Vehicle navigation apparatus

• US 20050085994A1
• Filed: 08/26/2004
• Published: 04/21/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/27/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alpine Electronics Incorporated (Alps Alpine Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Alpine Electronics Incorporated (Alps Alpine Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Kimura, Tsuyoshi
• Granted Patent: US 7,499,800 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/208
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3682 output of POI information on a road map G01C21/3614, G01C21/3685 take precedence

Abstract

A vehicle navigation apparatus that is capable of quickly providing information about a new facility to a user when the new facility is set up. The vehicle navigation apparatus includes information about a newly added facility. When a vehicle is approaching the new facility, an image representing the existence of the new facility is displayed on a map.

Claims

1. A method of vehicle navigation comprising the acts of:

providing a storage medium operable to store map data and facility data;

providing a vehicle position detector operable to detect a present position of a vehicle;

providing a display device;

providing a communications device operable to establish communication connection with a data transmission center outside the vehicle;

reading map data stored in the storage medium based on the vehicle position detected by the vehicle position detector to display a map on the display device;

updating map data and facility data stored in the storage medium by obtaining other map data and other facility data from the data transmission center via the communications device; and

displaying an image representing the existence of the new facility on the map on the display device when the vehicle approaches a new facility.

2. The vehicle navigation of claim 1, wherein obtaining other map data and facility data comprises obtaining map data and method facility data corresponding to an area within a predetermined range with an arbitrary point centered from said data transmission center via said communications device.

3. The vehicle navigation method of claim 1, further comprising the acts of saving information about the new facility in a temporary storage area of said storage medium and deleting the information about the new facility stored in the temporary storage area after a specified period of time has elapsed.

4. The vehicle navigation method of claim 1, wherein the act of displaying an image representing the existence of the new facility on the map on the display device comprises displaying an opening date of the new facility, an image representing a new facility type, a simple arrow image representing a route from the vehicle to the new facility, or a distance from the vehicle to the new facility.

5. The vehicle navigation method of claim 1, further comprising the act of announcing the existence of the new facility by voice.

6. The vehicle navigation method of claim 1, further comprising the act of deleting the image representing the existence of the new facility vehicle travel has exceeded a predetermined distance or when a predetermined period of time has elapsed.

7. The vehicle navigation method of claim 1, wherein the image representing the existence of the new facility is of a pre-registered type from among the facility data obtained from said data transmission center.

8. The vehicle navigation method of claim 1, wherein the image representing the existence of the new facility is displayed a plurality of times as the vehicle travels.

9. The vehicle navigation method of claim 1, wherein the image representing the existence of the new facility is displayed every time a distance between the vehicle and the new facility reaches a predetermined distance.

10. The vehicle navigation device of claim 1 further comprising the acts of searching for a guidance route to said new facility, and guiding the vehicle to the new facility along the guidance route.

12. The navigation system of claim 11, wherein the map data and the facility data stored in the map database and facility database of the data transmission center are divided into blocks each having a latitudinal width and a longitudinal width in accordance with a reduced scale, and the map data and the facility data in each block are provided with the respective version information.

13. The navigation system of claim 11, wherein when the vehicle is approaching the new facility, the controller of the vehicle navigation apparatus displays an image representing existence of a new facility on the map.

14. The navigation system of claim 13, wherein the image representing the existence of the new facility is displayed to include at least one of an opening date of the new facility, an image representing a type of the new facility, a simple arrow image representing a route from the vehicle to the new facility, and a distance from the vehicle to the new facility.

15. The navigation system of claim 13, wherein the vehicle navigation apparatus further includes a designating section for designating the image representing the existence of the new facility, and wherein the controller displays on the display device detailed information about the new facility designated by the designating section.

16. The navigation system of claim 13, wherein the vehicle navigation apparatus further includes a designating section operable to designate the image representing the existence of the new facility, and wherein the controller searches for a guidance route to the new facility designated by the designating section, and then guides the vehicle to the new facility along the guidance route.

11. A navigation system comprising a vehicle navigation apparatus and a data transmission center,

the vehicle navigation apparatus comprising:

a storage medium operable to store map data and facility data;

a vehicle position detector operable to detect a present position of a vehicle;

a display device operable to display a map;

a communications device operable to establish communication connection with the data transmission center outside the vehicle; and

a controller operable to read out map data stored in the storage medium based on the vehicle position detected by said vehicle position detector and update the map data and the facility data stored in the storage medium by obtaining other map data and other facility data from the data transmission center via the communications device, the data transmission center comprising;

a map database operable to store map data relating to multiple regions of a country;

a facility database operable to store facility data about facilities in multiple regions of the country;

a version information comparison section operable to compare version information about the map data and the facility data received from the vehicle navigation apparatus with version information about corresponding map data and facility data within the map database and the facility database when the version information about the map data and the facility data is received from the vehicle navigation apparatus; and

a transmission section operable to transmit the map data and the facility data with updated version information to the vehicle navigation apparatus based on a comparison result provided by the version information comparison section.

17. A method of guiding a vehicle to a new facility in a vehicle navigation apparatus, comprising the acts of obtaining facility data about a new facility from a data transmission center;

and

displaying an image representing existence of the new facility on the map image when the vehicle is approaching said new facility,.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the image representing the existence of the new facility includes an opening date of the new facility, an image representing a type of the new facility, a simple arrow image representing a route from the vehicle to the new facility, or a distance from the vehicle to the new facility.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the act of displaying the image representing the existence of said new facility is performed a plurality of times as the vehicle travels.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising the acts of searching for a guidance route from the vehicle to the new facility when the image representing. the existence of the new facility is designated by a user, and guiding the vehicle to said new facility along the guidance route.