Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Tomoko Nakamura

Taizo Masuda

Hiroki Awano

Yasunobu Seki

Kosuke Yonekawa

Tsuyoshi Kaneko

A charge support system is provided for a plurality of autonomously movable vehicles, each including a solar cell panel and a storage battery for storing electricity from the solar panel. The system includes an acquisition unit that obtains information regarding vehicles parked within a predetermined parking area, including charging efficiencies of the solar panels, current charging rates of the storage batteries, and scheduled driving times for each vehicle. A traveling control unit is configured to move the vehicles within the parking area based on the acquired information. The system prioritizes movement of vehicles with earlier scheduled driving times to areas of higher charging efficiency to ensure their storage batteries reach a predetermined charge threshold. Additionally, for vehicles without scheduled driving times, the system periodically moves the vehicles to equalize battery charge levels within a specified error range. This enables efficient solar charging across multiple vehicles in a shared parking environment.

Charge support system, charge support method, and control program

A power generation support system for a vehicle in which a plurality of solar cell panels are attached to a vehicle body, the power generation support system including: a estimation unit configured to estimate an amount of power generated per unit hour by the plurality of solar cell panels when the vehicle is to be parked in a scheduled parking area so that the front of the vehicle faces a first direction and estimate an amount of power generated per unit hour by the plurality of solar cell panels when the vehicle is to be parked in the scheduled parking area so that the front of the vehicle faces a second direction that is opposite to the first direction; and an output unit configured to output information about a direction in which the vehicle faces when it is to be parked in the scheduled parking area.

Growing community of inventors

Naka-gun, Japan

Tomoko Nakamura