings monitoring program, which causes a computer to perform a process of detecting objects existing around a vehicle from images obtained by a plurality of image sensors mounted on the vehicle, having functions of causing the computer to perform:

• an object extraction process of extracting the objects from a predetermined standard image of the images obtained by a plurality of the image sensors;
• a driving environment detection process of detecting a driving environment of the vehicle;
• and
• a standard image selection process of selecting anew a standard image for use in the object extraction process out of the images obtained by a plurality of the image sensors according to the driving environment detected in the driving environment detection process.