To provide a preceding-vehicle detecting apparatus, own-vehicle
controlling apparatus and preceding-vehicle detecting method capable of
detecting a preceding vehicle in a more reliable manner, a
preceding-vehicle detecting apparatus (1) comprises: a millimeter wave
radar (11); a measuring-target-point-group generating part (131) setting
measuring-target points based on reflected waves, and single-connecting
those measuring-target points having the same relative velocities to
thereby generate measuring-target point groups, respectively; a
group-relative-velocity determining part (132) extracting those
measuring-target point groups which meets conditions for preceding
vehicle, respectively; and a temporal continuity judging part (133)
regarding those measuring-target point groups as preceding vehicles, each
of which has a number of detected times equal to or larger than a
prescribed value (N1).