Importance

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Abstract

A method and system for detecting a presence of a preceding vehicle moving in a front detection area of a controlled vehicle. In the method and system thereof, a plurality of laser or other kinds of beams are transmitted to any object present in the front detection area and the plurality of reflected beams are received so that the respective distances to the reflecting objects are measured on the basis of the propagation delay times between the transmission and reception of the beams. In the method and system thereof, each absolute difference between the current value of distance measured by any one of the beams and any one of previous value of distance measured by the corresponding or another one of the beams before a predetermined time (corresponds to an interruption time of a processing routine) is calculated and compared to a predetermined distance value which is relatively small in order to determine that the preceding vehicle which has been detected by any one of the beams within the predetermined time is the same as that which is currently detected by any one of the beams. Therefore, the presence of the preceding vehicle can accurately be detected without mistaking the preceding vehicle for another vehicle moving on a different traffic lane or as a stationary object located at either side of a traffic lane. This is true even when the controlled vehicle and preceding vehicle move on a curve road. Vehicle speed can be controlled to track the real preceding vehicle.

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First Claim