PARKING ASSISTANCE DEVICE AND PARKING ASSISTANCE METHOD

• US 20090243888A1
• Filed: 02/28/2007
• Published: 10/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Inventors: Itou, Takuya, Kubota, Yuichi, Endo, Tomohiko, Kawabata, Yukiko, Makino, Yasushi
• Granted Patent: US 8,542,128 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/932.200
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 30/06 Automatic manoeuvring for parking
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 40/02 related to ambient conditions
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/14 Means for informing the driver, warning the driver or prompting a driver intervention
• CPC Class Codes: B62D 15/028 Guided parking by providing commands to the driver, e.g. acoustically or optically
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/165 for passive traffic, e.g. including static obstacles, trees
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/166 for active traffic, e.g. moving vehicles, pedestrians, bikes
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/168 Driving aids for parking, e.g. acoustic or visual feedback on parking space

Abstract

A parking assisting apparatus that can reduce a burden of a driver at a preliminary stage of parking. The parking assisting apparatus assists parking of a vehicle and includes an obstacle detector that detects an obstacle near the vehicle and an information outputting mechanism that informs the driver of a parking space adjacent to the obstacle detected by the obstacle detector.

Claims

1-7. -7. (canceled)

8. A parking assisting apparatus for assisting parking of a vehicle, comprising:

obstacle detecting means for detecting an obstacle near the vehicle;

deflection angle calculating means for calculating a deflection angle that represents a change amount of a direction of the vehicle in a predetermined travel distance; and

information outputting means for outputting a notice for informing a driver of a parking space adjacent to the obstacle detected by the obstacle detecting means,

wherein the information outputting means determines whether to output the notice based on the deflection angle calculated by the deflection angle calculating means.

9. The parking assisting apparatus as claimed in claim 8, wherein when the information outputting means outputs the notice the information outputting means outputs a steering instruction, and when the vehicle has reached an appropriate parking start position from which the vehicle can be parked in the noticed parking space the information outputting means informs the driver of reaching the appropriate parking start position.

10. The parking assisting apparatus as claimed in claim 8, wherein an operation of the information outputting means can be switched on or off according to an operation of a user.

11. The parking assisting apparatus as claimed in claim 10, wherein a detection result of the obstacle detecting means or a detection result of the parking space derived therefrom is stored even if the operation of the information outputting means is switched off.

12. The parking assisting apparatus as claimed in claim 8, wherein the information outputting means outputs an image representing a position of the parking space on a display screen, said image being updated when a new parking space is detected.

13. A parking assisting method of assisting parking of a vehicle, comprising:

detecting an obstacle near the vehicle;

detecting an obstacle near the vehicle;

calculating a deflection angle that represents a change amount of a direction of the vehicle in a predetermined travel distance; and

outputting a notice for informing a driver of a parking space adjacent to the obstacle detected in the detecting an obstacle,

wherein in the information outputting it is determined whether the notice should be output based on the deflection angle calculated in the calculating a deflection angle.

14. A parking assisting apparatus for assisting parking of a vehicle, comprising:

a control device;

wherein

said control device is connected to an obstacle detecting sensor for detecting an obstacle near the vehicle;

said control device is configured to calculate a deflection angle that represents a change amount of a direction of the vehicle in a predetermined travel distance and output a notice for informing a driver of a parking space adjacent to the obstacle detected by the obstacle detecting sensor; and

said control device is configured to determine whether to output the notice based on the calculated deflection angle.