Sony Corporation

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

Mitsubishi Electric Cornoration

Kohei Mori

Takanori Matsunaga

Hiroshi Fujioka

Akinobu Sugiyama

Toshihide Satake

Yuki Yokohata

Takashi Miyamoto

Tomomichi Murakami

Takahiro Hata

Nobutaka Nakamura

Ippei Shake

Manabu Yoshida

Masataka Shirozono

Kazuaki Obana

Takashi Mizoroki

Hiroki Fujiyoshi

Aki Hayashi

Takahiro Okada

Masaya Endo

Tomoya Kawagoe

Yu Takeuchi

Nariaki Takehara

Atsushi Yoshikawa

Kenta Onishi

Yukiyasu Akemi

Michitoshi Azuma

An estimation method includes acquiring sensor information acquired by a sensor mounted on a first vehicle belonging to a vehicle line, acquiring position information on a location of the first vehicle, and estimating a cause of the vehicle line by using the sensor information and the position information. The estimating of the cause includes estimating the cause by using information on a facility or a feature present near the first vehicle, information indicating a state of the first vehicle, information on an object present ahead of the first vehicle included in the sensor information, or information on a road that affects traveling. The information on the facility or the feature is searched based on the position information, the information on the object is estimated based on the sensor information, and the information on the road is searched based on the position information.

Estimation method, estimation apparatus and estimation program of cause of line of vehicles

A position estimation unitestimates, for each movement in a predetermined section, a plurality of position candidates of a position estimation target on the basis of position information and sensor information. A position determination unitevaluates, for each movement in the predetermined section, on the basis of the plurality of position candidates of the position estimation target obtained by the movement in the predetermined section, whether the position information used to estimate the position candidates has an error caused by any of a position of a GPS satellite, a position of a mobile body in a real space, or the mobile body or does not have any error caused thereby. The position determination unitdetermines a final output value of the position of the position estimation target on the basis of a result obtained by removing, from the plurality of estimated position candidates of the position estimation target in the plurality of times of the movement in the predetermined section, a position candidate of the position estimation target estimated in the movement in the predetermined section that has been evaluated to have the error.

Position estimation method, position estimation device, and position estimation program

To provide a positioning apparatus which can reduce the error of the positioning information of the positioning satellite, by using either appropriate one of the positioning reinforcement information by the ground channel or the positioning reinforcement information by the satellite channel, according to execution state of the automatic driving. A positioning apparatus receives positioning information from positioning satellites; calculates a first own position based on the positioning information and the positioning reinforcement information of the ground base station; calculates a second own position based on the positioning information and the positioning reinforcement information of the satellite; determines either the first own position or the second own position to be used, based on whether or not the driving mode is the automatic driving mode; and outputs the first own position or the second own position determined to be used, as a final own position.

Positioning apparatus

An ECU generates an overhead image including a vehicle and a vehicle surrounding area, on the basis of a plurality of images taken by a plurality of cameras mounted on the vehicle. When a distance between an object existing in an overlapping portion of imaging areas of the plurality of cameras and the vehicle is within a threshold and the object exists in a traveling direction of the vehicle, the overlapping portion is divided into two pairs of a road surface image and an object image, and combination is performed by alpha blending with an α value for the object image being set to 1 and an α value for the road surface image being set to 0 for an area that is the object image in one of the two pairs and is the road surface image in the other of the two pairs, to generate the overhead image.

Vehicle surrounding area image generation device, vehicle surrounding area display system, and vehicle surrounding area display method

A technology is provided whereby a lane can be correctly estimated without relying on lane markers. A shape indicating a road region is extracted from image data obtained by capturing images in the progression direction of a vehicleand, on the basis of information indicating the shape, the angle of inclination for one contour line, the center-of-gravity coordinates for a diagram indicating the shape of the road region, the angle between two consecutive contour lines across one vertex of the diagram indicating the shape, and the area of the diagram indicating the shape are calculated as feature values for the shape of the road region. In addition, the lane in which the vehicleis traveling can be estimated by determining whether or not the calculated feature values are included in a threshold value range preset for each lane.

Lane estimation device, method, and program

The traffic flow estimation apparatus acquires images and position information and speed information, the images being captured at different timings by a first moving object that is in motion in a target area and including a second moving object around the first moving object, the position information and speed information being of the first moving object at the timings; estimates a lane in which the second moving object is in motion; and estimates a traffic flow for each lane in the target area based on the speed information of the first moving object, the information indicative of a change over time of positions of the second moving object, and the lanes in which the first moving object and the second moving object are in motion.

