Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Yoshiki Fukada

Akihiro Kusumoto

Satoshi Omi

Takanori Imazu

Kohki Baba

Takashi Hayashi

Yuta Kataoka

Ryuji Okamura

Shoji Inagaki

When an autonomous vehicle is caused to depart from a current position to a pickup location, a waiting location for temporarily parking the autonomous vehicle is set between the current position and the pickup location. The autonomous vehicle is autonomously driven from the current position to the waiting location, temporarily parked at the waiting location, and then autonomously driven to the pickup location.

Autonomous traveling system, autonomous traveling method, and storage medium

An upper-limit speed of a vehicle in automatic parking control is set, and the vehicle is caused to park automatically in a parking space at a vehicle speed equal to or lower than the set upper-limit speed. In this case, the upper-limit speed is set according to a vehicle body size of the vehicle, and the upper-limit speed is lower when the vehicle body size of the vehicle is greater than a preset size than when the vehicle body size of the vehicle is less than the preset size.

Automatic parking system, automatic parking method, and storage medium for setting vehicle speed upper-limit during automatic parking control

A vehicle is autonomously driven in an environment where a first road for vehicles running in a first direction and a second road for vehicles running in a second direction, different from the first direction, are provided alongside each other, and where a first parking space that is entered from the first road and exited to the first road is set and a second parking space that is entered from the second road and exited to the second road is set. When the vehicle is temporarily parked in the first parking space and a running direction of the vehicle heading for the next destination after being parked is the second direction, the vehicle is transferred from the first parking space to the second parking space by autonomous driving after a user of the vehicle gets out of the vehicle.

Autonomous driving system, autonomous driving method, and storage medium

Whether a vehicle is parked inside parking lines in a parking lot is detected. When the vehicle is detected not parked inside the parking lines, either the vehicle or the parking lines are moved in such a manner that the vehicle is parked inside the parking lines.

Parking lot management system, parking lot management method, and storage medium

Disclosed is a charging device capable of appropriately charging of a battery while preventing battery depletion. In a charging system including a charging device, when the output power from a solar battery is equal to or greater than a predetermined value, power is supplied to a charging control system which controls charging of batteries. Accordingly, when the output power from the solar battery is small, since the charging control system will not start, no power is consumed in the charging control system. As a result, battery depletion can be prevented. When the output power from the solar battery is equal to or greater than the predetermined value, charging of the battery is performed by the charging control system, thereby appropriately performing charging of the batteries.

Charging device

An output control apparatus of a solar cell is provided with: a first controlling device for sequentially increasing a load for extracting the output from a load in an increase area in which the output increases with respect to an increase in the load; a detecting device for detecting a decrease in the output with respect to the increase in the load in a process of sequentially increasing the load; and a second controlling device for rapidly reducing the load to an initial load which belongs to the increase area in comparison with the process of sequentially increasing the load in cases where a change in the output is detected, the first controlling device sequentially increasing the load again after the load is reduced to the initial load.

Output control apparatus of solar cell

The present invention aims at providing a thermoelectric device which can be prevented from being destroyed by thermal stresses, and a thermoelectric module using a plurality of such thermoelectric devices. The thermoelectric device in accordance with the present invention comprises an element for transforming energy between thermal energy and electric energy and a pair of electrodes connected to both end parts of the element, while the element is provided with a stress alleviating part for alleviating a stress caused by a temperature difference between the both end parts. Therefore, when generating electricity by using the thermoelectric device, the stress alleviating part can alleviate the stress caused by the temperature difference between both end parts of the element and restrain the element from being destroyed by the thermal stress.

Thermoelectric element and thermoelectric module

A wireless energy transfer device () includes: a power transmission unit () that generates an oscillating magnetic field or oscillating electric field; a power reception unit (), which is provided with a receiving antenna (), and which converts the oscillating magnetic field or the oscillating electric field of the power transmission unit () to electric power by the receiving antenna (); and an electric power theft suppression unit that suppresses the theft of energy with the oscillating magnetic field or the oscillating electric field of the power transmission unit ().

Wireless energy transfer device

The present invention is structured such that lift control apparatus such as flaps and flaperons operate in association with elevator operation performed by a pilot. Lift control conforming to elevator operation by the pilot is performed.

