TRAVEL INFORMATION PROVIDING DEVICE

• US 20090303078A1
• Filed: 09/04/2007
• Published: 12/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Kurokawa, Hisashi, Mochizuki, Makoto, Nishimura, Hirofumi, Kubotani, Hiroyuki
• Granted Patent: US 8,085,140 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/901
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 30/08 Active safety systems predicting or avoiding probable or impending collision or attempting to minimise its consequences
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 40/02 related to ambient conditions
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 40/08 related to drivers or passengers
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/166 for active traffic, e.g. moving vehicles, pedestrians, bikes

Abstract

Traveling information providing device for ensuring the safety of a traveling vehicle by correctly judging the driver'"'"'s recognition of a safety confirmation object through not only driver'"'"'s attentive viewing of the safety confirmation object but also his or her viewing of the surroundings. A surrounding information collecting section (120) acquires surrounding information on the condition surrounding the vehicle equipped with the device. An object extracting section (130) extracts a safety confirmation object the safety of which must be confirmed by the driver from the surrounding information acquired by the surrounding information collecting section (120). A line-of-sight detecting section (110) detects the line-of-sight direction of the driver. A visibility calculating section (140) receives the extracted safety confirmation object and the line-of-sight direction of the driver and calculates the visibility in consideration of the driver'"'"'s surrounding viewing of the safety confirmation object according to the distance to the object or the angle with respect to the driver'"'"'s line-of-sight direction. An information presenting section (170) presents safety confirmation to the driver depending on the visibility.

Claims

1. A traveling information providing apparatus comprising:

a peripheral information collecting section that acquires peripheral information on a peripheral situation of a vehicle equipped with said traveling information providing apparatus;

an object extracting section that extracts a safety confirmation object that is an object of safety confirmation performed by a driver of said vehicle from said peripheral information acquired by said peripheral information collecting section;

a line-of-sight detecting section that detects a line-of-sight direction of said driver;

a visibility calculating section that, using detected said safety confirmation object and said driver'"'"'s line-of-sight direction, calculates visibility taking into consideration peripheral vision of said driver with respect to said safety confirmation object according to a distance or angle from said driver'"'"'s line-of-sight direction to said object; and

an evocation and control section that performs evocation of safety confirmation or control of a vehicle'"'"'s driving state based on detected said visibility.

2. The traveling information providing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a cumulative visibility calculating section that accumulates said visibility calculated by said visibility calculating section for each corresponding said safety confirmation object during a predetermined period, and thereby calculates cumulative visibility for each corresponding object.

3. The traveling information providing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said evocation and control section further comprises a changing section that changes an evocation object of said safety confirmation or a control object of said vehicle'"'"'s driving state according to visibility calculated for each said safety confirmation object.

4. The traveling information providing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said evocation and control section further comprises a changing section that changes an evocation object of said safety confirmation or a control object of said vehicle'"'"'s driving state according to cumulative visibility calculated for each said safety confirmation object.

5. The traveling information providing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a driver information input section that inputs driver information indicating an attribute of a driver,

wherein said visibility calculating section calculates said visibility according to input said driver information.

6. The traveling information providing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a driver state detecting section that detects a level of alertness of a driver,

wherein said visibility calculating section calculates said visibility according to detected said level of alertness.

7. The traveling information providing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an environmental information collecting section that acquires environmental information on its vehicle'"'"'s periphery,

wherein said visibility calculating section calculates visibility for a safety confirmation object according to acquired said environmental information on a periphery.

8. The traveling information providing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a degree-of-attentive-viewing calculating section that measures a degree of concentration of attention with respect to an object,

wherein said visibility calculating section calculates said visibility according to a calculated degree of attentive viewing.

9. The traveling information providing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an object classifying section that, when a plurality of said safety confirmation objects are extracted by said object extracting section, performs classification as an object group for each attribute of corresponding safety confirmation objects,

wherein said visibility calculating section calculates visibility for a classified object group.

10. The traveling information providing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an object classifying section that, when a plurality of said safety confirmation objects are extracted by said object extracting section, performs classification as an object group for each attribute of corresponding safety confirmation objects, wherein:

said evocation and control section evokes said safety confirmation by displaying said object group on a display section;

said visibility calculating section divides said object group displayed by said display section into a plurality of sections, and calculate cumulative visibility for each of these divided sections; and

said display section displays divided sections in said object group in a form corresponding to visibility or cumulative visibility calculated for each corresponding section.

11. The traveling information providing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein:

said evocation and control section evokes said safety confirmation by displaying said safety confirmation object on a display section; and

said changing section changes a color of said safety confirmation object displayed on said display section according to visibility calculated by said visibility calculating section.

12. The traveling information providing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein:

said evocation and control section evokes said safety confirmation by displaying said safety confirmation object on a display section; and

said changing section changes a color of said safety confirmation object displayed on said display section according to cumulative visibility calculated by said cumulative visibility calculating section.