MOTOR VEHICLE ACCELERATION DETERMINING SYSTEM

• US 20110196817A1
• Filed: 02/04/2011
• Published: 08/11/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/05/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Harman Becker Automotive Systems GmbH (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Harman Becker Automotive Systems GmbH (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.)
• Inventors: Kluge, Sebastian, Pryakhin, Alexey, Kunath, Peter
• Granted Patent: US 8,645,052 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/14
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/26 specially adapted for navigation in a road network

Abstract

Systems and methods for analyzing acceleration as a road segment characteristic in a vehicle are provided for determining information about a route including for example, the estimated fuel consumption of the route. An example of a system includes a data storage medium for storing map data having road segments, a bus interface to a data bus for receiving measured values of a velocity or an acceleration from a velocity or acceleration sensor, a position data receiver configured to receive position data for determining a current position, and a system controller. The system controller is configured to identify a road segment associated with the current position. The system controller retrieves parameters of a probability distribution of acceleration associated with the identified road segment from the data storage medium. Updated parameters of the probability distribution of acceleration are determined from the measured values of the velocity or acceleration.

Claims

1. A method for analyzing accelerations as a road segment characteristic in a vehicle, the method comprising:

identifying a road segment from map data based on a current position;

measuring a plurality of acceleration values or a plurality of velocity values within the identified road segment;

reading a stored probability distribution of acceleration within the identified road segment from a data storage medium;

calculating an updated probability distribution of acceleration within the identified road segment using the stored probability distribution and at least one of the plurality of acceleration values or the plurality of velocity values; and

storing the updated probability distribution in the data storage medium.

2. The method of claim 1 where the map data includes classes of road segment, the road segments of each class having identical preset road-specific criteria, the method further comprising:

identifying at least one class associated with the identified road segment; and

storing the updated parameters of the probability distribution of acceleration for the road segment or for the class associated with the identified road segment.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

calculating the updated parameters using recursion; and

using the measured acceleration values or velocity values of the identified road segment and the stored parameters in the recursion.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

calculating current parameters of a current probability distribution of acceleration from the measured plurality of acceleration values or the plurality of velocity values; and

calculating the updated parameters of the probability distribution of acceleration from the current parameters and the stored parameters.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

assigning the stored parameters to the road segment; and

using the stored parameters to calculate the updated parameters for the identified road segment.

6. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

assigning the stored parameters to the identified class of the road segment; and

calculating the updated parameters for the identified class.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining a reliability indicator in addition to the calculated updated parameters; and

storing the calculated updated parameters of the probability distribution of acceleration with the reliability indicator associated with the calculated updated parameters.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

assigning the updated parameters of the probability distribution to different traffic volumes using a traffic-related parameter of the probability distribution of accelerations, the traffic-related parameter being based on the density of the traffic within the identified road segment, the traffic-related parameter being estimated from the plurality of acceleration values or the plurality of velocity values or received traffic data.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

calculating fuel consumption estimates for the identified road segment using the updated parameters of probability distribution stored in the data storage medium.

10. A system for analyzing acceleration as a road segment characteristic in a vehicle comprising:

a data storage medium for storing map data having road segments;

a bus interface to a data bus for receiving measured values of a velocity or an acceleration from a velocity or acceleration sensor;

a position data receiver configured to receive position data for determining a current position;

a system controller configured to identify a road segment associated with the current position, to use parameters of a probability distribution of acceleration stored in the data storage medium where the parameters are associated with the identified road segment, and to determine updated parameters of the probability distribution of acceleration from the measured values of the velocity or acceleration.

11. The system of claim 10 where the system controller is configured to determine information for a route having at least the identified road segment based on the parameters of the probability distribution of acceleration.

12. The system of claim 11 where the information determined by the system controller includes an estimated fuel consumption for the route.

13. The system of claim 10 where:

the system controller retrieves parameters of the probability distribution of acceleration which are associated with the road segment of the current position; and

the system controller is configured to control a drive of the vehicle on the basis of the retrieved parameters of the probability distribution of acceleration.

14. The system of claim 10 where:

the parameters of the probability distribution of acceleration are either assigned to one specific road segment, or to a class of road segments, the map data having classes of road segments and the road segments that meet a predetermined road-specific criteria associated with each class.

15. The system of claim 10 where:

the system controller is configured to evaluate measured values of the velocity or the acceleration in the identified road segment;

the system controller is configured to calculate updated parameters of a probability distribution of acceleration based on the parameters stored in the data storage medium, and on measured values of the velocity or the acceleration within the road segment; and

the system controller is configured to store the calculated updated parameters of the probability distribution of acceleration, the updated parameters being assigned to the identified road segment.

16. The system of claim 10 where the system controller is configured to determine the probability distribution of acceleration according to any multidimensional probability distribution function.

17. The system of claim 16 where the multidimensional probability distribution function is either a normal distribution or a Laplace distribution.

18. The system of claim 10 where the position data receiver is a GPS sensor.

19. The system of claim 10 where the bus interface includes an interface to a CAN bus.