US Patent 7924171 Parking assist apparatus and method

A parking assisting apparatus and method that can precisely estimate the orientation of a parking space. A parking assisting apparatus for assisting parking a vehicle includes an obstacle detecting mechanism that detects an obstacle near the vehicle and an orientation information acquiring mechanism that acquires information as to an orientation of the vehicle. The apparatus estimates an orientation of the parking space that may exist near the vehicle based on the detection result of the obstacle detecting mechanism and the orientation information.