Aisin Aw Co., Ltd.

Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Other

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Fujitsu Ten Limited

Kabushiki Kaisha Shinsangyokaihatsu

Kabushiki Kaisha Sinsangyokaihatsu

Alpine Co., Ltd.

Akimasa Nanba

Mitsuhiro Nimura

Shoji Yokoyama

Toru Ito

Kyomi Morimoto

Hiroshi Kishi

Shinichi Hayashi

Hironobu Sugimoto

Kazuteru Maekawa

Akihito Tada

Toshiaki Egawa

Hiroyoshi Masuda

Kiyohide Katoh

Toshiyuki Kaneiwa

Shinichi Katoh

Shuzo Moroto

Yasunobu Ito

Koji Sumiya

Toyoji Hiyokawa

Shinichi Kato

Shigekazu Ohara

Kenji Kuroda

Koji Hashimoto

Masaharu Hanasaki

Atsushi Watanabe

Kazuyuki Watanabe

Nobuyuki Nakano

Takashi Yamada

Hiroshi Takeuchi

Hidetoshi Fujimoto

Takeshi Yanagikubo

Kiyohide Kato

Yukiyoshi Suzuki

Hitoshi Asano

Kyoumi Morimoto

Shouji Yokoyama

Wataru Ishikawa

Shigehito Takahashi

Fumihiko Matsumura

In a communication system for downloading programs from a center to in-vehicle terminals, a center can check whether downloading has been completed normally or a program is operating normally in an in-vehicle terminal. According to the timing of activating a downloaded program, an in-vehicle terminal checks whether the program is activated to operate normally. The information is transmitted to the center. Based on the information, the center becomes aware of the fact that downloading has been completed without any problem and that the program is operating normally in the in-vehicle terminal.

Communication system for communication between in-vehicle terminals and center, and in-vehicle terminal employed in communication system

Even when the present position does not exist on a guide road after deviation from an established guide route, a guide road is identified and a more advantageous route is identified. Furthermore, only a minimum amount of required data are displayed on the map picture. The searching again is executed by taking the direction of progress of the car into consideration. Street names of the roads are displayed on the guide map, enabling a guide route to be easily recognized. A particular area is specified by a postal code number or by a telephone number, and the streets or the facilities in the specified area are displayed. This makes it easier to search the destination.

Navigation device

There is provided a map data access method and device capable of reading out from a recording medium the map data requested by a navigation system and providing them to the system whether C language, etc. or JAVA (trademark), etc. is employed to constitute a processing program on the navigation system side. In the recording medium, the map data and a reading method of the data are recorded in pairs in a map data section and a method section, respectively. When a navigation function section requests the map data, a data access section reads out desired data in a method (program) read out from the method section according to a requested application programming interface (API). The data read out are supplied as a byte array object to the navigation function section.

Map data access method for navigation and navigation system

A navigation system including an information memory device that stores road information for parallel roads and other information required for executing route guidance; a present position detection device that detects a present position of a vehicle by detecting vehicle travel information; and a control device that reads the road information stored in the information memory device on the basis of the present position detected by the present position detection device, and executes matching processing of the present position detection information to the road information to provide route guidance. The control device determines whether parallel roads exist on the basis of the road information stored in the information memory device and, when parallel roads exist, selects the road on which the vehicle is running from the identified parallel roads according to the road information and various indicative or decision parameters. Therefore, the system can perform precise matching of the road travelled of the parallel roads to determine the present position.

Vehicle navigation system and a recording medium

The invention is characterized in that the street and street number of a waypoint, or of a point nearest to the waypoint, is located and input by an input means whereby the desired street name and street number are entered and stored as the waypoint name. In case the street name of the waypoint, or of a point nearest to the waypoint, cannot be found, the name of facility nearest to the waypoint, or the longitude and latitude of the waypoint, is entered and stored as the waypoint name.

Navigation system for vehicles and waypoint entering and storage method

A navigation system includes input means (1a) for entering a telephone number; an information storage device (3) for storing telephone-number data (3a), in which a location name inclusive of a set of coordinate is stored for each telephone number, address data (3b) in which an address is stored for each set of coordinates, and map data (3c); a central processor (4) having telephone-number retrieval means (4a) for retrieving, from the information storage device, location coordinates and location name of a telephone number entered by the input means, and address-data retrieval means (4b) for retrieving address data corresponding to the location coordinates of the telephone number entered by the input means; and display means (1b) for displaying a location name and address, which have been retrieved by the central processor, as well as a map centered on the location. Designation and entry of a location are performed by displaying the location name and address retrieved by entry of a telephone number, as well as the map centered on said location, on the display means. Since the amount of data is broken up into the telephone-number data and address data, the amount of telephone-number data can be reduced.

Navigation system

In order to provide a driver with guidance for a direction of travel without confusing the driver even in a case where the angular difference between an approach road and a departing road at a branch point is very small or even when a branch point has a complicated shape, a navigation system is provided with present-position sensor for calculating present position of the vehicle; an input for entering information necessary for calculating a route; an output for giving notification of information for carrying out route guidance; an information storage device in which all data necessary to carry out route guidance has been stored; route calculator for calculating a route based upon the information entered by the input; route storage for temporarily storing the route calculated by the route calculator; and a guidance control unit for outputting guidance information relating to the route to the output. The information storage device stores branch-point data and road data connected to branch points and has direction data indicative of a departing road with respect to an approach road connected thereto by a branch point. The guidance control unit outputs the guidance information to the output based upon the direction data.

Vehicular navigation system providing direction data

A navigation system calculates a route from a present position of a vehicle to a destination and provides guidance based on the calculated route. When the vehicle is within a given distance from a next approaching branch point requiring guidance, branch points existing within a given distance from next approaching branch point are determined and direction information for the branch points is acquired. The acquired direction information is compared with direction information at the next approaching branch point, and a common direction information is displayed based on the result of the comparison. Also, the navigation system according to the present invention detects a name of an interchange where the vehicle is to exit from the course and a distance to said interchange based on the present position of the vehicle in case the road where the vehicle is currently driven along is an expressway or a toll road. The navigation system according to the present invention calculates a route from the present position to the destination and properly calculates and provides guidance for the expected time of arrival at the destination as the vehicle moves.

Navigation system for vehicles

In order to calculate the traveling distance and heading of a vehicle in highly accurate fashion, a navigation system is provided with a distance sensor for outputting pulses in proportion to rotation of a wheel, a GPS receiving unit for calculating vehicle speed by GPS reception, acquisition unit for acquiring the number of pulses at the same time as GPS reception, distance correction coefficient calculating unit for calculating GPS traveling distance from the GPS-reception vehicle speed and a time difference between any two points, and calculating a distance correction coefficient from the GPS traveling distance and a pulse difference between two points, and present position calculating unit for calculating present position based upon a corrected distance correction coefficient.

Navigation system for vehicles including present position calculating

The vehicular navigation system of the present invention includes a present position detector for detecting the present position of a vehicle, an input device for inputting a destination, an information memory for storing road data for searching for an optimal route, a route search system for searching for an optimal route to the destination based on the road data stored in the information memory, a route information converter for converting the route information near the present position of the vehicle to a visually 3-dimensional route information based on configuration of the road by the route search system, and a display for outputting and displaying the route information converted by the route information converter. The present position of the vehicle is detected, and the present position of the vehicle and route information ahead of the present position can be easily confirmed by detecting the present position of the vehicle and by converting the route information of the present position, based on the configuration of the road, to a 3-dimensional road display.

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Anjo, Japan

Akimasa Nanba