Information providing apparatus for vehicle

• US 10,207,584 B2
• Filed: 08/09/2017
• Issued: 02/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/23/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Yazaki Corporation
• Original Assignee: Yazaki Corporation
• Inventors: Shiota, Takashi, Suzuki, Yukio
• Primary Examiner(s): Tweel, Jr., John A
• Application Number:
  US15/673,199
• Publication Number:
  US 20170334292A1
• Time in Patent Office: 559 Days
• Field of Search: 340439
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 2360/186 Displaying information according to relevancy
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 2360/1868 according to driving situations
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/00 Instruments specially adapted for vehicles; Arrangement of instruments in or on vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/215 characterised by the combination of multiple visual outputs, e.g. combined instruments with analogue meters and additional displays
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/29 Instruments characterised by the way in which information is handled, e.g. showing information on plural displays or prioritising information according to driving conditions
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/60 Instruments characterised by their location or relative disposition in or on vehicles arrangements of lighting devices on dashboards B60Q3/10
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/654 the user being the driver
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/656 the user being a passenger
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/166 for active traffic, e.g. moving vehicles, pedestrians, bikes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks

Abstract

An information providing apparatus for a vehicle includes in-vehicle devices, a communication network connected to each of the in-vehicle devices, a storage portion in which a signal change pattern based on the condition of each of the in-vehicle devices is stored in associated state for each situation around the vehicle, a situation determining portion that determines the situation around the vehicle based on the signal change of at least one in-vehicle device and the stored signal change pattern, an information acquiring portion that acquires information on the condition of the in-vehicle device related to the determined situation around the vehicle, an information generating portion that generates notification information on a recommended operation based on the information on the condition of the related in-vehicle device, and an information presenting portion that presents the notification information on the recommended operation.

Claims

1. An information providing apparatus for a vehicle comprising:

a situation determining portion that determines a current traveling situation based on a vehicle signal transmitted and received in the vehicle and a behavior model obtained by previously modeling a pattern of the vehicle signal for each traveling situation;

a passenger condition determining portion that performs guiding control based on the current traveling situation determined by the situation determining portion, the guiding control promoting a passenger'"'"'s awareness by providing an output that is detectable by at least one passenger sense and determines a passenger'"'"'s condition in response to the guiding control;

a dialogue control portion that provides notification information on a recommended operation of, of a plurality of in-vehicle devices, an in-vehicle device to the passenger based on the current traveling situation determined by the situation determining portion and the passenger'"'"'s condition determined by the passenger condition determining portion; and

a control portion that determines whether the notification information is high in urgency or not,

wherein the guiding control is performed by a sound output from a sound outputting device or a light emitted from a light emitting device;

wherein when the passenger condition determining portion determines that no passenger detects the guiding control, the passenger condition determining portion performs another guiding control which is different in mode from a previous guiding control; and

wherein when the control portion determines that the notification information is high in urgency, the dialogue control portion provides the notification information without performing the guiding control.

2. The information providing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the dialogue control portion provides information to the passenger when it is determined that the passenger has become ready to receive information in a situation where the information should be provided.

3. The information providing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the dialogue control portion determines a passenger'"'"'s intention based on the passenger'"'"'s response to the information provided to the passenger and outputs an operation command to operate a function mounted on the vehicle based on the determined passenger'"'"'s intention.

4. The information providing apparatus for a vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the passenger condition determining portion recognizes at least one of a passenger'"'"'s voice and a direction of the passenger'"'"'s visual line and determines the passenger'"'"'s condition in response to the guiding control based on a result of the recognition.

5. The information providing apparatus for a vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the another guiding control promotes the passenger'"'"'s awareness by providing a sound output from the sound outputting device having a volume greater than a volume of the sound in the previous guiding control or by providing a blinking light emitted from the light emitting device.