Vehicle driving assistance device

• US 9,269,264 B2
• Filed: 03/02/2011
• Issued: 02/23/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Inventors: Hoshino, Masayoshi, Shimizu, Tsuyoshi, Kashiwai, Tadahiro
• Primary Examiner(s): To, Tuan C.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hilgendorf, Dale W
• Application Number:
  US13/639,750
• Publication Number:
  US 20130030688A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,819 Days
• Field of Search: 701/23, 701/26, 701/414, 701/423, 701/301, 701/302
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0112 from the vehicle, e.g. floating car data [FCD]
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0965 responding to signals from another vehicle, e.g. emergency vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096708 where the received information might be used to generate an automatic action on the vehicle control
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096725 where the received information generates an automatic action on the vehicle control
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096791 where the origin of the information is another vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/161 Decentralised systems, e.g. inter-vehicle communication
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/22 Platooning, i.e. convoy of communicating vehicles

Abstract

A vehicle driving assistance device according to the invention is intended to improve the reliability of driving assistance and includes a vehicle sensor that acquires vehicle behavior information about the behavior of a vehicle, an inter-vehicle communication unit that acquires other-vehicle behavior information about the behavior of another vehicle which travels in front of the vehicle, a traffic condition estimating unit that estimates traffic conditions between the vehicle and another vehicle on the basis of the vehicle behavior information and the other-vehicle behavior information, and a driving assistance unit that performs driving assistance on the basis of the estimation result of the traffic condition estimating unit.

Claims

1. A vehicle driving assistance device comprising:

a vehicle behavior information acquiring unit that acquires vehicle behavior information about behavior of a vehicle;

an estimation available or unavailable determining unit that determines whether another vehicle that has performed inter-vehicle communication with the vehicle corresponds to an other vehicle travelling in front of the vehicle, and determines whether it is possible to estimate traffic conditions between the other vehicle and the vehicle;

an other-vehicle behavior information acquiring unit that acquires other-vehicle behavior information about behavior of the another vehicle that can perform inter-vehicle communication which travels in front of the vehicle in the same lane, through inter-vehicle communication between the vehicle and the another vehicle that can perform inter-vehicle communication, when the estimation available or unavailable determining unit has determined that estimating the traffic conditions between the other vehicle and the vehicle is possible;

a traffic condition estimating unit that estimates traffic conditions regarding a number of communication-incapable vehicles between the vehicle and the another vehicle in the same lane, on the basis of the vehicle behavior information acquired by the vehicle behavior information acquiring unit and the other-vehicle behavior information acquired by the other-vehicle behavior information acquiring unit; and

a driving assistance unit that performs driving assistance on the basis of an estimation result of the traffic condition estimating unit,

wherein the estimation available or unavailable determining unit determines it is impossible to estimate the traffic conditions when the other vehicle travels directly in front of the vehicle,

the vehicle behavior information includes information about a speed variation of the vehicle,

the other-vehicle behavior information includes information about a speed variation of the another vehicle, and

the traffic condition estimating unit estimates traffic conditions between the vehicle and the another vehicle on the basis of the information on the speed variation of the another vehicle and the information about the speed variation of the vehicle, calculates a delay time between a deceleration start time of another vehicle and a deceleration start time of the vehicle on the basis of the information about the speed variation of another vehicle and the information about the speed variation of the vehicle, and estimates traffic conditions on the basis of the delay time.

2. The vehicle driving assistance device according to claim 1,

wherein the traffic condition estimating unit calculates a deceleration gain of the speed variation of the vehicle to the speed variation of the another vehicle during deceleration on the basis of the information about the speed variation of the another vehicle and the information about the speed variation of the vehicle and estimates the traffic conditions between the vehicle and the another vehicle on the basis of the deceleration gain.

3. The vehicle driving assistance device according to claim 1, further comprising:

a vehicle position information acquiring unit that acquires position information of the vehicle,

wherein the other-vehicle behavior information acquired by the other-vehicle behavior information acquiring unit includes position information of the another vehicle, and

the traffic condition estimating unit calculates a distance between the vehicle and the another vehicle on the basis of the position information of the vehicle and the position information of the another vehicle and estimates the traffic conditions between the vehicle and the another vehicle on the basis of a variation in the inter-vehicle distance.

4. The vehicle driving assistance device according to claim 1 further comprising:

an immediately preceding vehicle behavior prediction unit that predicts behavior of an immediately preceding vehicle which travels directly in front of the vehicle on the basis of the other-vehicle behavior information and the estimation result of the traffic condition estimating unit,

wherein the driving assistance unit performs the driving assistance on the basis of a behavior prediction result of the immediately preceding vehicle behavior prediction unit.

5. The vehicle driving assistance device according to claim 4,

wherein the driving assistance unit performs the driving assistance on the basis of information about road conditions between the vehicle and the immediately preceding vehicle.

6. The vehicle driving assistance device according to claim 4,

wherein the driving assistance unit adjusts an amount of control of the driving assistance based on the behavior prediction result of the immediately preceding vehicle behavior prediction unit, on the basis of a current traveling relationship between the vehicle and the immediately preceding vehicle.