The technology relates to a vehicle driving assist apparatus that assists a driver in driving a vehicle.
Various proposals have been made on a technique related to an automatic driving control for a vehicle driving assist apparatus. Examples of the automatic driving control may include a lane keep assist control that keeps an own vehicle within a lane and a lane changing control that allows the own vehicle to make a lane change from a current lane to an adjacent lane.
As an example of a technique that allows for making of a lane change from a current traveling lane of the own vehicle to a target lane adjacent the current traveling lane in such an automatic driving control, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. 2014-61792 discloses a technique that assists making of the lane change of the own vehicle to the target lane on the basis of a target path. The technique disclosed in JP-A No. 2014-61792 assists making of the lane change to the target lane through: calculating an end point of a target track; and setting, as the target path, a traveling path by which the own vehicle is able to reach, in a preset time, the end point from a start point of the lane change. The end point is a point at which making of the lane change of the own vehicle ends, and is calculated by taking factors including a speed of the own vehicle and a time required for making the lane change into consideration. The target path is, in other words, a target traveling path. JP-A No. 2014-61792 also discloses a technique that recalculates the end point to thereby recalculate the target traveling path on the basis of the recalculated end point. The end point is recalculated in accordance with factors including a change in traveling state of a vehicle present in the target lane.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds