INFORMATION PROVIDING DEVICE AND INFORMATION PROVIDING METHOD

• US 20130063283A1
• Filed: 04/14/2011
• Published: 03/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: Kashima, Hiroyuki
• Granted Patent: US 8,933,821 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/988
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2240/622 by satellite navigation
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2240/642 Slope of road
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2240/645 Type of road
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2240/72 Charging station selection relying on external data
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2250/16 by display
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2260/44 by parameter estimation
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2260/52 drive range estimation, e.g. of estimation of available travel distance
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 2260/58 Departure time prediction
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 3/12 Recording operating variables ; Monitoring of operating variables
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/63 in response to network capacity
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/65 involving identification of vehicles or their battery types
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/67 Controlling two or more charging stations
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 58/13 Maintaining the SoC within a determined range
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3679 Retrieval, searching and output of POI information, e.g. hotels, restaurants, shops, filling stations, parking facilities G01C21/3611 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0962 having an indicator mounted inside the vehicle, e.g. giving voice messages
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/202 Dispatching vehicles on the basis of a location, e.g. taxi dispatching
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 60/00 Enabling technologies; Technologies with a potential or indirect contribution to GHG emissions mitigation
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/70 Energy storage systems for electromobility, e.g. batteries
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/7072 : Electromobility specific charging systems or methods for batteries, ultracapacitors, supercapacitors or double-layer capacitors
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/72 : Electric energy management in electromobility
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/12 : Electric charging stations
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/14 : Plug-in electric vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/16 : Information or communication technologies improving the operation of electric vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/167 : Systems integrating technologies related to power network operation and communication or information technologies for supporting the interoperability of electric or hybrid vehicles, i.e. smartgrids as interface for battery charging of electric vehicles [EV] or hybrid vehicles [HEV]
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 10/126 : the energy generation units being or involving electric vehicles [EV] or hybrid vehicles [HEV], i.e. power aggregation of EV or HEV, vehicle to grid arrangements [V2G]
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 30/14 : Details associated with the interoperability, e.g. vehicle recognition, authentication, identification or billing

Abstract

An in format ion providing device has: a vehicle information acquiring section 220 that acquires vehicle information of a plurality of vehicles; a charge history information acquiring section 220 that acquires charge history information about charge history of a plurality of the vehicles; a charging facility information acquiring section 220 that acquires charging facility information about a charging facility, which includes at least a position of the charging facility and a utilization status of the charging facility; a searching section 220 that searches, according to a request from a request vehicle, for a charging facility which the request vehicle can use, as an object charging facility; a vehicle determining section 220 that determines, as a specific vehicle, a vehicle that has a possibility to use the object charging facility from among vehicles except the request vehicle; a utilization possibility predicting section 220 that predicts, as a utilization possibility, a possibility for the specific vehicle to use the object charging facility; and a providing section 210, 220 that provides information based on the utilization possibility to the request vehicle. It becomes possible to properly provide information of the charging facility having a strong possibility for the vehicle to be able to use.

Claims

1. An information providing device comprising:

a vehicle information acquiring section that acquires vehicle information of a plurality of vehicles;

a charge history information acquiring section that acquires charge history information about charge history of a plurality of the vehicles;

a charging facility information acquiring section that acquires charging facility information about a charging facility, which includes at least a position of the charging facility and a utilization status of the charging facility;

a searching section that searches, according to a request from a request vehicle, for a charging facility which the request vehicle can use, as an object charging facility;

a vehicle determining section that determines, as a specific vehicle, a vehicle that has a possibility to use the object charging facility from among vehicles except the request vehicle, on the basis of vehicle information and/or charge history information of the vehicles except the request vehicle;

a utilization possibility predicting section that predicts, as a utilization possibility, a possibility for the specific vehicle to use the object charging facility, on the basis of vehicle information of the specific vehicle; and

a providing section that provides information based on the utilization possibility to the request vehicle.

2. The information providing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein:

the vehicle information includes position information of the vehicle and distance-to-empty information, and

the searching section searches, as the object charging facility, for a charging facility which the request vehicle can reach, on the basis of position information of the request vehicle and distance-to-empty information of the request vehicle.

3. The information providing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein:

the searching section uses the charging facility information acquired by the charging facility information acquiring section, when searching for the object charging facility.

4. The information providing device as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

a calculating section that calculates a travelling route by which the request vehicle reaches the object charging facility on the basis of the vehicle information of the request vehicle;

a traffic information acquiring section that acquires traffic information; and

an arrival time predicting section that predicts an arrival time when the request vehicle reaches the object charging facility on the basis of the travelling route calculated by the calculating section and the traffic information acquired by the traffic information acquiring section, and

wherein;

the searching section searches, as the object charging facility, for a charging facility which the request vehicle can use at the arrival time predicted by the arrival time predicting section.

5. The information providing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein:

the vehicle determining section detects a vehicle, except the request vehicle, which exists within a circular area whose radius is a distance from a position of the object charging facility to the position of the request vehicle with the position of the object charging facility being a center, and determines the specific vehicle from the detected vehicle except the request vehicle.

6. The information providing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein:

the charge history information includes battery remaining capacity history information about a battery remaining capacity at a charge start time, and

the vehicle determining section determines the specific vehicle from the vehicle except the request vehicle on the basis of a battery remaining capacity of the vehicle except the request vehicle and battery remaining capacity history information of the vehicle except the request vehicle.

7. The information providing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein:

the charge history information includes charge place history information about a place where a battery of the vehicle is charged, and

the vehicle determining section determines the specific vehicle from the vehicle except the request vehicle on the basis of charge place history information of the vehicle except the request vehicle.

8. The information providing device as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

a generating section that generates, by an actual result based on the fact that the vehicle used the charging facility, a table that indicates a probability that the vehicle will use the charging facility, for each charging facility, and

wherein

the utilization possibility predicting section predicts, as the utilization possibility, the possibility for the specific vehicle to use the object charging facility, using the table for the object charging facility.

9. An information providing method comprising:

acquiring vehicle information of a plurality of vehicles and charge history information about charge history of a plurality of the vehicles;

searching, according to a request from a request vehicle, for a charging facility which the request vehicle can use, as an object charging facility;

determining, as a specific vehicle, a vehicle that has a possibility to use the object charging facility from among vehicles except the request vehicle, on the basis of vehicle information and/or charge history information of the vehicles except the request vehicle;

predicting, as a utilization possibility, a possibility for the specific vehicle to use the object charging facility, on the basis of vehicle information of the specific vehicle; and

providing information based on the predicted utilization possibility to the request vehicle.