Mannesmann Vdo Ag

U.S. Philips Corporation

Hans G Hermans

Antoon M Van Kessel

Willem Van Der Gugten

Andreas Volkel

Leonardus M Veugen

A navigation system (100) includes a vehicle position determining module (110) for determining the current position of the vehicle and a planning module (114) for planning a route between the current position and a desired destination. The navigation system (100) further includes a guidance module (118) for presenting guidance information to guide the driver along the planned route. The navigation system (100) is arranged to detect when the vehicle has left the planned route and to deactivate the guidance module (118) when the vehicle has left the planned route.

Navigation system for guiding a driver

A method of determining a directional change of a vehicle carries out dead-reckoning for which it utilizes sensors provided on two wheels. In order to compensate for differences between the wheels, the method utilizes given parameters in processing the data from the wheel sensors. The invention provides an extension of the method by estimating the parameters during normal operation of the vehicle, so that they are adapted to changing circumstances encountered by the vehicle. Estimation is performed by comparing data from the wheel sensors with independently determined directional data for a given period of time.

Method of determining a directional change during vehicle navigation,

For the determination of the position of a vehicle, navigation parameters are measured, with which periodically dead reckoning coordinates are calculated, which are compared to topographical and traffic technical information stored in a global data base. A local navigation data base is being kept and updated, containing relevant sub-information from the global data base. Using the dead reckoning coordinates test steps are performed on route segments from the local navigation data base, on the basis of which route segments forming possibly driven routes, are stored in a data structure and pseudo-segments are derived from consecutively calculated dead reckoning coordinates which form a pseudo-route and are stored in a further data structure. By comparing the route segments in the data structure and the pseudo-segments in the further data structure a well-founded correction vector for the dead reckoning coordinates is periodically determined.

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Eindhoven, Netherlands

Hans G Hermans