TARGET RECOGNITION SYSTEM AND TARGET RECOGNITION METHOD EXECUTED BY THE TARGET RECOGNITION SYSTEM

A target recognition system operatively connected to a stereo imaging device to capture a stereo image of an area ahead of the target recognition system, includes a parallax calculator to calculate parallax of the stereo image including two captured images; a target candidate detector to detect a candidate set of recognition target areas based on a luminance image of one of the captured images; and a target recognition processor to limit the candidate set of recognition target areas detected by the target candidate detector within a range of threshold values of characteristics in the candidate set of recognition target areas set in advance based on the parallax calculated by the parallax calculator to extract and output the one or more recognition targets.