Fecha de publicación: 03/07/2003 Fuente: Wipo "Sensorization" In multi-point distance measurement, the distance of a distance measurement object is three-way divided into a very short distance range, a short distance range and a moderate to long distance range, and if the distance of an object located at a very short distance is measured in any one of the endmost distance measurement areas of a plurality of distance measurement areas, and all the distances measured in other distance measurement areas belong to the moderate to long distance, the distance belonging to the very short distance range is not employed, and the shortest distance of distances belonging to the moderate to long distance range is employed as a measured distance. On the other hand, if any of the distances measured in other distance measurement areas belongs to the short distance range which is closer than the moderate to long distance range, the distance belonging to the very short distance range is employed, thereby reducing the frequency of erroneous distance measurement. If of five distance measurement areas including left, left middle, middle, right middle and right areas, the left area corresponds to the very short distance range, and other distance measurement areas correspond to the moderate to long distance range, for example, the distance in the moderate to long distance range is employed as the measured distance.