| CPC B60W 30/162 (2013.01) [B60W 30/165 (2013.01); B60W 40/076 (2013.01); B60W 40/105 (2013.01); B60W 40/107 (2013.01); B60W 2510/18 (2013.01)] | 18 Claims |
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1. A motorcycle-drive assistance apparatus that assists a motorcycle to follow another vehicle existing in front thereof, comprising:
an object detector that detects said another vehicle;
a road-surface gradient angle calculator that calculates a gradient angle of a road-surface on which the motorcycle is traveling;
a motorcycle speed calculator that calculates a motorcycle speed, which is a vehicle speed of the motorcycle;
an engine-brake acceleration value calculator that calculates an acceleration value of the motorcycle, obtained through an engine brake, at a time of a driving state where the motorcycle can operate the engine brake;
a deceleration-start inter-vehicle distance calculator that calculates a deceleration-start inter-vehicle distance between the motorcycle and said another vehicle at a time when the motorcycle starts to decelerate through the engine brake; and
an engine-brake acceleration value memory that stores an acceleration value calculated by the engine-brake acceleration value calculator,
wherein the deceleration-start inter-vehicle distance calculator reads an acceleration value corresponding to a motorcycle speed calculated by the motorcycle speed calculator and a gradient angle calculated by the road-surface gradient angle calculator from the engine-brake acceleration value memory and then calculates the deceleration-start inter-vehicle distance based on the acceleration value read from the engine-brake acceleration value memory, and
wherein when an inter-vehicle distance between the motorcycle and said another vehicle becomes smaller than the deceleration-start inter-vehicle distance calculated by the deceleration-start inter-vehicle distance calculator, deceleration of the motorcycle through the engine brake is started.
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