RECEIVING APPARATUS

• US 20110076971A1
• Filed: 05/11/2009
• Published: 03/31/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/04/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Original Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Inventors: Nakata, Kazuhiro
• Granted Patent: US 8,320,821 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/150.1
• CPC Class Codes: H03J 1/0075 where the receiving frequencies of the stations are stored in a permanent memory, e.g. ROM
• CPC Class Codes: H03J 1/0083 using two or more tuners
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/55 for traffic information
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 2201/13 radio data system/radio broadcast data system [RDS/RBDS]

Abstract

A receiving apparatus discriminates RDS data containing traffic information corresponding to the vehicle'"'"'s own position from RDS data of broadcasting stations searched for by frequency sweeping by a sub tuner front end 7; stores step by step into a pool memory 16 frequencies of alternative stations identified by each PI code of the RDS data and the number of the alternative stations; determines the PI code with the greatest number of the alternative stations by comparing the numbers of the alternative stations for individual PI codes stored in the pool memory 16 in a frequency sweeping range; and receives the traffic information from the station with the highest received electric field strength among all the alternative stations identified by the PI code determined.

Claims

1. A receiving apparatus having a position detecting unit for detecting its own position, a first receiving system for reproducing radio sound by receiving a broadcast signal from a broadcasting station, and a second receiving system for receiving RDS (Radio Data System) data in the broadcast signal, wherein the second receiving system comprises:

an RDS demodulating unit for demodulating the RDS data in the broadcast signal;

a decoder unit for reproducing from the RDS data a PI (Program Identification) code for identifying a broadcasting station and a region code of the broadcasting station;

a memory unit for storing frequencies of alternative stations identified by a same PI code and the number of the alternative stations for each PI code;

a PI decision unit for discriminating, from the RDS data of the broadcasting station searched for by frequency sweeping, the RDS data containing traffic information about the region code corresponding to the position information detected by the position detecting unit, for storing step by step into the memory unit frequencies of the alternative stations and the number of the alternative stations identified by each PI code of the RDS data, and for determining the PI code with the greatest number of the alternative stations by comparing the numbers of the alternative stations for individual PI codes stored in the memory unit in a frequency sweeping range; and

a radio control unit for sweeping all the frequencies of the alternative stations identified by the PI code determined by the PI decision unit, and for receiving the traffic information from a station with the highest received electric field strength.

2. The receiving apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the radio control unit searches for a new broadcasting station when a prescribed update time period has elapsed from a start of receiving the traffic information or when the received electric field strength of the broadcast signal containing the traffic information becomes less than a permissible level;

and

the PI decision unit updates storage contents of the memory unit by using the RDS data of the broadcasting station searched for, and determines a PI code with the greatest number of the alternative stations anew.