Travel information collection apparatus

• US 20080269985A1
• Filed: 04/22/2008
• Published: 10/30/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/25/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Original Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Inventors: Yamada, Kazunao
• Granted Patent: US 8,666,593 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/36
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0104 Measuring and analyzing of parameters relative to traffic conditions

Abstract

Travel information is categorized into plural time slot categories according to information characteristics of traffic flow information that represents a traffic flow of each of road sections in a database of an information center, and a learn database is built for each of the categories derived from above categorization. The travel information collected by a travel of a self vehicle along the road sections is learned according to the categories of the learn database for accurately managing the travel information according to the characteristics of the traffic flow.

Claims

1. A travel information collection apparatus comprising:

a position detector capable of determining a current position of a self vehicle and a traveling road section;

a storage control unit capable of storing, in a storage unit, travel information of the self vehicle collected for each of road sections along a travel of the self vehicle;

a database building unit capable of building a learn database having plural time slot categories according to traffic information characteristics of traffic information that is stored in a traffic information database of an information center to represent a traffic flow of each of the road sections, wherein

the storage control unit controls collected travel information to be learned according to the categories of the learn database.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein

the travel information includes at least one of a vehicle speed, a power consumption, a fuel consumption amount, shift lever position information, accel opening information, an engine rotation number, a brake operation number, a road inclination, and a road curvature.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein

the learn database building unit further categorizes the learn database by using days of a week and holidays.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein

the information center stores information of the traffic flow to the traffic information database after statistic processing when the information of the traffic flow collected by travels of plural probe cars is received.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein

the information center generates categorized information having plural time slot categories according to the traffic information characteristics in the traffic information database, and

the learn database building unit builds the learn database according to the categorized information after acquiring the categorized information from the information center.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein

the storage control unit stores a number of learning operations of the travel information to the storage unit,

the storage control unit calculates averaged travel information based on collected travel information and past travel information stored in the storage unit by using the number of learning operation, and

the storage control unit controls the averaged travel information to be learned as new travel information according to the categories of the learn database.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 further comprising:

a statistical reliability storage unit capable of storing, to the storage unit, collected travel information in association with statistical reliability after determining the statistical reliability that represents a scatter of the collected travel information from a predetermined standard.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein

the statistical reliability storage unit calculates an averaged value of the statistical reliability by using the number of learning operations based on the statistical reliability of the collected travel information and past travel information stored in the storage unit, and

the statistical reliability storage unit stores the averaged value of the statistical reliability as new statistical reliability to the storage unit.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

a position reliability storage unit capable of storing, to the storage unit, position reliability in association with the collected travel information after determining the position reliability that represents an accuracy of the current position of the self vehicle.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein

the position reliability storage unit calculates an average value of the position reliability by using the number of learning operation based on the position reliability of the collected travel information and past travel information stored in the storage unit, and

the position reliability storage unit stores, to the storage unit, the average value of the position reliability as new position reliability.

11. A method for learning travel information comprising:

determining a current position of a self vehicle and a traveling road section;

storing, to a storage unit, travel information of the self vehicle collected for each of road sections;

building a learn database having plural time slot categories according to traffic information characteristics of traffic information that is stored in a traffic information database of an information center to represent a traffic flow of each of the road sections; and

controlling the collected travel information to be learned according to categorization of the learn database.