Communications: electrical – Traffic control indicator – Combined
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-17
2002-02-05
Hofsass, Jeffery (Department: 2632)
Communications: electrical
Traffic control indicator
Combined
C340S933000, C340S991000, C340S994000, C235S380000, C235S384000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06344804
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle-onboard electronic toll collection or ETC communication apparatus which is mounted on a motor vehicle or an automobile or a car for conveying to a driver of the motor vehicle toll charge/payment information interchanged or exchanged with electronic toll collection or ETC system facility installed at a toll gate in the form of a displayed image and a voice message, respectively.
2. Description of Related Art
For having better understanding of the present invention, description will first be made in some detail of a conventional vehicle-onboard ETC apparatus known heretofore.
FIG. 9
is a block diagram showing schematically a general arrangement of a hitherto known vehicle-onboard ETC apparatus. Referring to the figure, reference numeral
1
denotes an antenna mounted on a motor vehicle (hereinafter referred to also as the vehicle-mounted antenna) for interchanging or exchanging (i.e., receiving/sending) the ETC-relevant information such as toll gate position information, toll charge/payment information, ID code information inherent or specific to the motor vehicle and the like with a toll collection transaction antenna (also referred to as the on-road overhead antenna) installed at the toll gate station of a toll road (not shown). Further, reference numeral
2
denotes a cable for the vehicle-onboard ETC apparatus (hereinafter this cable will be referred to as the vehicle-mounted cable) through which the ETC-relevant information is transferred between the vehicle-mounted antenna
1
and the vehicle-onboard ETC apparatus denoted generally by reference numeral
10
.
As can be seen in
FIG. 9
, the vehicle-onboard apparatus
10
is comprised of a transmitter/receiver unit
3
for interchanging by radio waves the ETC-relevant information with a corresponding unit of the ETC communication facility or equipment installed at the toll gate station through the medium of the vehicle-mounted antenna
1
and the on-road overhead antenna, a control unit
4
for generating the ETC-relevant information to be sent to the ETC equipment of the toll gate station through the transmitter/receiver unit
3
while processing the ETC-relevant information received through the transmitter/receiver unit
3
into a signal for displaying a corresponding image, a manipulating unit
8
for performing signal input/output operations, input/output signal gain setting operations and others for the control unit
4
, a display device
5
designed for displaying the received ETC-relevant information as an image while displaying the ETC-relevant information sent to the toll gate from the vehicle-onboard ETC apparatus as an image for the monitoring purpose and a power supply source
7
.
Parenthetically, the manipulating unit
8
and the display device
5
cooperate to constitute a man-machine interface unit which serves as an intermediation medium for enabling communication between the vehicle-onboard ETC apparatus
10
and the driver of the motor vehicle.
FIG. 10
is a block diagram showing generally a circuit arrangement of the transmitter/receiver unit
3
known in the art.
Referring to the figure, the transmitter/receiver unit
3
is comprised of a detector diode D for detecting the ETC-relevant information signal emitted from the on-road overhead antenna A
1
installed at a toll gate TG and received by the vehicle-mounted antenna
1
, a detecting circuit
3
-
1
for detecting the level of the received signal as detected by the detector diode D, a demodulating circuit
3
-
2
for demodulating the received signal as detected to thereby restore the original ETC-relevant information which is then supplied to the control unit
4
as the received data, and a modulating circuit
3
-
3
for modulating the ETC-relevant information generated by the control unit
4
and outputted therefrom into a signal which is then fed to the vehicle-mounted antenna
1
.
In this conjunction, it should be mentioned that the control unit
4
is so designed or programmed as to process the ETC-relevant information acquired after demodulation through the demodulating circuit
3
-
2
when the detection signal of a level higher than a predetermined one is inputted from the detecting circuit
3
-
1
. More specifically, the ETC-relevant information sent from the overhead antenna A
1
is received by the vehicle-onboard ETC apparatus to be processed by the control unit
4
, only when the electric field intensity of the radio waves carrying the ETC-relevant information is higher than a predetermined level. In this way, communication between the vehicle-onboard ETC apparatus and the ETC system equipment installed at the toll gate TG can be carried out within a narrow range of radio-wave coverage area (service area), while erroneous communication with an adjacent antenna (i.e., other on-road overhead antenna) can be excluded. Thus, the toll collection transaction or toll charge/payment processing can be carried out essentially without fail.
Next, description will turn to operation of the conventional vehicle-onboard ETC apparatus of the structure described above.
By way of example, it is assumed that a motor vehicle or car equipped with the ETC apparatus
10
runs beneath the overhead antenna A
1
installed at the toll gate TG. Then, the vehicle-onboard ETC apparatus
10
receives the radio wave signal carrying the information concerning the toll gate identifier which the motor vehicle currently is passing through and the toll collection information code from the ETC equipment installed at the toll gate through the medium of the overhead antenna Al and the vehicle-mounted antenna
1
. The control unit
4
incorporated in the vehicle-onboard ETC apparatus
10
processes the received signal to recognize discriminatively the toll gate identifier as well as the toll collection information code, the results of which are displayed as visible information or image on the display device
5
.
The driver of the car can thus confirm that his or her car is passing through a toll gate station concerned and that the toll collection processing (i.e., toll charge/payment processing) has been started by observing the screen image on the display device
5
.
Furthermore, upon identification of the toll collection code being received, the control unit
4
reads out the information such as the ID number intrinsic to the motor vehicle or car concerned from an internal memory (not shown), which information is then supplied to the modulating circuit
3
-
3
to be thereby modulated for transmission to the overhead antenna A
1
of the toll gate TG from the vehicle-mounted antenna
1
.
The ETC system facility installed at the toll gate TG recognizes discriminatively the information such as the ID number and others, whereon the processing for settlement of the toll charge/payment is automatically executed for the bank account of the owner of the motor vehicle passing through the toll gate TG.
As will now be appreciated from the foregoing description, the conventional vehicle-onboard ETC apparatus (ETC-relevant communication apparatus) is so arranged as to display the ETC-relevant information interchanged through radio-wave communication between the vehicle-onboard apparatus and the ETC system facility of the toll gate in terms of image on the display device so that the driver can visibly confirm the ETC-relevant information. In that case, however, the driver's sight line will be displaced to the display screen from the forward direction in which the motor vehicle is running, thus giving rise to a problem that the driver is very likely to be deprived of his or her attention toward the forward direction at least for a moment.
As an approach for solving the problem described above, it is conceivable to provide additionally or separately a voice message output apparatus for messaging the ETC-relevant information in a voice or audibly. In that case, when the voice output apparatus dedicated for messaging audibly the ETC-relevant information is provided in addition to an audio signal o
Hofsass Jeffery
Mitsubishi Denki & Kabushiki Kaisha
Previl Daniel
Sughrue & Mion, PLLC
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