VEHICLE DRIVING ENVIRONMENT RECOGNITION APPARATUS

There is provided a vehicle driving environment recognition apparatus. When an onboard camera does not recognize a vehicle ahead during when a vehicle runs at night, an exposure amount of the onboard camera is set to a first exposure amount mode. When the vehicle ahead is not recognized, or only a light source of an oncoming vehicle is recognized, the exposure amount of the onboard camera is set to a second exposure amount mode. In the first exposure amount mode, a low-luminance detection exposure amount and a high-luminance detection exposure amount are alternately switched for each frame, and an image is captured with the switched exposure amount. In the second exposure amount mode, the exposure amount is fixed to the low-luminance detection exposure amount.