Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Navigation – Employing position determining equipment
Reexamination Certificate
2000-04-06
2002-03-12
Cuchlinski, Jr., William A. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Navigation
Employing position determining equipment
C701S206000, C701S207000, C701S209000, C701S211000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06356836
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a method for generating and updating data for use in a destination-tracking system consisting of at least one mobile unit in accordance with claim
1
as well as a device for carrying this out in accordance with claim
38
.
2. Description of the Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
Navigational or destination tracking systems have recently been attracting significant attention, particularly their application in motor vehicles. The purpose of such systems lies in guiding a driver to a target destination by electronic aids after the destination has been entered by the driver. Firstly, the route can be found accurately without tiresome questioning of third parties and secondly, congestion or other traffic obstructions can be avoided.
Typical navigational systems work by continuously analyzing the current location of a moving vehicle and comparing this position with a road network in the form of geographical data. This information can be read from a road map stored, for example, on a CD-ROM carried in the vehicle. From the geographical data and assumptions about achievable speeds, a computer determines a favorable way to a destination possibly or optionally taking into account additional specific road information such as reports of road works, accident reports, etc., transmitted by communication systems. The result is shown by means of a display, for example represented graphically in the form of a map, in which the location of the vehicle is indicated, e.g., by a point. On the basis of the map displayed together with the current location of the vehicle, the driver can follow the displayed route up to the destination node. Such a system or method is described, for example, in DE 35 12 127 A1.
Similarly, DE 38 28 725 A1 describes a method to record and store a route carried out for the first time with a facility installed in the subject vehicle. When making a new trip along the same route, this recorded information can be reused. This method is intended to simplify the requirements, described in DE 35 12 127 A1, of comparing the current location of the vehicle with stored geographical data for a route which is already known to the subject vehicle. DE 41 05 180 A1 describes an autonomous road guiding system for motor vehicles which contains a device to record the course of a street actually taken and stores the data in a storage unit. Impulses along the route are detected automatically, whereas changes of direction are entered by hand via the push-buttons of the device or via the direction indicator of the vehicle. The storage unit thus programmed can be taken out of the device and given to a third party thus making it possible for the third party to drive along an unknown route with the help of the storage unit. One of the problems of this autonomous road guiding system, among others, is that only quite specific road topologies can be saved and updates are not carried out. Thus neither changes in the road topology nor unexpected events between the programming of the storage unit and the trip of the third party are taken into account. Additional problems are encountered in the “calibration” of the geographical data.
In addition to the above, DE 40 08 460 A1 describes a method which takes into account the current traffic conditions when selecting a route. The current traffic condition data is transmitted to the destination tracking device in the vehicle in the same way which makes it now possible for vehicles with radio sets to receive radio traffic news.
DE 43 34 886 A1 describes a destination tracking device for motor vehicles with an on-board computer which extracts and processes signals for a route to a given trip destination said to be optimal with regard to travel time and/or fuel consumption. The vehicle contains a facility which has collected and stored data on the time-dependent occurrence of traffic obstructions during at least one earlier information gathering trip. Said data are entered into an on-board computer and taken into account when determining a modified route. The well known destination tracking device mentioned above has the advantage that it is not dependent on external facilities such as radio traffic services or computers to record traffic hold-ups. However the data entered to identify traffic obstructions is seldom up to date. The geometric route section data, furthermore, is taken automatically from a CD-ROM and consequently is not always up to date.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,350,970 A1 describes a method for recording the travel time of a vehicle between two given nodes, and for transmitting said travel times to a computer designated as the master computer. Said master computer then compares the travel times with average values; if there are significant deviations, another route is proposed to subsequent vehicles. The transmitting vehicle does not receive the revised result. In other words it is a traffic control system and not a destination tracking system.
DE 195 26 148 C2 and DE 195 34 589 A1 describe methods as well as systems for forecasting traffic flows. The basic structure corresponds to the method and system discussed earlier in DE 35 12 127 A1. But in contrast to the method and system disclosed in DE
35
12
127
A1, the method and system described in DE 195 26 148 C2 successively stores the momentary vehicle speed and its current position which are continuously determined by means of a receiver tracking signals from a navigational satellite system, said receiver being located in a storage unit in each vehicle of a sampling fleet. The stored locations are part of the trip route data which are transmitted time-dependently and/or route-dependently by the sampling vehicle to a traffic control computer. Simultaneously “current trip activity data” from stationary sensors is also transmitted to the central computer. The central computer then analyses the transmitted route and trip activity data against a stored digital road map and determines the traffic volumes, i.e. the vehicles per time unit at a specific road cross section based on that route data. Subsequently, according to DE 195 34 589 A1, traffic development can be forecast by the central computer from the stored traffic volumes. It is reported that the central computer can propose “time-optimal” routes to other road users based on this forecast and its stored digital road maps. The title of DE 195 26 148 C2 not withstanding, traffic flows cannot be forecast by these known methods or systems since the most important information requirement, namely the start and destination nodes of the vehicles, are not known by the central computer. Furthermore, the corresponding linear equation system always exhibits an arbitrary degree of incorrectness.
The systems or methods described in DE 35 12 127 A1, DE 38 28 725 A1 , DE 40 08 460 A1, DE 195 26 148 C2 and DE 195 34 589 A1 have one thing in common, they all use a static database with regard to the geographical data. An exchange of the geographical data is carried out only from time to time. Even a short time after the geographical data of a certain region has been fed into the storage device of a vehicle, it may no longer be up to date since, for instance, a route or link may be blocked, or newly opened, or the travel direction in a one-way street may have changed. Furthermore, these known systems or methods do not take into account the fact that the same route may exhibit different travel times at different times of day, traffic conditions, weather conditions, etc. Another inherent property of these conventional systems is that the destination is addressed by input of the name of the location together with the name of the road and, sometimes, a street number. If the destination node in this format is not known to the system it is impossible to calculate any route.
Furthermore, these known methods and systems are based on the hypothesis that the available road network is essentially known. In fact, however, the geographical data actually stored represents r
Cuchlinski Jr. William A.
Hochberg D. Peter
Holt William H.
Marc-Coleman Marthe
Vieyra Katherine R.
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