Contact detection apparatus

A contact detection apparatus (10), comprising:

• an electrostatic sensor (7, 60) having a plurality of detection regions (LB, LF, RB, RF, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66) with which a conductor comes into contact;
• and
• a determination processor (30) detecting whether the conductor is in contact with the plurality of detection regions based on a capacitance equivalent value of each of the plurality of detection regions detected by the electrostatic sensor,
• wherein the determination processor comprises:
• a storage unit (31) storing a setting reference value (41) which is a capacitance equivalent value corresponding to a state where the conductor is not in contact with each of the plurality of detection regions, a determination reference value (42) of each of the plurality of detection regions, and a threshold value (43) commonly or individually associated with each of the plurality of detection regions;
• a determination reference value setting unit (32) setting the determination reference value of each of the plurality of detection regions by an initial process that is performed after the contact detection apparatus is started;
• and
• a determination processing unit (33) detecting whether the conductor is in contact by comparing the capacitance equivalent value with the determination reference value in each of the plurality of detection regions after the initial process,
• wherein the determination reference value setting unit
• determines a detection region in which a difference between the capacitance equivalent value and the setting reference value exceeds the threshold value among the plurality of detection regions as a contact region with which the conductor is in contact,
• determines a detection region in which the difference between the capacitance equivalent value and the setting reference value is equal to or less than the threshold value among the plurality of detection regions as a non-contact region with which the conductor is not in contact, and
• sets the setting reference value corresponding to the non-contact region as the determination reference value of the contact region for the contact region in response to determining that the contact region exists and determining that the non-contact region exists.