An aspect of the present invention provides a moving obstacle detecting
device installed in or on a moving body for detecting moving obstacles in
the vicinity of the moving body, the moving obstacle detecting device
that includes an image capturing unit configured and arranged to capture
an image of the surroundings of the moving body, an optical flow
calculating unit configured to find an optical flow corresponding to
characteristic points in the image captured with the camera, a focus of
expansion calculating unit configured to calculate focus or foci of
expansion of the motion vectors in the optical flow found by the optical
flow calculating unit, a histogram creating unit configured to create a
histogram of the distribution of the focus or foci of expansion
calculated by the focus of expansion calculating unit, a peak test unit
configured to detect at least one moving obstacle to test peaks in the
histogram, the test determining whether or not the peaks correspond to
the same object if two or more peaks exist in the histogram created by
the histogram creating unit.