Autonomic Traveling Apparatus for a Vehicle
First Claim
1. An autonomic traveling apparatus for a vehicle comprising:
- a vehicle position obtaining unit that obtains the current position of a traveling vehicle;
a lane information storage that stores links of lane traveled by the vehicle;
a travel controller that causes the vehicle to travel toward end coordinates of the link being currently traveled by the vehicle, the end coordinates being regarded as a destination for the vehicle;
a transceiver that communicates with a travel administration center;
an obstacle-on-lane detector that checks the link to determine whether a obstacle exists on the link; and
a road condition detector that checks a condition of a surface of a road near the traveling vehicle and determines that the lane is in a safe condition,wherein the lane information storage stores coordinates of start and end points of the links representing shapes of lanes with respect to an independent travel lane which vehicles travel at high speeds, pass-by lanes which vehicles travel when the vehicles pass by other vehicles and crossover lanes which vehicles travel when the vehicles change their course from the independent travel lane to the pass-by lanes, and also stores the road conditions of crossover lanes for each link;
the transceiver notifies a result of the measurement of the crossover lanes by the road condition detector and a current position of the traveling vehicle to a travel administration center, and receives from the travel administration center the result of the measurement of the crossover lanes notified to the travel administration center;
the transceiver receives information on the available crossover lanes from the travel administration center after it received from the travel administration center a command that the vehicle should enter the pass-by lane; and
the travel controller causes the vehicle to change its course to the pass-by lane via the crossover lane when the obstacle-on-lane detector determines that the received crossover lane is free of an obstacle.
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Accused Products
Abstract
In an autonomic traveling apparatus for a vehicle, vehicles usually travel an independent travel lane and when there are two approaching vehicles on the independent travel lane, they switch to pass-by lanes to pass by each other. To do this switching operation effectively, respective vehicles check and obtain road conditions around them while they are traveling and the obtained road conditions are transmitted to and collected by a travel administration center so that the road conditions at various points along the lanes can be obtained from the travel administration center. Accordingly, when the autonomic traveling trucks approaching each other and supposed to pass by each other, switch to the associated pass-by lanes, they change travel lanes avoiding the point of bad road condition on the basis of the road conditions sent from the travel administration center.
30 Citations
6 Claims
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1. An autonomic traveling apparatus for a vehicle comprising:
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a vehicle position obtaining unit that obtains the current position of a traveling vehicle; a lane information storage that stores links of lane traveled by the vehicle; a travel controller that causes the vehicle to travel toward end coordinates of the link being currently traveled by the vehicle, the end coordinates being regarded as a destination for the vehicle; a transceiver that communicates with a travel administration center; an obstacle-on-lane detector that checks the link to determine whether a obstacle exists on the link; and a road condition detector that checks a condition of a surface of a road near the traveling vehicle and determines that the lane is in a safe condition, wherein the lane information storage stores coordinates of start and end points of the links representing shapes of lanes with respect to an independent travel lane which vehicles travel at high speeds, pass-by lanes which vehicles travel when the vehicles pass by other vehicles and crossover lanes which vehicles travel when the vehicles change their course from the independent travel lane to the pass-by lanes, and also stores the road conditions of crossover lanes for each link; the transceiver notifies a result of the measurement of the crossover lanes by the road condition detector and a current position of the traveling vehicle to a travel administration center, and receives from the travel administration center the result of the measurement of the crossover lanes notified to the travel administration center; the transceiver receives information on the available crossover lanes from the travel administration center after it received from the travel administration center a command that the vehicle should enter the pass-by lane; and the travel controller causes the vehicle to change its course to the pass-by lane via the crossover lane when the obstacle-on-lane detector determines that the received crossover lane is free of an obstacle. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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Specification