Vehicle lighting control apparatus, vehicle lighting control method, and computer readable medium

1. A vehicle lighting control apparatus comprising

processing circuitry to:

detect a target object present outside an illumination range of a low beam of a vehicle, using a far-infrared camera;

illuminate a range in which the detected target object is present with a marking light that can illuminate an area at a greater distance when compared with the low beam; and

detect a location of the target object present in a range illuminated by the marking light, using a visible-light camera,

wherein when the location of the target object is detected, the processing circuitry illuminates the detected location of the target object with the marking light.

2. The vehicle lighting control apparatus according to claim 1 ,

wherein the processing circuitry stops illumination with the marking light when the target object has entered the illumination range of the low beam.

3. The vehicle lighting control apparatus according to claim 1 ,

wherein the processing circuitry reduces an intensity of illumination with the marking light when the target object has entered the illumination range of the low beam.

4. The vehicle lighting control apparatus according to claim 1 ,

wherein the processing circuitry changes at least one of a color of light emitted by the marking light and an intensity of light emitted by the marking light, depending on a distance between the vehicle and the target object.

5. The vehicle lighting control apparatus according to claim 3 ,

wherein the processing circuitry determines a distance between the vehicle and the target object based on the detected location of the target object and a location of the vehicle.

6. The vehicle lighting control apparatus according to claim 1 ,

wherein the processing circuitry predicts a collision location where there is a probability of collision between the vehicle and the target object, and illuminates the collision location with the marking light.

7. The vehicle lighting control apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising

a memory to store a horizontal illumination direction of the marking light corresponding to a horizontal pixel location of an image obtained by the far-infrared camera,

wherein the processing circuitry identifies a range in which the detected target object is present by referring to the memory, and illuminates the identified range with the marking light.

8. A vehicle lighting control method comprising:

detecting a target object present outside an illumination range of a low beam of a vehicle, using a far-infrared camera;

illuminating a range in which the detected target object is present with a marking light that can illuminate an area at a greater distance when compared with the low beam; and

detecting a location of the target object present in a range illuminated by the marking light, using a visible-light camera,

wherein when the location of the target object is detected, the detected location of the target object is illuminated with the marking light.

9. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a vehicle lighting control program for causing a computer to execute:

a first detection process to detect a target object present outside an illumination range of a low beam of a vehicle, using a far-infrared camera; and

a light control process to illuminate a range in which the target object detected by the first detection process is present with a marking light that can illuminate an area at a greater distance when compared with the low beam; and

a second detection process to detect a location of the target object present in a range illuminated by the marking light, using a visible-light camera,

wherein when the location of the target object is detected by the second detection process, the location of the target object detected by the second detection process is illuminated with the marking light in the light control process.