Pedestrian protection device

A pedestrian protection device for a vehicle, the pedestrian protection device being configured to operate a pedestrian protection mechanism in response to a collision input to a collision detection sensor, the pedestrian protection device comprising:

• a surrounding environment recognition device configured to acquire surrounding environment information of the vehicle;
• a vehicle speed sensor configured to detect a speed of the vehicle;
• the collision detection sensor configured to detect a collision between the vehicle and a three-dimensional object present around the vehicle;
• the pedestrian protection mechanism comprising:
• a pedestrian protection airbag;
• and
• an inflator;
• and
• a control unit comprising:
• a pedestrian collision determiner configured to perform a determination on whether a collision of a pedestrian with the vehicle has occurred, based on an output of the surrounding environment recognition device, an output of the vehicle speed sensor, and an output of the collision detection sensor;
• and
• an airbag activation instruction unit configured to output an instruction signal for activating the pedestrian protection mechanism based on the determination of the pedestrian collision determiner, wherein
• the control unit is configured to calculate, based on the output of the surrounding environment recognition device and the output of the vehicle speed sensor, a time to collision for a recognized pedestrian, and
• when the time to collision for the recognized pedestrian is within a predetermined number of seconds and the recognized pedestrian is recognized before the collision input to the collision detection sensor is detected, the pedestrian collision determiner is configured to determine that the vehicle has collided with the recognized pedestrian even in a case where
• a vehicle speed value detected by the vehicle speed sensor is within a predetermined range of pedestrian collision determination vehicle speed values, and
• a detection value obtained by the collision detection sensor does not exceed a predetermined threshold.