Information providing device and information providing method

• US 8,933,821 B2
• Filed: 04/14/2011
• Issued: 01/13/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/17/2010
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: Kashima, Hiroyuki
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Phung
• Application Number:
  US13/698,531
• Publication Number:
  US 20130063283A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,370 Days
• Field of Search: 340/988, 340/455, 340/901, 340/995.1, 701/118, 320/109, 705/13
• 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 information providing device has a vehicle information acquiring section acquiring information about a plurality of vehicles, a charge history information acquiring section acquiring charge history information, and a charging facility information acquiring section acquiring charging facility information including at least a position and a utilization status of a charging facility. The device further includes a searching section searching, according to a request from a request vehicle, for a charging facility utilizable by the request vehicle as an object charging facility, a vehicle determining section determining, as a specific vehicle, a vehicle that is not the request vehicle and having a possibility of utilizing the object charging facility, and a utilization possibility predicting section predicting a utilization possibility of the specific vehicle utilizing the object charging facility. The device also includes a providing section providing information based on the utilization possibility to the request vehicle.

Claims

1. An information providing device comprising:

a vehicle information acquiring section configured to acquire vehicle information of a plurality of vehicles;

a charge history information acquiring section configured to acquire charge history information about charge history of a plurality of the vehicles;

a charging facility information acquiring section configured to acquire 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 configured to search, according to a request from a request vehicle, for a charging facility utilizable by the request vehicle, as an object charging facility;

a vehicle determining section configured to determine, as a specific vehicle from among vehicles other than the request vehicle, a vehicle having a possibility of utilizing the object charging facility, based on vehicle information and/or charge history information of the vehicles other than the request vehicle;

a utilization possibility predicting section configured to predict, as a utilization possibility, a possibility of the specific vehicle utilizing the object charging facility, based on vehicle information of the specific vehicle; and

a providing section configured to provide 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 is configured to search for, as the object charging facility, a charging facility reachable by the request vehicle, based on 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 is configured to search for the object charging facility based on the charging facility information acquired by the charging facility information acquiring section.

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

a calculating section configured to calculate a travelling route by which the request vehicle reaches the object charging facility based on the vehicle information of the request vehicle;

a traffic information acquiring section configured to acquire traffic information; and

an arrival time predicting section configured to predict an arrival time when the request vehicle reaches the object charging facility based on the travelling route calculated by the calculating section and the traffic information acquired by the traffic information acquiring section,

wherein the searching section is configured to search for, as the object charging facility, a charging facility utilizable by the request vehicle 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 is configured to:

detect a vehicle, other than the request vehicle, which exists within a circular area whose radius is a distance from a position of the object charging facility to a position of the request vehicle, the position of the object charging facility being a center, and

determine whether the specific vehicle corresponds to the detected 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 is configured to determine the specific vehicle from vehicles other than the request vehicle based on a battery remaining capacity of the vehicles other than the request vehicle and battery remaining capacity history information of the vehicles other than 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 is configured to determine the specific vehicle from vehicles other than the request vehicle based on charge place history information of the vehicles other than the request vehicle.

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

a generating section configured to generate, by an actual result based on utilization of the charging facility by a vehicle, a table that indicates a probability of the vehicle utilizing the charging facility, for each charging facility,

wherein the utilization possibility predicting section is configured to predict, as the utilization possibility, the possibility of the specific vehicle utilizing the object charging facility, based on 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 utilizable by the request vehicle as an object charging facility;

determining, as a specific vehicle, a vehicle that has a possibility of utilizing the object charging facility from among vehicles other than the request vehicle, based on vehicle information and/or charge history information of the vehicles other than the request vehicle;

predicting, as a utilization possibility, a possibility of the specific vehicle utilizing the object charging facility, based on vehicle information of the specific vehicle; and

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