Abstract: A road configuration identifying device properly identifies the road configuration around a user's vehicle. A reliability level indicating whether the traveling paths of other vehicles in an area behind the user's vehicle which are detected by a radar positioning system, which are obtained by tracking other vehicles using an other vehicle tracking section, and the traveling path of the user's vehicle are traveling paths along the same road configuration is calculated by using the velocity v, acceleration dv, angular velocity d?, and the operation state of a direction indicator or the like of each vehicle. Then, the road configuration indicated by traveling paths having a high reliability level is predicted as the road configuration in the area behind the user's vehicle.

Abstract: There are provided an inter-vehicle distance detecting device and an inter-vehicle distance detecting method which can precisely measure an inter-vehicle distance from a user's own vehicle to a neighboring vehicle even if a radar becomes unable to detect the neighboring vehicle due to the influence of multipath or the like. If the radar does detect a neighboring vehicle, a width of the neighboring vehicle is calculated based on a precise inter-vehicle distance determined by the radar and a precise vehicle visual angle determined from an image taken by a camera, and is stored in a memory, and if the radar becomes unable to detect the neighboring vehicle, an inter-vehicle distance to the neighboring vehicle is calculated according to a trigonometric function based on the precise width of the neighboring vehicle previously stored in the memory and a precise vehicle visual angle determined from an image taken by the camera at this time.

Abstract: A road configuration identifying device properly identifies the road configuration around a user's vehicle. A reliability level indicating whether the traveling paths of other vehicles in an area behind the user's vehicle which are detected by a radar positioning system, which are obtained by tracking other vehicles using an other vehicle tracking section, and the traveling path of the user's vehicle are traveling paths along the same road configuration is calculated by using the velocity v, acceleration dv, angular velocity d?, and the operation state of a direction indicator or the like of each vehicle. Then, the road configuration indicated by traveling paths having a high reliability level is predicted as the road configuration in the area behind the user's vehicle.

Abstract: There are provided an inter-vehicle distance detecting device and an inter-vehicle distance detecting method which can precisely measure an inter-vehicle distance from a user's own vehicle to a neighboring vehicle even if a radar becomes unable to detect the neighboring vehicle due to the influence of multipath or the like. If the radar does detect a neighboring vehicle, a width of the neighboring vehicle is calculated based on a precise inter-vehicle distance determined by the radar and a precise vehicle visual angle determined from an image taken by a camera, and is stored in a memory, and if the radar becomes unable to detect the neighboring vehicle, an inter-vehicle distance to the neighboring vehicle is calculated according to a trigonometric function based on the precise width of the neighboring vehicle previously stored in the memory and a precise vehicle visual angle determined from an image taken by the camera at this time.