On-vehicle emergency report apparatus, emergency communication apparatus and emergency report system

• US 20030117274A1
• Filed: 09/17/2002
• Published: 06/26/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 12/26/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Sato, Kazuhiko, Kojima, Takao, Minowa, Toshimichi, Yoshikawa, Tokuji, Kuragaki, Satoru
• Granted Patent: US 6,724,321 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/436
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/164 Centralised systems, e.g. external to vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/205 Indicating the location of the monitored vehicles as destination, e.g. accidents, stolen, rental

Abstract

An on-vehicle emergency report apparatus, an emergency communication apparatus and an emergency report system are disclosed. The emergency report apparatus includes an emergency situation prediction unit for predicting the possibility of a vehicle involved encountering an emergency situation, a report control unit and a communication unit. The communication is established based upon the determination of the emergency situation prediction unit, which predicts the possibility of the vehicle encountering an emergency situation a predetermined time later, based on at least one of the feature quantities including the distance between the vehicle involved and the vehicle running immediately ahead, the relative speed, the relative acceleration, the speed of the vehicle involved, the brake pedal stroke, the steering wheel angle and the expression of the driver.

Claims

1. An on-vehicle emergency report apparatus comprising vehicle position detection means for detecting the position of a vehicle involved, emergency situation prediction means for predicting that the vehicle involved encounters an emergency situation, and communication means for communicating with an emergency report service station,

wherein the emergency situation prediction means predicts whether the vehicle involved encounters an emergency situation a predetermined time later, based on at least one of the feature quantities including the distance from an object with which the vehicle involved may collide, the relative speed, the relative acceleration, the speed, and the brake pedal stroke, the steering wheel angle and the facial expression of the driver of the vehicle involved, and

wherein the result of the prediction is transmitted to said emergency report service station by said communication means, together with the vehicle position information detected by the vehicle position detection means.

2. An on-vehicle emergency report apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein said emergency situation prediction means predicts the position of the vehicle involved and the position of said object with which said vehicle involved may collide, as of a predetermined time later, based on the distance between said vehicle involved and said object, and the speed, the acceleration and the steering wheel angle of the vehicle involved, and estimates the possibility of collision based on the prediction of the relative positions of said vehicle involved and said object.

3. An on-vehicle emergency report apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an internal power supply charged by an on-vehicle power supply,

wherein the on-vehicle power supply is used normally, and in the case of failure of power from said on-vehicle power supply, power is supplied from said internal power supply.

4. An on-vehicle emergency report apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the result of the self-diagnosis of the vehicle involved is transmitted to said emergency report service station by said communication means.

5. An automotive vehicle having mounted thereon said on-vehicle emergency report apparatus according to claim 1.

6. An emergency report testing apparatus comprising communication means for communicating with the on-vehicle emergency report apparatus according to claim 4,

wherein the result of the self-diagnosis is received from said on-vehicle emergency report apparatus and the acknowledgment of the receipt is transmitted to said on-vehicle emergency report apparatus.

12. An emergency report system comprising an on-vehicle emergency report apparatus according to claim 1 and an emergency communication apparatus according to claim 7 installed at said emergency report service station.

7. An emergency communication apparatus comprising a notifiee data base for storing the information on the notifiee persons concerned and communication means,

wherein said communication means includes means for receiving an emergency report from said on-vehicle emergency report apparatus, means for requesting a first aid to take an emergency action, means for receiving the information on the prospective destination of the occupant of the emergency-reporting vehicle from the first aid, means for searching said notifiee data base for the notifiee persons concerned, associated with the occupant, and means for transmitting the information on the destination of the occupant to the notifiee persons concerned.

8. An emergency communication apparatus according to claim 7,

wherein said first aid is an emergency hospital and emergency transport means.

9. An emergency communication apparatus according to claim 7,

wherein the information as to whether the occupant is safe or not is transmitted to the notifiee persons concerned, in addition to the information on the destination of the occupant.

10. An emergency communication apparatus according to claim 7,

wherein the information on the position of the emergency-reporting vehicle is received together with the emergency report from said on-vehicle emergency report apparatus through said communication means at predetermined time intervals, and the information on the latest position of said emergency-reporting vehicle is transmitted to the notifiee persons concerned, through the communication means, at predetermined time intervals.

11. An emergency communication apparatus according to claim 7,

wherein in the case where a transferee from the telephone of the notifiee person concerned is determined, the telephone number of said transferee is acquired from selected one of said original telephone and said transferee telephone, and the person concerned can be contacted directly by communication with said transferee telephone.