Method and apparatus for recognizing shape of road

An apparatus for recognizing a road shape, comprising:

• radar means for applying a transmission wave to a predetermined angular range in a width-wise direction of a vehicle and for detecting each object based upon a reflected wave which results from reflection of the transmission wave;
• and
• recognizing means for recognizing a shape of a road extending ahead of the vehicle based upon a result of detection by the radar means;
• wherein the recognizing means comprises:
• 1) object-unit data generating means for generating object-unit data pieces containing at least data pieces representing distances to objects in correspondence with vehicle-width-wise direction angles based upon the result of the detection by the radar means;
• 2) object recognizing means for determining whether each object is moving or stationary based upon a speed of the vehicle and a relative speed of the object which is derived from the reflected wave;
• 3) effective data extracting means for extracting objects from the object-unit data pieces which are effective for road shape recognition based upon a result of the determination by the object recognizing means;
• 4) road-side-object group data generating means for grouping objects of the extracted effective object-unit data pieces which represent monotonically increasing distances as viewed along a clockwise angle direction to generate data representative of a first road-side-object group, for grouping ones of the extracted effective object-unit data pieces which represent monotonically increasing distances as viewed along a counterclockwise angle direction to generate data representative of a second road-side-object group, for determining whether or not a farthest object in the first road-side-object group and a farthest object in the second road-side-object group are the same, for, when the farthest objects are the same, removing the farthest object from the first and second road-side-object groups and changing the first and second road-side-object groups into third and fourth road-side-object groups respectively, and for generating data representative of the third road-side-object group and data representative of the fourth road-side-object group;
• and
• 5) road edge recognizing means for recognizing a first road edge based upon the data representative of the third road-size-object group and for recognizing a second road edge based upon the data representative of the fourth road-side-object group.

An apparatus for recognizing a road shape, comprising:

• radar means for applying a transmission wave to a predetermining angular range in a width-wise direction of a vehicle and for detecting each object based upon a reflected wave which results from reflection of the transmission wave;
• and
• recognizing means for recognizing a shape of a road extending ahead of the vehicle based upon a result of detection by the radar means;
• wherein the recognizing means comprises:
• 1) object-unit data generating means for generating object-unit data pieces containing at least data pieces representing distances to objects in correspondence with vehicle-width-wise direction angles based upon the result of the detection by the radar means;
• 2) object recognizing means for determining whether each object is moving or stationary based upon a speed of the vehicle and a relative speed of the object which is derived from the reflected wave;
• 3) effective data extracting means for extracting objects from the object-unit data pieces which are effective for road shape recognition based upon a result of the determination by the object recognizing means;
• 4) road-side object group data generating means for grouping objects of the extracted effective object-unit data pieces which represent monotonically increasing distances as viewed along a clockwise angle direction to generate data representative of a first road-side-object group, for grouping ones of the extracted effective object-unit data pieces which represent monotonically increasing distances as viewed along a counterclockwise angle direction to generate data representative of a second road-side-object group, for determining whether or not a farthest object in the first road-side-object group and a farthest object in the second road-side-object group are the same, for, when the farthest object in the first and second road-side-object group is the same, determining which of the first and second road-side-object groups has a higher possibility of actually containing the farthest object based upon positional relationships among the farthest object and other objects in the first and second road-side-object groups, for keeping the farthest object in one of the first and second road-side-object groups which corresponds to the higher possibility and removing the farthest object from the other of the first and second road-side-object groups to generate a third and a fourth road-side-object groups from the first and second road-side-object groups respectively, and for generating data representative of the third road-side-object group and data representative of the fourth road-side-object group;
• and
• 5) road edge recognizing means for recognizing a first road edge based upon the data representative of the third road-side-object group and for recognizing a second road edge based upon the data representative of the fourth road-side-object group.

A method for recognizing a road shape, comprising:

• applying a transmission wave to a predetermining angular range in a width-wise direction of a vehicle;
• detecting each object based upon a reflected wave which results from reflection of the transmission wave;
• and
• recognizing a shape of a road extending ahead of the vehicle based upon the detecting of each object based upon a reflected wave which results from reflection of the transmission wave;
• wherein the method of recognizing a shape of a road extending ahead of the vehicle based upon the detecting further comprises:
• (1) generating object-unit data containing at least data representing distances to objects in correspondence with vehicle-width-wise direction angles based upon results of the detecting of each object based upon a reflected wave which results from reflection of the transmission wave;
• (2) determining whether each object is moving or stationary based upon a speed of the vehicle and a relative speed of the object as derived from the reflected wave;
• (3) extracting objects from the object-unit data which are effective for road shape recognition based upon results of the determining whether each object is moving or stationary based upon a speed of the vehicle and a relative speed of the object which is derived from the reflected wave;
• (4) grouping objects of the extracted effective object-unit data which represent monotonically increasing distances as viewed along one of clockwise and counterclockwise angular directions to generate data representative of a road-side-object group;
• (5) determining a farthest object in the data representative of the road-side-object group;
• (6) determining if the road-side-object group actually contains the farthest object based upon a higher possibility of containing the farthest object on the basis of positional relationships among the farthest object and other objects in the road-side-object group;
• and
• (7) removing the farthest object from the road-side-object group if it is determined that the road-side-object group does not contain the farthest object based upon the higher possibility of positional relationships among the farthest object and other objects in the road-side-object group.