Traffic flow estimation apparatus, traffic flow estimation method, traffic flow estimation program, and storage medium storing traffic flow estimation program

A histogram is calculated based on a road surface image of a portion around a vehicle, a running-allowed region in which the vehicle can run is detected based on the histogram, an obstacle region is extracted based on the running-allowed region, and a position of an obstacle in the obstacle region is detected, to further enhance the accuracy of detecting an obstacle around the vehicle as compared with conventional art.

Obstacle detection apparatus, automatic braking apparatus using obstacle detection apparatus, obstacle detection method, and automatic braking method using obstacle detection method

A histogram is calculated based on a road surface image of a portion around a vehicle, and the histogram is separated into a histogram that represents an in-sunlight road surface and includes a first peak value and a histogram that represents a shadow road surface and includes a second peak value to output the histograms, thereby further enhancing the accuracy of road surface detection around the vehicle as compared with conventional art.

Road surface detection apparatus, image display apparatus using road surface detection apparatus, obstacle detection apparatus using road surface detection apparatus, road surface detection method, image display method using road surface detection method, and obstacle detection method using road surface detection method

There is provided a detecting apparatus including one or a plurality of magnetic coupling elements that include a plurality of coils, and a detector that measures an electrical parameter related to the one or plurality of magnetic coupling elements or to a circuit that at least includes the one or plurality of magnetic coupling elements, and determines from a change in the electrical parameter whether a foreign matter that generates heat due to magnetic flux is present. In the one or plurality of magnetic coupling elements, the plurality of coils are electrically connected such that magnetic flux produced from at least one or more of the plurality of coils and magnetic flux produced from remaining coils of the plurality of coils have approximately opposing orientations.

Detecting apparatus, power receiving apparatus, power transmitting apparatus, and contactless power supply system

A vehicle steering control apparatus having high robustness while ensuring the accuracy of automatic parking. The steering control apparatus includes a target parking position computing module to calculate a target parking position, a target line computing module to calculate a target parking line, an own vehicle position target attitude angle computing module to calculate an own vehicle position target attitude angle, an own vehicle attitude angle, and the target parking line, an own vehicle position target curvature computing module to calculate an own vehicle position target curvature, and a steering controller for calculating a target steering angle based on the own vehicle position target curvature and performing control such that the actual steering angle matches the target steering angle.

Vehicle steering control apparatus

A vehicle energy management device includes: an energy consumption related information acquisition unit which acquires energy consumption related information that is information related to energy consumption of an own vehicle in each of traveling sections; an energy consumption related information correction unit which corrects the energy consumption related information; and a control plan production unit which produces a control plan for vehicle instruments based on an estimated value of an energy consumption amount of each of the vehicle instruments calculated by using the corrected energy consumption related information. The energy consumption related information correction unit corrects the energy consumption related information based on a result of comparing an actually measured value of traveling characteristics of the own vehicle in each of the road categories and a statistical result of traveling characteristics of a plurality of general vehicles in each of the traveling sections.

Vehicle energy management device

In a vehicle energy management device, a travel route calculator calculates a travel route of a vehicle, and an energy consumption-related information obtaining unit obtains energy consumption-related information along the travel route. An energy consumption amount computing unit calculates, based on the energy consumption-related information, an estimated value of an energy consumption amount by vehicle devices (required travel energy amount) when the vehicle travels along the travel route. A control plan preparing unit prepares a control plan for the vehicle devices based on the required travel energy amount. A feedback control unit performs feedback control of the vehicle devices to reduce a difference between the estimated value and an actual measured value of the energy consumption amount by the vehicle devices.

Energy management device for a vehicle having a plurality of different energy sources

An electric power converting apparatus mainly includes a first power supply circuit, a second power supply circuit, a selection circuit, a control circuit, a bi-directional inverter circuit, and a charge/discharge circuit. The control circuit composed of a microcomputer or a microprocessor such as a DSP controls an operation of the electric power converting apparatus. The first power supply circuit or the second power supply circuit supplies a operation voltage for the control circuit. The first power supply circuit generates the operation voltage for the control circuit based on an AC voltage supplied from the electric power supply system. The second power supply circuit generates the operation voltage for the control circuit based on a DC voltage supplied from a DC power supply in an electric vehicle EV.

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Tokyo, Japan

Kohei Mori