Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Vehicle diagnosis or maintenance indication
Reexamination Certificate
2001-07-25
2003-06-03
Louis-Jacques, Jacques H. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Vehicle diagnosis or maintenance indication
C701S029000, C701S071000, C701S080000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06574538
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an operational condition recording apparatus that records the operational condition of a vehicle such as a truck, a bus, a taxi and a private car and an operating control system utilizing it.
2. Related Art
Heretofore, for this type of operational condition recording apparatus, a tachograph mounted in a large truck and a bus is known. This tachograph always continues to record the running speed of a vehicle while the vehicle is driven so that the record is utilized for the operating control of the vehicle.
However, in the above-mentioned related tachograph, in case a traffic accident occurs in relation to a vehicle, a detailed operational condition immediately before the accident occurs cannot be recorded as a flight recorder of an aircraft records it though the running speed when the accident occurs can be known.
In the meantime, as described above, the transportation industry and others have a need to control the operation of a vehicle for a tachograph.
Further, in a recent vehicle, electronization is accelerated, many sensors for detecting a condition of the vehicle are mounted even if the vehicle is not a special one and information related to the operational condition such as the behavior of the vehicle can be acquired easily without costs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention is made in view of such a background and the object is to provide an operational condition recording apparatus acquired by improving a related tachograph and an operating control system utilizing it which enable recording the behavior of a vehicle in detail when an accident occurs so that a situation in which the accident occurs can be re-created in detail, analyzing the cause of the accident based upon such re-created data and contributing to the prevention of the reoccurrence of an accident.
To achieve the object, according to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided an operational condition recording apparatus which can record vehicular operational condition information of a vehicle including at least one of running speed, rotational speed of wheels, engine revolving speed, position of a shift, handle steering angle, brake tread power, operational condition of ABS, result of peripheral monitoring and distance between another vehicle, the operational condition recording apparatus comprising:
a first mode as a recording mode in which the operational condition recording apparatus always records the vehicular operational condition information; and
a second mode as the recording mode in which the operation condition recording apparatus records the vehicular operational condition information in more detail compared with that in the first mode, the first and second mode can be switched,
wherein the recording mode is switched from the first mode to the second mode when a predetermined determination condition is met.
The operational condition recording apparatus according to the first aspect records information related to a vehicular operational condition in the first mode as the recording mode during normal traveling. Concretely, as a well-known digital tachograph, data such as the running speed, the traveling time, the stopping time and the traveling distance of a vehicle is recorded. When a driver operates a switch arranged near to a driver's seat, a function can be also expanded so that a vehicular condition such as traveling with a passenger or cargo/traveling without a passenger or cargo, loading/unloading, standby/break/lodging and refueling/a check can be recorded and the data is useful for data for vehicular operating control. That is, in the first mode, the similar object and effect to that of a related operational condition recording apparatus can be achieved.
The operational condition recording apparatus according to the first aspect is also provided with the second mode as the recording mode. The object of the second mode is mainly to record a situation before and after an accident in case a vehicle has risk of causing a traffic accident or in case a vehicle actually causes a traffic accident and more detailed operational condition information is recorded compared with the first recording mode. That is, a situation when the accident occurs is recorded by automatically switching a recording mode from the first recording mode to the second recording mode when a predetermined determination condition is met and recording more detailed data than data in the first recording mode, and is used to re-create the accident situation.
In the second mode, information except operational condition information given in the first aspect as an example may be also additionally recorded. For example, as a voice recorder of an aircraft, sound or voice inside and/or outside a vehicle may be also converted to digital data and recorded. In case a peripheral monitoring system including a front/front side monitoring camera and a rear/rear side monitoring camera is mounted in a vehicle, an image captured by it is compressed and may be also recorded as digital data.
For the predetermined determination condition, various types of conditions can be set and are described in detail in the succeeding aspects, however, to give concrete examples which are not described in the aspects, when a scream such as “watch out!” and “wow” of a driver is detected by a microphone mounted inside a vehicle, a recording mode may be also automatically switched to the second recording mode or when the sound of a slip of wheels or impulsive sound caused in a collision accident of another vehicle is detected by a microphone mounted outside the vehicle, a recording mode maybe also switched to the second mode. Further, when a driver operates a predetermined switch, a predetermined condition is manually met and the recording mode may be also switched to the second recording mode. Hereby, by turning a switch on when passing is started on a highway and turning the switch off after the passing is finished, operational condition information such as accelerating performance and distance between the corresponding vehicle and a front vehicle or the succeeding vehicle respectively during passing can be recorded, therefore, material to review whether safe passing driving is performed or not can be provided by reviewing the data after a driver stops driving.
The operational condition recording apparatus according to the first aspect can record the condition of a vehicle in detail before and after an accident occurs, having the similar function to that of a related tachograph. Therefore, after the accident occurs, a situation when the accident occurs can be re-created in detail, the cause of the accident can be analyzed based upon such re-created data and an accident can be prevented from recurring.
An operational condition recording apparatus according to a second aspect is based upon the operational condition recording apparatus according to the first aspect and is characterized in that in the second mode, the above-mentioned vehicular operational condition information is recorded at a shorter sampling interval, compared with that in the first mode.
In the operational condition recording apparatus according to the second aspect, in the second mode, recording higher in recording density is enabled, compared with that in the first mode. As described above, the object of the first recording mode is to fulfill the similar function to that of a related tachograph and in view of such an object, operational condition information may be recorded at a relatively long sampling period such as once per 0.5 second. However, as the object of the second mode is to record a situation before and after an accident occurs in case a vehicle has risk of causing a traffic accident or in case a vehicle actually causes the traffic accident, the recording of more detailed data is required to analyze the situation of the vehicle before and after the accident.
According to the operational condition recording apparatus according to the second aspect, since the operational condi
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