Vehicle periphery monitoring apparatus

A vehicle periphery monitoring apparatus, comprising:

• a camera installed in a front or rear of a vehicle, for picking up images of a side view of the vehicle;
• a feature point detecting unit that detects feature points in the side images and calculating motion vectors of the detected feature points;
• an approaching object detecting unit that detects an object having a vector in such a direction as to approach the vehicle in the side images as an approaching object based on the calculated motion vectors of the feature points;
• a feature point tracking unit that tracks the feature points of the detected approaching object;
• a passage time calculating unit that calculates a time at which the approaching object passes the front or rear of the vehicle from the feature points of the approaching object tracked by said feature point tracking unit;
• and
• an approach notifying unit that notifies a driver that the approaching object is approaching, the approaching notifying unit including first notifying means and second notifying means,
• wherein said approaching notifying unit notifies the driver that the approaching object is approaching only by the first notifying means when a length of the calculated time until which the approaching object is expected to pass the front or rear of the vehicle is shorter than a first predetermined time, and notifies the driver at least by the second notifying means when the length of the calculated time is shorter than a second predetermined time shorter than the first predetermined time, and further comprising speed detecting means for detecting a speed of the vehicle, and a brake control unit that controls a brake of the vehicle to stop the vehicle when the speed detected by said speed detecting unit it equal to or less than a predetermined speed and said passage time calculating unit determines that the approaching object is expected to pass the front or rear of the vehicle within a third predetermined time shorter than the second predetermined time.