US 6,138,062 AGranted

Automatic travel controlling device

AssigneeToyota Jidoshia Kabushiki Kaisha

InventorMasayuki Usami

Life of this patent

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Abstract

An automatic travel controlling device capable of reliably guiding a vehicle along a lane even if the white lane lines cannot be detected. A laser radar device for detecting the distance to a side wall of the lane is provided to the left and right in addition to a CCD camera for detecting the white lane lines. An image from the CCD camera is supplied to a image processor ECU, and an extracted white line is supplied to a vehicle controlling ECU. A vehicle controlling ECU drives a steering actuator to perform steering control based on two white lines of the lane when detected. However, when the white lines cannot be detected, steering control based on the distances to the side walls is performed. If an obstacle is detected ahead by the laser radar device, the vehicle position is detected based on the distances to the side walls and a lane change is performed to evade the obstacle.

Claims4

Dependent claims

An automatic travel controlling device comprising:

first detecting means for detecting a vehicle position by detecting a lane line;
second detecting means for detecting the vehicle position by detecting the distance to a side wall of a road;
evaluating means for evaluating a detection accuracy of said first detecting means;
and
controlling means for executing, based on the detection accuracy of said first detecting means, steering control based on the vehicle position that was detected by one of said first detecting means and second detecting means, wherein said evaluating means estimates a future detection accuracy based on a future travel path of the vehicle, said future travel path is a travel path accompanying a lane change by the vehicle, said evaluating means estimates said future detection accuracy lower than a predetermined value, and said controlling means executes, when said future detection accuracy is lower than the predetermined value, steering control based on the vehicle position that was detected by said second detecting means.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 08/887,335Filed 2 Jul 1997
Priority: JP 8-18498815 Jul 1996
Granted: 24 Oct 2000
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification11 codes

G05D 1/0246
Using optical position detecting means: using a video camera in combination with image processing means
B62D 15/026
Active steering aids, e.g. helping the driver by actively influencing the steering system after environment evaluation: combined with automatic…
B62D 15/0265
Active steering aids, e.g. helping the driver by actively influencing the steering system after environment evaluation: automatic obstacle…
G05D 1/0238
Using optical position detecting means: using obstacle or wall sensors