Route guidance system

Details Route guidance system Route guidance system

1999-06-09

2001-06-26

Cuchlinski, Jr., William A. (Department: 3661)

Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location

Navigation

Employing position determining equipment

C701S035000, C701S066000, C701S200000, C701S207000, C340S988000, C340S990000, C342S357490, C342S357490

Reexamination Certificate

active

06253149

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention generally relates to a navigation system.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
A navigation system is described in a periodical Funkschau 5/96, pages 74 et seq. This navigation system, which is intended for installation in a motor vehicle, in particular an automobile, includes several devices for location determination, a permanent memory unit, an input/output unit, and a control system, all of which are located on board the vehicle. Location determination is accomplished on the one hand via Global Positioning System (GPS), which is based on satellites. In addition, compass sensors and wheel rotation sensors are present for relative position determination. A destination can be input under menu control via the input/output unit. The permanent memory unit, a CD-ROM, makes available electronic road and city maps from which the controller calculates a suggested route for the best connection between the current location and the destination.
Conventional trip recorders record the speed of a vehicle over a period of many hours, for example, on a card. These devices are designed, however, so that they record short-term speed changes only after a certain delay. Small changes in speed, and short time intervals, are also very difficult to resolve.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An arrangement according to the present invention is advantageous in that the motion state of the motor vehicle can be understood with high accuracy in space and time. This becomes particularly significant for determining culpability in the event of an accident. The navigation system is thus simultaneously advantageous as an accident recorder.
It is advantageous additionally to record the speed of the vehicle, since this creates a certain redundancy in the data so that recording errors can easily be corrected.
It is advantageous to store data regarding the motion state of the vehicle, such as position or direction of travel, in a nonvolatile memory, so that the data are retained even if an interruption in power supply occurs.
It is furthermore particularly advantageous, when the memory has been completely filled, to overwrite the oldest data record with the newest one, so that the data most relevant to an explanation of the cause of an accident are available with a high probability.
The memory capacity of the navigation system is used particularly efficiently if vehicle states which remain constant for a long period are stored only twice.
It is advantageous to play back the memory contents via means which are present on the navigation system, for example, via a display, since simple questions about the previous trip can thereby be answered without complex data transfer to other analysis systems.
Moreover, it is particularly advantageous to disable overwriting of the memory either manually, in particular, by actuation of a control element, or by way of a predetermined event, for example, an extreme deceleration or the triggering of an airbag. This ensures that the relevant data for explaining the cause of an accident are available after the accident.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4973859 (1990-11-01), Shodai
patent: 5583715 (1996-12-01), Miura
patent: 5659476 (1997-08-01), Lefebvre et al.

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