Driving recorder

• US 8,285,442 B2
• Filed: 06/26/2006
• Issued: 10/09/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Horiba Limited
• Original Assignee: Horiba Limited
• Inventors: Kohsaka, Hiroji, Ishikura, Masatomo, Hashimoto, Akihiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Dickson, Paul N
• Assistant Examiner(s): English, James
• Application Number:
  US11/994,103
• Publication Number:
  US 20090306848A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,297 Days
• Field of Search: 701/33, 701/35, 701/31.7, 701/33.4, 701/33.7, 701/33.9, 369/21
• US Class Current: 701/33.4
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0891 Video recorder in combination with video camera

Abstract

This invention intends to provide a vehicle-mounted driving recorder that can obtain necessary situation data only surely and accurately and that can contribute to effective use of a memory and to facilitation of an after-the-fact analysis of the situation data. The vehicle-mounted driving recorder comprises a situation data receiving section that receives situation data as being data indicating behavior, a surrounding situation and an operation situation of a vehicle and that temporarily stores the situation data in a temporary data storage section specified in a predetermined area of a memory, and a data administration section, in case that a plurality of contents indicated by the received situation data satisfy a previously specified given condition, that transfers a part or all of the situation data during a certain period before and after a time when the condition is satisfied from the temporary data storage section to the situation data storage section specified in a predetermined area of the memory.

Claims

1. A driving recorder comprising:

a detection device that detects a situation of a vehicle,

a situation data receiving section that receives situation data from the detection device and temporarily stores the situation data in a temporary data storage section specified in a predetermined area of a memory,

a data administration section that determines the situation of the vehicle detected by the detection device, and when a plurality of contents indicated by the received situation data satisfy a previously specified given condition, transfers a part or all of the situation data during a certain time period before and after a time when the condition is satisfied from the temporary data storage section to a situation data storage section specified in another predetermined area of the memory,

a judgment criterion parameter storage section that stores data of a parameter to be a criterion for transferring the situation data from the temporary date storage section to the situation data storage section in the data administration section,

an alert device that informs the driver that the situation is judged to exceed the judgment criterion by the data administration section, and

an input device that inputs whether or not the judgment by the data administration section is appropriate,

wherein the judgment criterion parameter storage section updates the data of the parameter based on whether or not the input is made by the input device, wherein the input device enables a driver to enter data indicating the judgment by the data administration section is not appropriate and the data administration section is enabled to alter one or more parameters of the judgment criterion parameters storage section in response to the data entered by the input device.

2. The driving recorder described in claim 1, and comprising a situation data storage section that classifies the situation data of the vehicle based on whether or not the input is made by the input device and that stores the classified situation data.

3. The driving recorder described in claim 2, wherein

at least one or all of speed data indicating a speed of the vehicle, brake data indicating whether a brake of the vehicle is applied or not, door open/close data indicating whether a door is open or closed and main electric power source situation data indicating whether or not electric power is supplied from an electric power source at a side of the vehicle are included as the situation data.

4. The driving recorder described in claim 2, and further comprising:

a communication device that radio-transmits the situation data in the situation data storage section to a central computer arranged at a place different from the place where the vehicle locates at a time when the vehicle locates in a specified place where radio-communication to the central computer is capable.

5. The driving recorder described in claim 2, wherein

at least acceleration data indicating acceleration applied to the vehicle, position data indicating a position of the vehicle and moving image data indicating an outside picture of the vehicle are included as the situation data.

6. The driving recorder described in claim 1, wherein

the detection device is an acceleration sensor that detects acceleration applied to the vehicle and that outputs acceleration data indicating the acceleration as one of the situation data.

7. The driving recorder described in claim 1 further including an auxiliary electric power source wherein electric power can be supplied by the auxiliary electric power source when electric power supplied from an electric power source in a vehicle is halted, wherein the data administration section is enabled to utilize the auxiliary electric power source upon a detection of halting of an output of power from the vehicle power source.

8. The driving recorder described in claim 7 and further comprising:

a communication device that radio-transmits the stored situation data in the data storage section to a central computer arranged at a place different from the place where the vehicle is located at a time when the vehicle is capable of radio-communication to the central computer.

9. The driving recorder described in claim 8 wherein

at least acceleration data indicating acceleration applied to the vehicle, position data indicating a position of the vehicle and moving image data indicating an outside picture of the vehicle are included as situation data.