Method and apparatus for measuring velocity of land vehicle using accelerometer and route guidance information data

• US 7,400,946 B2
• Filed: 06/09/2004
• Issued: 07/15/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Min, Hyun-Suk, Lee, Kook-Yeon, Hong, Hyun-Su
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran; Dalena
• Application Number:
  US10/864,009
• Publication Number:
  US 20050119798A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,497 Days
• Field of Search: 701/1, 701/71, 701/75, 701/82, 701/89, 701/207, 342/357.11, 342/104, 342/106, 356/27
• US Class Current: 701/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01P 7/00 Measuring speed by integrating acceleration measuring travelled distance by double integration of acceleration G01C21/16

Abstract

A method and apparatus for measuring the velocity of a vehicle are provided. An acceleration measurement received from an accelerator and RGI data received from an external information server are stored and an irregularity constant of the accelerator is determined. It is determined whether the vehicle is in a stationary state by analyzing the acceleration measurement. If the vehicle is not in the stationary state, the inclination angle of a road on which the vehicle is traveling is calculated using a plurality of three-dimensional shape points included in the RGI data. A gravity acceleration component is compensated for from the acceleration measurement using the road inclination angle. The velocity of the vehicle is calculated using the compensated acceleration measurement.

Claims

1. A method of measuring the velocity of a vehicle, comprising the steps of:

(1) storing an acceleration measurement received from an accelerator and route guidance information (RGI) data for route guidance of the vehicle, received from an external information server, to use to determine an irregularity constant of the accelerator;

(2) determining whether the vehicle is in a stationary state by analyzing the acceleration measurement and calculating the inclination angle of a road on which the vehicle is traveling using a plurality of three-dimensional shape points included in the RGI data if the vehicle is not in the stationary state;

(3) compensating for a gravity acceleration component from the acceleration measurement using the road inclination angle; and

(4) calculating the velocity of the vehicle using the compensated acceleration measurement.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein step (2) further comprises the step of determining that the vehicle is in the stationary state if an acceleration measurement f_c at a predetermined time point is equal to a previous acceleration measurement f_pre and the number of successive occurrences of f_c is equal to or greater than a predetermined value.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein step (2) further comprises the steps of:

determining a current position of the vehicle on the RGI data;

determining whether the present position of the vehicle matches with any of a plurality of shape points included in the RGI data; and

calculating a road inclination angle between the shape point and a previous shape point, if the present position of the vehicle matches any of the shape points.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein step (2) further comprises the step of calculating a road inclination angle between left and right shape point of the present position of the vehicle, if the present position of the vehicle matches with none of the shape points.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the step of calculating the road inclination angle further comprises the steps of:

calculating a movement distance d(x, y) on an x-y plane and a movement distance dz along a z axis from a first shape point (x₁, y₁, z₁) and a second shape point (x₂, y₂, z₂) by which the road inclination angle is calculated; and

calculating the road inclination angle θ

by computing d(x, y) and dz according to

$\mathrm{\theta <br><br>}=\pm <br><br>\arctan \left(\frac{\left(z_2-z_1\right)}{\sqrt{{\left(x_2-x_1\right)}^2+{\left(y_2-y_1\right)}^2}}\right).$

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the step of calculating the road inclination angle further comprises the steps of:

calculating a movement distance d(x, y) on an x-y plane and a movement distance dz along a z axis from a first shape point (x₁, y₁, z₁) and a second shape point (x₂, y₂, z₂) by which the road inclination angle is calculated; and

calculating the road inclination angle θ

by computing d(x, y) and dz according to

$\mathrm{\theta <br><br>}=\pm <br><br>\arctan \left(\frac{\left(z_2-z_1\right)}{\sqrt{{\left(x_2-x_1\right)}^2+{\left(y_2-y_1\right)}^2}}\right).$

7. The method of claim 1, wherein step (3) further comprises the step of calculating the gravity acceleration component included in the acceleration measurement using the road inclination angle and eliminating the gravity acceleration component from the acceleration measurement.

8. An apparatus for measuring the velocity of a vehicle, comprising:

an acceleration measurer for measuring a current acceleration of the vehicle through an accelerator mounted on the vehicle;

an acceleration storage for storing an acceleration measurement received from the acceleration measurer according to measured time;

a gravity acceleration compensator for calculating the inclination angle of a road on which the vehicle is traveling using a plurality of three-dimensional shape points included in RGI data received from an external server and compensating for a gravity acceleration component from the acceleration measurement using the road inclination angle; and

a velocity calculator for calculating the velocity of the vehicle using the compensated acceleration measurement.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the gravity acceleration compensator determines a present position of the vehicle on the RGI data, determines whether the present position of the vehicle matches with any of a plurality of shape points included in the RGI data, selecting a plurality of shape points according to the determination result, and calculating a road inclination angle between the shape points.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the gravity acceleration compensator calculates a road inclination angle between the shape point and a previous shape point, if the present position of the vehicle matches with any of the shape points.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the gravity acceleration compensator calculates a road inclination angle between left and right shape point of the present position of the vehicle, if the present position of the vehicle matches with none of the shape points.

12. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the gravity acceleration compensator calculates a movement distance d(x, y) on an x-y plane and a movement distance dz along a z axis from a first shape point (x₁, y₁, z₁) and a second shape point (x₂, y₂, z₂) by which the road inclination angle is calculated, and calculates the road inclination angle θ

by computing d(x, y) and dz according to

$\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\theta <br><br>}=\pm <br><br>\arctan \left(\frac{\left(z_2-z_1\right)}{\sqrt{{\left(x_2-x_1\right)}^2+{\left(y_2-y_1\right)}^2}}\right).& \left(13\right)\end{array}$

13. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the gravity acceleration compensator calculates the gravity acceleration component included in the acceleration measurement using the road inclination angle and eliminates the gravity acceleration component from the acceleration measurement.