Car navigation system and storage medium

• US 20020019700A1
• Filed: 08/08/2001
• Published: 02/14/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 08/09/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Aisin AW Company Limited (Aisin Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Aisin AW Company Limited (Aisin Corp.)
• Inventors: Kato, Shinichi, Ishida, Akira
• Granted Patent: US 6,604,048 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/213
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/28 with correlation of data from several navigational instruments
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/42 Determining position

Abstract

A vehicle navigation system and storage medium for determining an estimated position of a vehicle. The system and storage medium comprises at least an input unit, a present position detection unit, a storage unit, a central processing unit, an information transmission/reception unit and an output unit. Information concerning route guidance is input, as is present position detected information, and stored such that calculation of an estimated position of a vehicle may be generated based on a variety of conditions such as vehicle speed history, elevation angle of a satellite position relative to the vehicle, and penalty values attributed to the types of roads traveled.

Claims

1. A car-navigation system for determining an estimated position of a vehicle, comprising:

reception means for receiving at least one electric wave from a plurality of positioning satellites;

vehicle speed detection means for detecting the speed of a vehicle;

storage means for storing at least received positioning satellite information and detected vehicle speed information; and

control means for judging whether the vehicle has passed a tollgate based on the positioning satellite information and the vehicle speed information stored in the storage means.

2. The car-navigation system according to claim 1, wherein the control means calculate the variation amount of positioning satellite information and the variation amount of vehicle speed, and determines the estimated position of the vehicle based on the calculation results.

3. The car-navigation system according to claim 1, comprising storage means for storing the estimated position of the vehicle, wherein the control means judges that the vehicle has gotten off an expressway, when the past estimated position is determined as the expressway and the present estimated position is determined as having passed a tollgate.

4. The car-navigation system according to claim 1, comprising storage means for storing the estimated position of the vehicle, wherein the control means judges that the vehicle has gotten onto an expressway, when the past estimated position is determined as an ordinary road and the present estimated position is determined as having passed a tollgate.

5. A car-navigation system for judging an upper and lower road of a multilayer road, wherein

comparison coefficients are allocated to a plurality of judgment conditions and the upper and lower road of a multilayer road is determined based on a sum of comparison coefficients.

6. The car-navigation system according to claim 5, wherein at least one of the plurality of judgment conditions is related to a history of vehicle speed.

7. A car-navigation system for determining the estimated position of a vehicle, comprising:

reception means for receiving at least one electric wave from a plurality of positioning satellites; and

control means for allocating comparison coefficients based on an angle of elevation to the received satellite, and judging the estimated position of a vehicle based on a sum of the comparison coefficients.

8. A car-navigation system for determining an estimated position of a vehicle, comprising:

a first judgment means for judging expressway predominant as the estimated position;

a second judgment means for judging ordinary road predominant as the estimated position; and

control means for determining the vehicle estimated position based on the judgment results of the first and second judgment means.

9. The car-navigation system according to claim 8, wherein

the control means determines the vehicle estimated position, by reflecting the judgment results of the first and second judgment means on a calculation of correlation between detected information of the vehicle present position and road information.

10. The car-navigation system according to claim 9, wherein

the control means calculates a penalty value based on the judgment results of the first and second judgment means, and determines the vehicle estimated position by adding the calculated penalty value to the penalty value of a candidate road.

11. The car-navigation system according to claim 9, wherein

the first judgment means comprises a plurality of judgment means;

and

the control means calculates a total coefficient from comparison coefficients allocated to the plurality of judgment means, and calculates the penalty value from the total coefficient.

12. The car-navigation system according to claim 9, wherein

the second judgment means comprises a plurality of judgment means;

and

the control means calculates a total coefficient from comparison coefficients allocated to the plurality of judgment means, and calculates the penalty value from the total coefficient.

13. A storage medium having a built-in program for determining an estimated position of a vehicle, comprising:

a first judgment for judging expressway predominant as the estimated position;

a second judgment for judging ordinary road predominant as the estimated position; and

a built-in program for determining the vehicle estimated position based on the judgment results of the first and second judgments.