Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Navigation – Employing position determining equipment
Reexamination Certificate
2002-03-27
2004-10-19
Marc-Coleman, Marthe Y. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Navigation
Employing position determining equipment
C340S995100, C701S214000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06807484
ABSTRACT:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This application is based on and incorporates herein by reference Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-95831 filed on Mar. 29, 2001 and Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-16897 filed on Jan. 25, 2002.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a navigation system, a hand-held terminal and a data transfer system, which includes the navigation system and the hand-held terminal. The present invention also relates to a program executed in the navigation system and a program executed in the hand-held terminal.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, a navigation system installed, for example, in a vehicle includes a global positioning system (GPS) receiver. The GPS receiver receives GPS signals transmitted from GPS satellites. The navigation system acquires position data by processing the GPS signals received from the GPS satellites through the GPS receiver. Then, the navigation system determines a current position of the vehicle based on the acquired position data.
In such a navigation system, each set of the position data acquired through the GPS receiver is stored in a non-volatile memory one after another. For example, when the vehicle is parked in a parking lot, and thus an ignition switch is turned off, electric power is no longer supplied from a vehicle battery to the navigation system. Thereafter, when the ignition switch is turned on to drive the vehicle out of the parking lot, the electric power is supplied to the navigation system from the vehicle battery. At this moment, the latest position data stored in the non-volatile memory (i.e., the latest position data acquired before the turning off of the ignition switch) is retrieved from the non-volatile memory. Then, the current position of the vehicle is determined based on the retrieved position data.
However, such a navigation system may have the following disadvantage.
FIGS. 12A and 12B
show two exemplary cases. In both cases, a vehicle is parked at a parking lot
51
(indicated with a solid line Z in
FIGS. 12A and 12B
) under a poor radio environment (e.g., basement parking lot or parking lot located inside a building) where the effective GPS signals cannot be received from the GPS satellites. With reference to the case shown in
FIG. 12A
, the vehicle enters the parking lot
51
through a parking lot entrance
52
and is then parked at a point P. Thereafter, the vehicle is driven from the point P and exits the parking lot
51
through the same entrance
52
. In this case, first position data (first set of the position data), which is acquired before the turning off of the power supply to the navigation system at the point P, is the position data of a point A in FIG.
12
A. Furthermore, second position data (second set of the position data), which is acquired first after the turning on of the power supply to the navigation system at the point P, is the position data of a point B in FIG.
12
. In such a situation, a distance between the point A and the point B is relatively short. In other words, there is continuity between the first position data, which is acquired before the turning off of the power supply to the navigation system at the point P, and the second position data, which is acquired after the turning on of the power supply to the navigation system at the point P. Thus, the current position of the vehicle can be immediately determined.
However, this is different in the case shown in
FIG. 12B
where the vehicle, which has been parked at the point P after entering the parking lot
51
through the entrance
52
, is driven and exits the parking lot
51
through another entrance
53
, which is relatively far from the entrance
52
. In this case, similar to the above case, the first position data (first set of the position data), which is acquired before the turning off of the power supply to the navigation system at the point P, is the position data of the point A in FIG.
12
B. Furthermore, second position data (second set of the position data), which is acquired first after the turning on of the power supply to the navigation system at the point P, is the position data of a point C in FIG.
12
B. In this case, since a distance between the point A and the point C is relatively long, there is no continuity between the first position data, which is acquired before the turning off of the power supply to the navigation system at the point P, and the second position data, which is acquired after the turning on of the power supply to the navigation system at the point P. In such a case, it is difficult to determine the current position of the vehicle immediately. Thus, a substantial amount of time is required before the current position of the vehicle can be determined, resulting in inconvenience to the users.
Apart from the above disadvantage, there is another disadvantage. That is, the navigation system is basically constructed such that the navigation system retrieves map data, which corresponds to position data acquired through its own GPS receiver, from the external storage medium, such as a compact disk-read only memory (CD-ROM), a digital versatile disk-read only memory (DVD-ROM) or a memory card. Then, the navigation system displays a map of the retrieved map data on its display. Thus, even if a hand-held terminal having a GPS receiver is available, and position data is acquired by the GPS receiver of the hand-held terminal, a map of map data, which corresponds to the position data acquired through the GPS receiver of the hand-held terminal, cannot be displayed on the display of the navigation system because the navigation system is not constructed to receive and process the position data from the hand-held terminal, resulting in further inconvenience to the users.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention addresses the above disadvantages. Thus, it is an objective of the present invention to provide a navigation system, which allows immediate determination of a current position of a vehicle even when there is no continuity between two consecutive sets of position data acquired by the navigation system and also allows display of a map of map data corresponding to position data acquired by a hand-held terminal on a display of the navigation system, thereby improving usability of the navigation system. It is another objective of the present invention to provide a data transmission system, which allows immediate determination of a current position of a vehicle even when there is no continuity between two consecutive sets of position data acquired by a navigation system and also allows display of a map of map data corresponding to position data acquired by a hand-held terminal on a display of the navigation system, thereby improving usability of the navigation system. It is a further objective of the present invention to provide a hand-held terminal, which allows immediate determination of a current position of a vehicle even when there is no continuity between two consecutive sets of position data acquired by a navigation system and also allows display of a map of map data corresponding to position data acquired by the hand-held terminal on a display of the navigation system, thereby improving usability of the navigation system. It is a further objective of the present invention to provide a program, which allows immediate determination of a current position of a vehicle even when there is no continuity between two consecutive sets of position data acquired by a navigation system and also allows display of a map of map data corresponding to position data acquired by a hand-held terminal on a display of the navigation system, thereby improving usability of the navigation system.
To achieve the objectives of the present invention, there is provided a navigation system including a position data receiving means for receiving at least one set of position data from a hand-held terminal, and a control means. Each set of the position data indicates a position of the hand-held terminal. The control means executes at least one
Azuma Kazuyoshi
Inoue Akira
Yamazaki Toru
Denso Corporation
Harness Dickey & Pierce PLC
Marc-Coleman Marthe Y.
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