Aisin Aw Co., Ltd.

Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Fujitsu Ten Limited

Denso Corporation

Hitachi, Ltd.

Masaki Nakamura

Koichi Nakao

Motoki Kanba

Tomoaki Ishikawa

Motohiro Nakamura

Osamu Aisaka

Kiyokazu Okada

Takayuki Miyajima

Hiroaki Sugiura

Yuji Sato

Satoshi Harumoto

Shojiro Takeuchi

Kouei Kiyo

Naoki Miura

Junichi Nonomura

Yoshio Yamatani

Makoto Hasunuma

Hidenobu Suzuki

Naoto Miura

Daisuke Konaka

Masahiro Kiyohara

Takeshi Shima

Kota Irie

Hiroki Ishikawa

Masatoshi Takahara

Ken Ishikawa

Nobutaka Tauchi

Kiyoshi Tsurumi

Masaki Yoshida

Kazutaka Yoshikawa

Katsuhiko Mutsuga

Teru Konishi

Masao Maura

Saijiro Tanaka

Naoki Kourogi

Koichi Hara

Kota c/o Hitachi Ltd Irie

Naoki c/o Hitachi Ltd Kourogi

Masahiro c/o Hitachi Ltd Kiyohara

Takeshi c/o Hitachi Ltd Shima

A route guidance system, a route guidance method, and a computer program are provided that enable a user to understand in advance a section where automated driving control is interrupted. The route guidance system is configured to: when a recommended route from a departure point to a destination including an automated driving section where automated driving control of a vehicle is performed is searched for, acquire candidate routes that are candidates for the recommended route; specify, for each of the candidate routes, an interruption section where the automated driving control is interrupted in the automated driving section included in the candidate route; and provide guidance, for each of the candidate routes, in a manner distinguishing a section that corresponds to the interruption section from a section that does not correspond thereto in the automated driving section included in the candidate route.

Route guidance system, route guidance method, and computer program

A route searching system, a route searching method, and computer program are provided that enable selection of an appropriate recommended route for a user in consideration of interruption of automated driving control. The route searching system is configured to: when a recommended route from a departure point to a destination including an automated driving section where automated driving control of a vehicle is performed is searched for, acquire a plurality of candidate routes as candidates for the recommended route (S); for each candidate route, specify an interruption section where the automated driving control is interrupted in the automated driving section in the candidate route (S, S); based on the interruption section, for each candidate route, acquire interruption information indicating that the automated driving control is interrupted in the automated driving section in the candidate route (S); and, based on the interruption information, select the recommended route from the candidate routes (S).

Route searching system, route searching method, and computer program

Automated drive assisting devices, methods, and programs acquire position specifying information for specifying a vehicle position during travel, and acquire a continuity degree that represents a degree to which automated drive can be continued on the basis of the position specifying information acquired during the automated drive. The devices, methods, and programs determine whether the automated drive can be continued on the basis of the acquired continuity degree, and determine vehicle control information for controlling a vehicle such that the continuity degree becomes higher on the basis of the acquired position specifying information in the case where it is determined that the automated drive cannot be continued. The devices, methods, and programs output the determined vehicle control information to a vehicle control device that controls the vehicle.

Automated drive assisting device, automated drive assisting method, and program

A support control unit for determining a traveling condition of a host vehicle during an exit from a main road to an access road determines whether or not the condition of the host vehicle at a given point in time corresponds to an exit start scene or an exit completion scene for detecting the start of an exit or completion of the exit on the basis of a host vehicle position, route data, map rendering data, or lane information including at least road surface marking positions, and determines that an exit start timing or an exit completion timing of the host vehicle has arrived when the condition is determined to correspond to the exit start scene or the exit completion scene. Hence, during the exit from the main road to the access road, the traveling condition of the host vehicle can be determined accurately. The support control unit also determines the traveling condition of the host vehicle during convergence with the main road from the access road.

Method and apparatus for determining traveling condition of vehicle

A vehicle location recognition apparatus includes a link determination unit which accurately determines a link traveled by a vehicle from among a plurality of links meeting at a narrow-angle branch point, on the basis of vehicle location information and road information, travel history information representing a route traveled by the vehicle at the branch point. The vehicle location recognition apparatus includes a history information generation unit for generating travel history information for the determined link. The travel history information is stored in a learning database. On the basis of the travel history information, a learning unit generates learned priority information representing the priorities of the respective links meeting at a branch point and used in the determination by the link determination unit.

Vehicle position recognition device and vehicle position recognition program

An accelerator opening determining unit determines whether an accelerator opening achieved through an accelerator operation by a driver of a vehicle exceeds an upper limit value thereof. A travel distance adding-up unit adds up a travel distance within accelerator-opening upper limit value when the accelerator opening is not determined to exceed the upper limit value. When the accelerator opening is determined to exceed the upper limit value, the travel distance adding-up unit adds up a travel distance exceeding accelerator-opening upper limit value. A fuel-saving driving rating unit rates the driving of the driver based on each added-up value added up by the travel distance adding-up unit.

Fuel-saving driving diagnostic device, fuel-saving driving diagnostic system, travel control device, fuel-saving driving rating device, and fuel-saving driving diagnostic method

A driving assistance apparatus is configured such that, in a case in which determination has been made there is a road marking within a predetermined range from a vehicle, the road marking is detected based upon an image acquired by a rear-side camera. In a case in which there is a single control target solely associated with the road marking thus detected, or in a case in which there are multiple control targets associated with the road marking, and the difference in the marking-target distance is equal to or greater than a driving control threshold distance, the target-vehicle distance, which is the distance between the vehicle and the control target that is a target for guidance and vehicle control, is calculated. The driving assistance apparatus performs guidance and vehicle control according to the control target based upon the target-vehicle distance thus calculated.

