NOSE-VIEW MONITORING APPARATUS

The present invention relates to a nose-view monitoring apparatus, and it is an object of the invention to detect an approaching object existing in lateral regions relative to a nose portion of a vehicle with high accuracy for notifying the information on the approaching object to an occupant. The nose-view monitoring apparatus comprises an image pickup unit provided on a nose of the vehicle for picking up a side-view image with respect to the vehicle, an optical flow vector calculating unit for calculating an optical flow vector on the basis of the image, an approaching object detecting unit for detecting the approaching object on the basis of, of the optical flow vectors calculated by the optical flow vector calculating unit, an optical flow vector having a vector component along a traveling direction of the vehicle in the image, and a notification unit for displaying the image and further for notifying the fact of the detection of the approaching object.