External environment recognition apparatus

An external environment recognition apparatus comprising:

• an in-vehicle detector configured to perform scanning irradiation of electromagnetic waves in a first direction within a field of view and in a second direction intersecting the first direction, and to acquire, frame by frame, point cloud data including three-dimensional position information of detection points on surfaces of objects around a subject vehicle based on reflected waves from the objects;
• and
• a microprocessor, wherein
• the microprocessor is configured to perform:
• recognizing, as road surface information, a road surface of a road on which the subject vehicle travels and a three-dimensional object on the road based on the point cloud data of each frame;
• determining, based on a predetermined size of a predetermined three-dimensional object set as a recognition target and a measurement distance from the subject vehicle to the three-dimensional object based on the point cloud data, an interval of the detection points required for the point cloud data of a next frame;
• and
• when a maximum depth distance of the road surface in a traveling direction of the subject vehicle recognized as the road surface is shorter than a required depth distance based on a vehicle speed of the subject vehicle, predicting a gradient of a portion of the road surface that is not recognized, based on gradient information associated with map information in which the road is recorded, wherein
• when the gradient is predicted, the microprocessor is further configured to determine, for a range from the maximum depth distance to the required depth distance, the interval of the detection points required for the point cloud data of the next frame, based on the predetermined size of the predetermined three-dimensional object and an estimated distance from the subject vehicle to the three-dimensional object estimated from the map information and the gradient.