Telecommunications – Transmitter and receiver at same station – Radiotelephone equipment detail
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-09
2004-04-06
Trost, William (Department: 2683)
Telecommunications
Transmitter and receiver at same station
Radiotelephone equipment detail
C455S569200, C455S563000, C455S550100, C455S079000, C455S567000, C379S420040
Reexamination Certificate
active
06718187
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a hands-free telephone apparatus for vehicles and a control method therefor that allows a telephone conversation without holding a handset by hand.
There has been proposed a fixed mounting of a hands-free telephone in a vehicle to enable hands-free response to an incoming call, with recent widespread use of mobile telephones, there has been proposed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 10-304464 a hands-free telephone apparatus in which a mobile telephone is mounted in a vehicle. This hands-free telephone apparatus functions, if the driving burden on the vehicle operator (driver) becomes large or is expected to shortly become large, during a call or while dialing a number, to make notification of that effect, putting the call or dialing on hold.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
With this hands-free telephone apparatus for vehicles, if an output of a sensor or an output of a navigation system is taken as a condition such that an incoming call or dialing should be put on hold when the driving burden is large or expected to shortly become large, then even if the driver feels free enough from the driving task to make or receive a call, it is not certain that the driver will be able to use the telephone. Because the call-holding condition is dependent upon the driver, and the sensor output is not necessarily suited to the driver's ability, it is desirable that a driver be permitted to use the telephone if he or she perceives that the burden of driving is not large.
In driving a vehicle, when the driver is concentrating on looking forward through the front windshield, there are generally a central vision region
62
and peripheral vision regions
64
within a field of vision
100
of the driver, as projected on the front windshield
62
as shown in FIG.
3
. The field of view
100
, the central vision region
63
, and the peripheral vision region
64
are defined as follows.
Referring to
FIG. 10
, an X-Y-Z orthogonal coordinate system is defined in a vehicle by defining an origin and axis orientations. The origin is fixed to a seating reference point R of a driver, which is established as follows. With a mannequin conforming to ISO 6549-1980 seated in a driver's seat of the vehicle, the location of the mannequin's hip point H is taken as the seating reference point R, with a front-to-back adjustable seat in a rearmost position thereof, a vertically adjustable seat at a lowermost position thereof, or with a seat having an adjustable mounting angle of a seat back and seat cushion at a design reference angle to be a lockable angle after first placing the seat in a free condition, as necessary. An X-axis and a Y-axis are oriented in longitudinal and transverse directions of the vehicle, respectively, and a Z-axis extends in a vertical direction. The driver's seat on which the seating reference point R is established is transversely offset relative to a vehicle center plane S
1
, and an X-Z plane S
2
on which the reference point R resides is likewise offset.
Given the seating reference point R, there are established upper and lower marginal reference points V
1
and V
2
of vision stricture at rearwardly offset (X=68) two vertical positions (Z=665, Z=589) on a transversely offset (Y=−5) vertical plane S
3
parallel to the planes S
1
and S
2
, as in the table below. A front windshield
62
of the vehicle is described relative to the reference point R.
V points
X (mm)
Y (mm)
Z (mm)
V1
68
−5
665
V2
68
−5
589
Given the two reference points V
1
and V
2
, there are defined two types of visual zones A and B on the front windshield
62
, as follows. First, as shown by a side view in FIG.
11
and by a rear view of a projection in
FIGS. 12
, there are supposed upper and lower imaginary horizontal planes A
1
and A
2
extending in the direction of vehicle movement, passing the reference points V
1
and V
2
on the vertical plane S
3
(FIG.
11
), respectively, and crossing the front windshield
62
along horizontal curves
2
and
3
(FIGS.
11
and
12
), respectively. Then, there is supposed an upper inclined plane B
1
inclined by 3° upward from the upper horizontal plane A
1
, passing the upper reference point V
1
on the vertical plane S
3
(
FIG. 11
) and crossing the front windshield
62
along an upper horizontal curve
1
(FIGS.
11
and
12
), as well as a lower inclined plane B
2
inclined by 1° downward from the lower horizontal plane A
2
, passing the lower reference point V
2
on the vertical plane S
3
(
FIG. 11
) and crossing the front windshield
62
along a lower horizontal curve
4
(FIGS.
11
and
12
). Then, an upper spatial zone relative to the upper inclined plane B
1
and a lower spatial zone relative to the lower inclined plane B
2
are each defined as a vision-restricted zone B, and an intervening spatial zone between the upper and lower inclined planes B
1
and B
2
is defined as a visible zone A. The zones A and B have their projections on the front windshield
62
, which are viewed on the driver's side in FIG.
12
.
On the other hand, a driver's field of vision
100
projected onto the front windshield
62
is defined as follows. Using a mannequin conforming to ISO 6549-1980, seated in the driver's seat as described, an eye position E of the driver is defined. As shown by a side view in FIG.
13
A and in a section along the windshield
62
in
FIG. 13B
, the field of vision
100
extends between an upper angle of 60° and a lower angle of 80° with respect to a horizontal plane extending in the direction of vehicle movement, passing the eye position E, and between angles of 100° to the left and right. The outer circumference of the field of vision
100
defines outer margins of peripheral vision regions.
Mapping the zones A and B on the field of vision
100
, as shown in
FIG. 14
, there are established for the driver an upper and a lower peripheral vision region
64
and a central vision region
63
on the front windshield
62
, and a blind region
65
.
The vision region
63
thus established within the field of vision
100
is a region in which the driver can accurately recognize a display without moving the viewing point when looking forward, and the peripheral vision region
64
is the region in which the presence of something displayed therein can be perceived, but what is displayed cannot be accurately recognized unless the viewing point is shifted to the display position.
The driver, therefore, can immediately recognize something displayed in the central vision region, but when something is displayed in the peripheral vision region does not notice the display if the burden of driving is large, although does notice the display if the burden of driving is not large.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a hands-free telephone apparatus for vehicles and a control method therefor, wherein if a driver is caused to notice an incoming call telephone call indicated at a position removed from the driver's central vision region by a display means, without issuing an audible ringing, the driver is permitted to answer the call because it was taken that the driver was free enough from driving to have noticed the indication of the incoming call.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a hands-free telephone apparatus and a control method therefor, wherein, even if a driver who notices an incoming call displayed at a location removed from the driver's central vision region by a display means answers the call, because driving will present a burden to the driver, if inter-vehicle distance tracking control is being performed the inter-vehicle distance is re-set to a distance longer than the reference inter-vehicle distance usually set, or braking force is controlled so as to enable the driver to drive at ease.
An aspect of the present invention to achieve the object is a hands-free telephone apparatus for vehicles, comprising a telephone holder configured to hold a mobil
Kishi Norimasa
Muramatsu Toshirou
Takagi Toru
D'Agosta Stephen
McDermott & Will & Emery
Trost William
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