Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Traffic analysis or control of surface vehicle
Reexamination Certificate
1998-08-31
2001-04-10
Cuchlinski, Jr., William A. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Traffic analysis or control of surface vehicle
C340S905000, C701S210000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06216085
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a navigation system for guiding a driver of a vehicle, the navigation system comprising:
a receiver for the reception of a traffic message, the traffic message comprising an event and a location to which the event relates,
a filter module for evaluating the traffic message and for deciding whether the traffic message is to be processed, and
a process module for processing and exploiting the traffic message.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention further relates to a method of giving guidance information to a driver of a vehicle, the method comprising the steps of:
receiving a traffic message comprising an event and a location to which the event relates,
evaluating the traffic message in order to decide whether the traffic message is to be presented, and
if so decided, presenting the traffic message to the driver.
Such a navigation system and method are known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,532. The known system receives traffic messages according to the Radio Data System (RDS). In RDS, the message is broadcast together with the audio signals of a radio program and the RDS receiver in the vehicle is equipped to receive the combined signals and to separate the message from the audio. The traffic message comprises an event, describing the particular circumstances to which the message relates, and a location, indicating the position on the road where the event takes place. In the known system, the driver inputs the route that he plans to follow during a trip and the system stores this route. When a message has been received, the known system determines whether this received message concerns a location on the planned route. If this is the case, then the message is further processed and its content is presented to the driver. This filtering is employed to reduce the potentially high number of traffic messages so as to not overwhelm the driver with traffic messages. A disadvantage of the known system is that it is necessary to input and store the planned route. Furthermore, the filtering of traffic messages in the known system has a problem in that traffic messages not directly related to the planned route are discarded by the system.
It is an object of the invention to provide a navigation system of the kind set forth with an improved filtering of traffic messages. This object is achieved according to the invention in a navigation system that is characterised in that the filter module is operative:
to determine a delay on the basis of the event in the traffic message and
to either transfer the traffic message to the process module if the delay is larger than a predetermined threshold or to discard the traffic message if the delay is not larger than the predetermined threshold. Since the navigation system according to the invention filters traffic messages on the basis of a minimal delay, it is not necessary to have a planned route input by the driver and stored in the system. The navigation system simply determines the delay caused by the particular event and if this is small enough the traffic message is discarded. This reduces the number of traffic messages to be processed by the system and to be presented to the driver. Furthermore, traffic messages involving a long delay but not directly related to the planned route are not discarded but are processed by the system. This may be of importance in case the driver leaves the route and when a new route is planned.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An embodiment of the navigation system according to the invention is defined in claim
2
. In a navigation system comprising a map database with information on the location to which the event of the traffic message relates, this information can advantageously be used to determine the delay caused by the event. An example is where the traffic message relates to a traffic queue of a particular length at a particular location and where the information in the map database reveals that the particular location is a bridge in the highway. The filter module may determine that the caused delay is longer than average for the traffic queue of the particular length.
An embodiment of the navigation system according to the invention is defined in claim
4
. In a navigation system where traffic messages are presented on a map displayed by the system, it is advantageous to limit the number of displayed messages. Displaying many traffic messages would clutter the display and would be confusing for the driver. According to the invention, only the more important messages, i.e. those involving at least a minimal delay, are displayed.
An embodiment of the navigation system according to the invention is defined in claim
5
. The number of traffic messages that must be considered by the planning module of this embodiment is reduced by filtering out traffic messages that do not have a minimal delay. A planning module that is arranged to take into account dynamic traffic information, i.e. received via the traffic messages, in addition to the static information in the system, need not only consider events on the planned route but also events off that route. A traffic message may indicate that a traffic queue at a location not on the route has become less severe. In that case, the planning module has to re-plan the route between the present vehicle position and the destination because the current planned route may no longer be the optimal one. Re-planning a route requires a considerable computational effort and reduction of the number of traffic messages leading to re-planning is therefore advantageous.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a method of the kind set forth with an improved filtering of traffic messages. This object is achieved according to the invention in a method that is characterised in that evaluating the traffic message includes:
determining a delay on the basis of the event in the traffic message and
deciding to present the traffic message if the delay is larger than a predetermined threshold or to discard the traffic message if the delay is not larger than the predetermined threshold. By determining the delay of a received traffic message and by only presenting the traffic message if a minimal delay is involved, the number of traffic messages presented to the driver is reduced in a simple way. The driver is not overwhelmed by the potentially large number of traffic messages and the driver will be able to pay adequate attention to the presented, more important traffic messages.
Further advantageous embodiments of the invention are recited in the dependent claims.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5095532 (1992-03-01), Mardus
patent: 5182555 (1993-01-01), Sumner
patent: 5537323 (1996-07-01), Schulte
patent: 5699056 (1997-12-01), Yoshida
Emmerink Carla J. M.
Lahaije Paul D. M. E.
Mulder Edwin W.
Walgers Erik J.
Cuchlinski Jr. William A.
Mannesmann VDO AG
Mayer Brown & Platt
Pipala Edward
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