Driving assistance apparatus

Systems, methods, and programs capture an image of a periphery of a vehicle. The systems, methods, and programs, store predetermined patterns representing conditions of road markings formed on a road surface, detect a road marking on the basis of the captured image, and compare the detected road marking to the predetermined patterns. If the detected road marking matches one of the predetermined patterns, the systems, methods, and programs execute a predetermined action associated with the matching predetermined pattern.

Road marking recognition system

A shift lever position determining unit determines whether a shift lever position of a vehicle satisfies predetermined conditions. If the shift lever position is determined to satisfy the predetermined conditions, a travel distance adding-up unit adds up an optimum shift lever position travel distance. If the shift lever position is determined not to satisfy the predetermined conditions, the travel distance adding-up unit adds up an inappropriate shift lever position travel distance. A fuel-saving driving rating unit rates driving by a driver based on each added-up value added up by the travel distance adding-up unit. A fuel-saving driving advice generating unit notifies the driver of fuel-saving driving advice together with a rating result in accordance with the rating result. Therefore, it is possible to encourage the driver to select an optimum shift lever position with high fuel efficiency and thereby to improve the driver's knowledge and awareness of the fuel-saving driving.

An accelerator-off, fuel-cut traveling determining unit determines whether the number of engine revolutions of a vehicle is equal to or higher than a predetermined value, whether an accelerator opening rate is equal to or lower than a predetermined value, and whether a traveling state is an accelerator-off, fuel-cut traveling state where a quantity of fuel injection to an engine is 0. When it is determined that the traveling state is the accelerator-off, fuel-cut traveling state, the traveling distance adding-up unit adds up accelerator-off, fuel-cut traveling distances. A fuel-saving driving rating unit rates driving by a driver based on each of the added-up values which were added up by the traveling distance adding-up unit. A fuel-saving driving advice generating unit notifies the driver of a fuel-saving driving advice together with a rating result in accordance with the rating result. Therefore, it is possible to encourage the driver to perform early engine operation by an engine braking, and to enhance the driver's awareness of fuel saving driving.

Fuel-saving driving diagnostic device, fuel-saving driving diagnostic system, control device of prime mover, fuel-saving driving rating device, and fuel-saving driving diagnostic method

A travel guiding apparatus, method, and program for a vehicle store map information and marker pattern identification information used to identify a marker pattern for each road type, wherein the marker pattern is a pattern of a marker included in a lane marking. The apparatus, method, and program determine a type of road on which the vehicle is traveling and detect the maker pattern on the road. The apparatus, method, and program again determine the type of the road based on the detected marker pattern and change the type of determined road from a road other than an expressway to an expressway, if the first detected type of road is a road other than an expressway and the type of road detected based on the marker pattern is an expressway.

Travel guiding apparatus for vehicle, travel guiding method for vehicle, and computer-readable storage medium

A feature extraction method includes: the step of grouping a cluster of features, in which an internal of the respective features is less than or equal to a predetermined grouping interval, to form a feature group, for a plurality of features of which feature information including at least information of a position and a feature type is included in a predetermined feature information storage unit; the step of excluding the feature, not suitable for use in an image recognition process of the feature with respect to image information, from the cluster of the features within the feature group; and the step of extracting a part or all of one or more of the features within the feature group remaining as a result of the exclusion step as a target feature suitable for the use in the image recognition process.

Feature extraction method, and image recognition method and feature database creation method using the same

A wrong-way-travel warning device comprising a vehicle speed detecting part configured to detect a vehicle speed of a vehicle, a part configured to detect a position of the vehicle, an angle detecting part configured to detect an angle of a vehicular longitudinal direction of the vehicle relative to a lane marking if the vehicle speed of the vehicle becomes less than or equal to a predetermined value, and a warning part configured to issue a warning to an occupant if the position of the vehicle is on a main lane of a highway and if the angle becomes about 90 degrees, is provided.

Wrong-way-travel warning device and wrong-way-travel warning method

A lane determining device includes: a feature information obtaining unit for obtaining feature information F of a target feature existing in each lane in the traveling direction of a vehicle, based on vehicle position information; an image recognizing unit for conducting image recognition processing of a feature type of the target feature in a vehicle lane, with respect to image information; and a lane accuracy determining unit for determining a vehicle lane accuracy for the respective lanes based on a type of a recognized feature fa shown in an image recognition result, feature types Ftto Ftof the target feature of the respective lanes shown in the feature information F, in accordance with a level of probability for each of the feature types Ftto Ftof the target feature of the respective lanes is recognized as the type of the recognized feature fa.

Lane determining device, lane determining method and navigation apparatus using the same

An accuracy error for measuring the position of an own vehicle is calculated based on the information of an execution history of map matching and the information of an update history of a map database. In addition, a predetermined map is referred to based on the calculated accuracy error, and an accuracy error level for performing positioning is specified from among plural stepwise levels. Then, the control level of assist control executed according to the position of the own vehicle is changed so as to correspond to the specified accuracy error level.

Growing community of inventors

Okazaki, Japan

Masaki Nakamura