Parking assistance system

• US 9,616,927 B2
• Filed: 01/30/2014
• Issued: 04/11/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: Tsukamoto, Yukinori
• Primary Examiner(s): Swarthout, Brent
• Application Number:
  US15/114,338
• Publication Number:
  US 20170001665A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,167 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/126 Methods for pairing a vehicle and a charging station, e.g. establishing a one-to-one relation between a wireless power transmitter and a wireless power receiver
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/305 Communication interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/34 Plug-like or socket-like devices specially adapted for contactless inductive charging of electric vehicles positioning means for charging devices using inductive energy transfer B60L53/38
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/36 by positioning the vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/37 using optical position determination, e.g. using cameras
• CPC Class Codes: B62D 15/028 Guided parking by providing commands to the driver, e.g. acoustically or optically
• CPC Class Codes: B62D 15/0285 Parking performed automatically
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/168 Driving aids for parking, e.g. acoustic or visual feedback on parking space
• 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 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

Abstract

A parking assistance system includes: a light source provided at a parking position at which a power transmission coil is provided, and configured to emit light; at least two light reception units mounted away from each other on a vehicle including a power reception coil, and each configured to receive the light emitted from the light source by using a position sensitive detector; an incident-angle calculation unit configured to calculate the incident angle of the light on each of the light reception units; a distance calculation unit configured to calculate the distance between the parking position and the vehicle from the incident angles of the light on the light reception units; and a detection unit configured to detect that the vehicle has approached the parking position. The light volume of the light source is reduced when the vehicle has approached the parking position.

Claims

1. A parking assistance system comprising:

a light source provided at a parking position at which a power transmission coil is provided, and configured to emit light;

at least two light reception units mounted away from each other on a vehicle including a power reception coil, and each configured to receive the light emitted from the light source by using a position sensitive detector;

an incident-angle calculation unit configured to calculate an incident angle of the light on each of the at least two light reception units;

a distance calculation unit configured to calculate a distance between the parking position and the vehicle from the incident angles of the light on the at least two light reception units; and

a detection unit configured to detect that the vehicle has approached the parking position, wherein

a light volume of the light source is reduced when the detection unit detects that the vehicle has approached the parking position.

2. The parking assistance system according to claim 1, wherein

each of the at least two light reception units includes a lens configured to concentrate the light from the light source, and

a position of a light receiving surface of the position sensitive detector at each of the at least two light reception units is set to a position away from the lens by a distance greater than a focal length of the lens.

3. The parking assistance system according to claim 1, comprising

a plurality of the light sources, wherein

one of the plurality of light sources is selectively caused light up.