Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Chikashi Takeichi

Yoshinori Yamada

Masaya Watanabe

Satoshi Arikura

Shin Terada

A communications control unit and external sensors acquire external environment information including information on the vicinity of a vehicle. An autonomous driving control ECU calculates a warning level relating to continuing autonomous driving on the basis of the vicinity information. A speech generation section generates speech information on the basis of the external environment information acquired by the communications control unit and the external sensors. A control section controls speaking equipment so as to change at least one of speech information to be announced by the speaking equipment, a frequency of announcement of the speech information, and vocalization, in accordance with the warning level calculated by the autonomous driving control ECU. When autonomous driving is continuing, the control section controls the speaking equipment so as to repeat announcements of the speech information.

Information announcement device for a vehicle

A driving assistance device for a vehicle, comprising: a detection unit that detects a vicinity condition of the vehicle and a running condition of the vehicle; a driving control unit that, on the basis of detection results from the detection unit, controls at least a portion of driving operations of the vehicle and controls autonomous driving that is capable of an overtaking maneuver to overtake a vehicle in front; an operation unit that implements an operation to change a specified speed during the autonomous driving; and a control unit that, after the operation to change the specified speed is implemented by the operation unit in a state during autonomous driving in which a vehicle in front is detected by the detection unit, controls the driving control unit so as to carry out the overtaking maneuver.

Driving assistance device for a vehicle

The present disclosure provides a vehicle pillar structure including: a pillar portion extending along a vehicle transverse direction outer side end portion of a windshield glass, the pillar portion including: a pair of side portions configuring a vehicle transverse direction inner side and outer side portion of the pillar portion and being configured by an opaque material, and transparent portions provided between the pair of side portions and being configured by a transparent material; reinforcing portions configured by an opaque material, spanning between the pair of side portions, formed integrally with the transparent portions, and reinforcing the pillar portion; and upper surfaces and lower surfaces of the reinforcing portions extending along a vehicle longitudinal direction, or inclining toward a vehicle lower side on progression towards a vehicle longitudinal direction outer side, as seen in a cross-section viewed from a vehicle transverse direction inner side.

Vehicle pillar structure

A vehicle pillar structure comprising a pillar portion extending in parallel with an outer end portion of a windshield and the pillar portion having a hollow structure, the pillar portion comprising an outer side wall at a vehicle exterior side of the pillar portion; an inner side wall at a vehicle cabin side of the pillar portion; and a pair of side walls linking the outer side wall and the inner side wall. At least a portion of the outer side wall is an outer side transparent portion, at least a portion of the inner side wall is an inner side transparent portion and, as viewed from a driver position, overlaps with the outer side transparent portion, and a tensile strength of the outer side wall is lower than that of the inner side wall.

A vehicle information presentation device that includes: an acquisition section configured to acquire information about the surroundings of an ego vehicle; a sound pick-up section configured to pick up sound heard by an occupant; a plurality of sound sources configured to emit sound toward the occupant; and a presentation section that, in a case in which another vehicle has been detected from the surroundings information acquired by the acquisition section, presents the occupant with information related to the other vehicle using sound emitted from at least one of the plurality of sound sources by attenuating, from among sound heard by the occupant, sound directed from the other vehicle toward the ego vehicle, based on audio pick-up information on sound picked up by the sound pick-up section.

Growing community of inventors

Miyoshi, Japan

Chikashi Takeichi