Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Navigation – Employing position determining equipment
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-29
2004-03-23
Marc-Coleman, Marthe Y. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Navigation
Employing position determining equipment
C701S213000, C701S200000, C701S029000, C701S033000, C340S436000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06711495
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for gathering information on a movable body by using a satellite communication system or another movable-body communication system such as a ground-wave digital communication system, a cellular phone and a DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communication) system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A car navigation system for displaying the present position of a vehicle on a screen has been implemented and becoming popular. In recent years, a communication navigation system connecting a cellular phone to a car navigation system has also been implemented.
As a means for acquiring information on the state of a vehicle, partial history-data is created at inspection of the vehicle at a car dealer and delivered to a complete-car manufacturer or a car-part manufacturer through typically wire communication instead of being created in a real-time manner.
As a means for acquiring information on the condition of a vehicle, in a dealer, there is provided a system for reporting partial history data at inspection of the vehicle. Since the frequency of the gathering of information is low and requests for vehicle inspection to be conducted at a dealer appointed by a complete-car manufacturer are uncertain, however, it is difficult for the complete-car manufacturer and a car-part manufacturer to create information useful for marketing of each car type and useful for statistical analyses and to feed back the information to a design team. In addition, as a movable-body communication technology, in order to gather and manage data of each car type produced by the complete-car manufacturer by using cellular phones, which become popular at a fast pace, it is necessary to obtain the phone number of each user. It is thus difficult to gather information on a plurality of specific cars and to distribute information in a collective manner.
Thus, information on the present condition of a vehicle is not collected continuously in a real-time manner. Even if the information is collected continuously in a real-time manner, the collected information is very limited so that the utilization of the information cannot help being said to be little. Continuous gathering of information on the state of a vehicle is indispensable to statistical analyses of the vehicle and the type of the vehicle. If there are no statistics, subsequent diagnostic analyses cannot be conducted as well.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is thus an object of the present invention addressing the problems described above to provide a vehicle-information gathering method and a vehicle-information gathering apparatus, which are capable of continuously gathering information on the present condition of a vehicle in detail with a high degree of reliability in a real-time manner and capable of analyzing the information.
The present invention is characterized in that:
information on the state of a vehicle is divided into information on the position of the vehicle and other information such as information for controlling the vehicle, information on the states of car parts, information on the body of the vehicle and information on a part-replacement history of the vehicle; and
the information on the position of the vehicle can be acquired and gathered from a reflection signal obtained as a result of an artificial satellite's reflection of a signal transmitted by an antenna provided on the vehicle to the artificial satellite.
The conventional vehicle-information gathering apparatus acquires information on the position of a vehicle from a reflection signal reflected by an artificial satellite as a result of reflection of a signal transmitted by an antenna provided on the vehicle to the artificial satellite and uses the information in car navigation. However, the conventional vehicle-information gathering apparatus does not collect and analyze the acquired information on the position of the vehicle.
Another characteristic of the present invention is a capability of analyzing a combination of the information on the position of the vehicle acquired in the way described above and other information. By utilizing the two characteristics described above, it is possible to accumulate detailed and reliable vehicle information in a real-time manner for each individual vehicle and to expect applications of the present invention.
To put it concretely, the present invention provides the following methods and apparatuses.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vehicle-information gathering method for gathering information on a state of a vehicle, comprising: acquiring and collecting pieces of information on a position of said vehicle from a reflection signal reflected by an artificial satellite as a result of reflection of a position signal transmitted by an antenna provided on said vehicle to said artificial satellite.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vehicle-information gathering method for gathering information on a state of a vehicle, said method comprising the steps of:
acquiring and gathering pieces of information on a position of said vehicle from a reflection signal reflected by an artificial satellite as a result of reflection of a position signal transmitted by an antenna provided on said vehicle to said artificial satellite; and
acquiring and gathering signals reflected by said artificial satellite as a result of reflection of information signals used for representing information on control of said vehicle or information on conditions of vehicle parts and transmitted from said antenna to said artificial satellite or transmitted by said vehicle through a wireless-communication apparatus such as a DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communication) device or a cellular phone, whereby individual pieces of information on a state of a vehicle are gathered in a real-time manner.
In an embodiment, there is provided a vehicle-information gathering method wherein said information on control of said vehicle or the information on conditions of vehicle parts are transmitted after said information on a position of said vehicle has entered a reception mode.
In an embodiment, there is provided a vehicle-information gathering method wherein said information on a position of said vehicle is a latitude and a longitude obtained from a navigation terminal.
In an embodiment, there is provided a vehicle-information gathering method wherein said information on control of said vehicle includes a braking amount, a steering angle, an accelerator-pedal angle, a gear count, an ABS (anti-skid braking system) operating time and a VSC (Velocity Suppression Control) operating time.
In an embodiment, there is provided a vehicle-information gathering method wherein said information on conditions of vehicle parts includes a lubricant temperature, a lubricant pressure, a battery voltage, a fuel-residue quantity, a CPU state and a muffler temperature.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vehicle-information gathering method for gathering information on a state of a vehicle, said method comprising the steps of:
acquiring and gathering pieces of information on a position of said vehicle from a reflection signal reflected by an artificial satellite as a result of reflection of a position signal transmitted by an antenna provided on said vehicle to said artificial satellite;
acquiring and gathering signals reflected by said artificial satellite as a result of reflection of information signals generated by a sensor provided on said vehicle and transmitted from said antenna to said artificial satellite or acquiring and gathering said information signals generated by said sensor and transmitted by said vehicle through a wireless-communication apparatus such as a DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communication) device or a cellular phone, whereby individual pieces of information on a state of a vehicle are gathered in a real-time manner; and
acquiring and gathering information on said vehicle such as
Kawamata Yukihiro
Shibata Toshiro
Shioya Makoto
Toyama Atsuya
Ukai Seiji
Hitachi , Ltd.
Hogan & Hartson LLP
Marc-Coleman Marthe Y.
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