TRAVELING STATE DETERMINING DEVICE, METHOD FOR DETERMINING TRAVELING STATE AND RECORDING MEDIUM

• US 20110282620A1
• Filed: 05/13/2011
• Published: 11/17/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/14/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Casio Computer Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Casio Computer Company Limited
• Inventors: SAKURAOKA, Satoshi
• Granted Patent: US 8,862,427 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/141
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/12 executed aboard the object being navigated; Dead reckoning
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3423 Multimodal routing, i.e. combining two or more modes of transportation, where the modes can be any of, e.g. driving, walking, cycling, public transport
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 22/006 Pedometers

Abstract

Disclosed is a traveling state determining device including an acceleration sensor which detects an acceleration, a cycle comparing unit which compares a varying cycle of an acceleration of a vertical direction component in an output of the acceleration sensor to a varying cycle of an acceleration of a horizontal direction component and a state determining unit which determines between a state where a user is walking or running by wearing or retaining the traveling state determining device on a body of the user and a state where the user is walking or running by holding the traveling state determining device in a hand of the user based on the comparing result of the cycle comparing unit.

Claims

1. A traveling state determining device which determines a traveling state of a user, comprising:

an acceleration sensor which detects accelerations of a plurality of directions to output the accelerations of the plurality of directions as frequency components of a plurality of types;

an specific acceleration extracting unit which extracts an acceleration of a lateral direction component, being lateral with respect to a traveling direction, which is a predetermined frequency component from an output of the acceleration sensor; and

a state determining unit which determines between a state of traveling by a transportation option which travels on rails and a state of traveling by a transportation option which travels on roads based on a level of the acceleration which is extracted by the specific acceleration extracting unit.

2. The traveling state determining device as claimed in claim 1 further comprising

a direction setting unit which sets a direction in which a gravitational acceleration is always provided in the output of the acceleration sensor as a vertical direction, which detects an acceleration that expresses staring and stopping to set an acceleration direction of the detected acceleration as a traveling direction and which sets a direction which is perpendicular to the vertical direction and the traveling direction as a lateral direction, wherein

the specific acceleration extracting unit extracts the acceleration of the lateral direction component based on the settings of the direction setting unit.

3. The traveling state determining device as claimed in claim 1 further comprising

a traveling determining unit which determines between traveling and stopping based on a result of comparing a level of an acceleration of a vertical direction component which is a low frequency component in the output of the acceleration sensor to a first threshold value, wherein

when the traveling determining unit determines as traveling, the state determining unit compares the level of the acceleration which is extracted by the specific acceleration extracting unit to a second threshold value to determine between the states based on the comparing result.

4. The traveling state determining device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the predetermined frequency component is a frequency component which is included in a range of 0.5 Hz to 10 Hz.

5. A traveling state determining device, comprising:

an acceleration sensor which detects accelerations of a plurality of directions;

a cycle comparing unit which compares a varying cycle of an acceleration of a vertical direction component in an output of the acceleration sensor to a varying cycle of an acceleration of a horizontal direction component; and

a state determining unit which determines between a state where a user is walking or running by wearing or retaining the traveling state determining device on a body of the user and a state where the user is walking or running by holding the traveling state determining device in a hand of the user based on the comparing result of the cycle comparing unit.

6. The traveling state determining device as claimed in claim 5, wherein

the cycle comparing unit compares the varying cycle of the acceleration of the vertical direction component to a varying cycle of an acceleration of a traveling direction component as the horizontal direction component.

7. The traveling state determining device as claimed in claim 5 further comprising

an acceleration determining unit which determines whether an acceleration which is equal to or greater than a level exceeding a gravitational acceleration by a predetermined amount is included in the acceleration of the vertical direction component based on the output of the acceleration sensor, wherein

when the acceleration determining unit determines that the acceleration which is equal to or greater than the level exceeding the gravitational acceleration by the predetermined amount is included, the cycle comparing unit compares the varying cycles.

8. The traveling state determining device as claimed in claim 6 further comprising

a traveling direction setting unit which sets a traveling direction based on a varying patter of the output of the acceleration sensor, wherein

the cycle comparing unit compares the varying cycles by extracting an acceleration of the traveling direction component based on the setting of the traveling direction by the traveling direction setting unit.

9. The traveling state determining device as claimed in claim 5 further comprising

a walking or running determining unit which determines whether the user is walking or running when the user is determined as being in the state where the user is walking or running by wearing or retaining the traveling state determining device on the body of the user by the state determining unit, wherein

the walking or running determining unit comprises:

a cycle determining unit which determines whether a varying cycle of the acceleration is in a first range which indicates walking, in a second range which indicates running or in an intermediate range between the first range and the second range, and

an acceleration peak comparing unit which compares whether an acceleration peak of the vertical direction component exceeds a threshold value which discriminated walking and running when the varying cycle of the acceleration is in the intermediate range,

the walking or running determining unit determines as walking when the cycle determining unit determines that the varying cycle of the acceleration is in the first range and determines as running when the cycle determining unit determines that the varying cycle of the acceleration is in the second range, and

the walking or running determining unit determines whether the user is walking or running based on an comparing result of the acceleration peak comparing unit when the varying cycle of the acceleration is in the intermediate range.

10. A traveling state determining method for determining a traveling state of a user by using an acceleration sensor which detects accelerations of a plurality of directions to output the accelerations of the plurality of directions as frequency components of a plurality of types, comprising:

extracting a specific acceleration of a lateral direction component, being lateral with respect to a traveling direction, which is a predetermined frequency component from an output of the acceleration sensor; and

determining between a state of traveling by a transportation option which travels on a rail and a state of traveling by a transportation option which travels on a road based on a level of the acceleration extracted in the extracting of the specific acceleration of a user.

11. A traveling state determining method for determining a traveling state of a user by using an acceleration sensor which detects accelerations of a plurality of directions, comprising:

comparing a varying cycle of an acceleration of a vertical direction component and a varying cycle of an acceleration of a horizontal direction component in an output of the acceleration sensor, and

determining that a user is in a state of walking or running wherein the acceleration sensor is worn or retained on a body of the user when the varying cycles do not differ from each other by a predetermined amount or more as a result of the comparing and that the user is in an abnormal state when the varying cycles differ from each other by the predetermined amount or more as the result of the comparing.

12. A recording medium recording a program for making a computer determine a traveling state of a user, an output of an acceleration sensor which detects accelerations of a plurality of directions to output the accelerations of the plurality of directions as frequency components of a plurality of types being provided to the computer, wherein

the program makes the computer realize

a specific acceleration extracting function to extract a specific acceleration that is an acceleration of a lateral direction component, being lateral with respect to a traveling direction, which is a predetermined frequency component from the output of the acceleration sensor, and

a state determining function to determine between a state of traveling by a transportation option which travels on a rail and a state of traveling by a transportation option which travels on a road based on a level of the acceleration extracted by the specific acceleration extracting function that extracts the specific acceleration of a user.

13. A recording medium recording a program for making a computer determine a traveling state of a user, an output of an acceleration sensor which detects accelerations of a plurality of directions being provided to the computer, wherein

the program makes the computer realize

a cycle comparing function to compare a varying cycle of an acceleration of a vertical direction component and a varying cycle of an acceleration of a horizontal direction component in the output of the acceleration sensor, and

a cycle determining function to determine that a user is in a state of walking or running wherein the acceleration sensor is worn or retained on a body of the user when the varying cycles do not differ from each other by a predetermined amount or more as a result of the cycle comparing function and to determine that the user is in an abnormal state when the varying cycles differ from each other by the predetermined amount or more as the result of the cycle comparing function.