DEPARTURE/DESTINATION LOCATION EXTRACTION APPARATUS AND DEPARTURE/DESTINATION LOCATION EXTRACTION METHOD

• US 20160033291A1
• Filed: 06/22/2015
• Published: 02/04/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Inventors: INOUE, Atsushi
• Granted Patent: US 9,404,763 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3617 using user history, behaviour, conditions or preferences, e.g. predicted or inferred from previous use or current movement
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3685 the POI's being parking facilities
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/148 Management of a network of parking areas

Abstract

A departure/destination location extraction apparatus includes a travel history accumulation unit configured to store a travel history of a vehicle, including a plurality of parking positions of the vehicle; and a position extraction unit configured to extract, among the parking positions stored in the travel history accumulation unit, one or more pairs of the parking positions where a distance between the parking positions in each of the pairs of the parking positions is less than or equal to a predetermined first threshold, each of the pairs being treated as a set of candidate points, and to extract an area including the candidate points that would be connected as a whole if the parking positions in each of the sets were connected with each other, as at least one of a departure location and a destination location.

Claims

1. A departure/destination location extraction apparatus, comprising:

a travel history accumulation unit configured to store a travel history of a vehicle, including a plurality of parking positions of the vehicle; and

a position extraction unit configured

to extract, among the parking positions stored in the travel history accumulation unit, one or more pairs of the parking positions where a distance between the parking positions in each of the pairs of the parking positions is less than or equal to a predetermined first threshold, each of the pairs being treated as a set of candidate points, and

to extract an area including the candidate points that would be connected as a whole if the parking positions in each of the sets were connected with each other, as at least one of a departure location and a destination location.

2. The departure/destination location extraction apparatus, as claimed in claim 1, wherein the position extraction unit changes the first threshold to a smaller value when the size of the area is greater than or equal to a predetermined value, and executes the extraction again for at least one of the departure location and the destination location.

3. The departure/destination location extraction apparatus, as claimed in claim 1, wherein the position extraction unit extracts a closest neighboring area at least for each of the parking positions included in the candidate points that would be connected with other as a whole, where the closest neighboring area is constituted with positional points that are closer to the parking position than to the other parking positions, and

sets the parking position having the largest closest neighboring area in an area having outer edges of lines connecting the parking positions included in the candidate points that would be connected with other as a whole, as a representative position of at least one of the departure location and the destination location.

4. A departure/destination location extraction method, the method being executed by a computer, the method comprising:

a travel history accumulation step storing a travel history of a vehicle, including a plurality of parking positions of the vehicle; and

a position extraction step

extracting, among the parking positions stored in the travel history accumulation step, one or more pairs of the parking positions where a distance between the parking positions in each of the pairs of the parking positions is less than or equal to a predetermined first threshold, each of the pairs being treated as a set of candidate points, and

extracting an area including the candidate points that would be connected as a whole if the parking positions in each of the sets were connected with each other, as at least one of a departure location and a destination location.