Method of lift control of aircraft and system therefor

A device for estimating a rolling condition of a body of a vehicle having: a unit for estimating a first quantity (&phgr;, &ggr;V, Gy, Ff) corresponding to roll angle (&phgr;) of the vehicle body around a rolling axis; a unit for estimating a second quantity corresponding to a change rate (&phgr;) of the roll angle of the vehicle body; a unit for estimating a third quantity indicating a relative magnitude (&phgr;/&phgr; , &ggr;V/(&ggr;V) , Gy/Gy , Ff/Ff ) of the first quantity with reference to a first limit value predetermined therefor; a unit for estimating a fourth quantity indicating a relative magnitude (&phgr;/&phgr; ) of the second quantity with reference to a second limit value predetermined therefor; and a unit for estimating the rolling condition as a combination of the third and fourth quantities such that the rolling condition is intensified along with increase of the third quantity as well as increase of the fourth quantity.

Device for estimating rolling condition of vehicle body with limits of roll angle and angular speed

A roll control device for a four-wheeled vehicle obtains a first parameter including a component indicative of a dynamic aspect of a rolling of a vehicle body such as a time derivative of the roll angle and a second parameter indicative of the degree of progress of the rolling such as a lateral acceleration of the vehicle body during its increasing phase, and applies a roll suppress braking to at least a front wheel serving at the outside of a turn to driftout the vehicle, so as to increase the radius of the turning curve, wherein the strength of the braking is determined according to the first parameter, while the start of execution of the braking is determined according to the second parameter exceeding a threshold value determined therefor.

Roll control device of vehicles with braking estimated and trimmed by

A driftout control device of a four wheel steered vehicle has a brake/traction system for selectively applying a braking or a traction force to each of the four wheels, and a steering system for selectively steering a pair of front and a pair of rear wheels separately, wherein the driftout control device includes a first controller for controlling the brake/traction system so as selectively to generate a turn assist yaw moment in the vehicle, and a second controller for controlling the steering system so as selectively to steer the pair of rear wheels in a same steering direction as a steering of the pair of front wheels for a turn running of the vehicle when the first controller is controlling the brake/traction system for generation of the turn assist yaw moment, so that an anti-turn yaw moment generated by the rear wheels steered in the same direction as the front wheels is canceled by an increased generation of the turn assist yaw moment, while ensuring a larger centripetal side force at the rear wheels to suppress the driftout.

Driftout control device of four wheel steered vehicle by combination of

A device for controlling intake throttle of an engine of a vehicle having: a means for estimating an instability quantity representative of turning instability of the vehicle; a means for estimating lateral acceleration of the vehicle; a means for estimating friction coefficient of road surface; a means for estimating a brake limit of a pair of drive wheels based upon the lateral acceleration and the road surface friction coefficient; a means for estimating an engine brake torque limit based upon the brake limit of the pair of drive wheels of the vehicle and the instability quantity; a means for estimating a target intake throttle value corresponding to the engine brake torque limit; and a means for attenuating intake throttling of the engine to the target intake throttle value when the intake throttling is tighter than the target intake throttle value.

Device for controlling engine intake throttle for turn stability control

A behavior control device of a vehicle having a means for estimating slip ratio of a pair of left and right drive wheels; a means for estimating lateral force acting at the vehicle body due to its turn running to provide a factor representative of the lateral force; and a means for estimating a target braking force to be generated in one of a pair of front driven wheels serving at the outside of the turn when the vehicle is a rear drive vehicle or one of a pair of rear driven wheels serving at the inside of the turn when the vehicle is a front drive vehicle, based upon the slip ratio and the factor; so that the brake system of the vehicle brakes the front driven wheel serving at the outside of the turn or the rear driven wheel serving at the inside of the turn to generate the target braking force.

Stability control device of vehicle for relieving drive wheels from side

A device for estimating slip angle of vehicle body of a vehicle, having: means for calculating yaw rate based upon such parameters as detected steering angle, vehicle speed, lateral acceleration and braking forces as variable parameters, the slip angle of the vehicle body estimated by the vehicle body slip angle estimation device, a first feedback factor multiplied to difference between the detected yaw rate and the yaw rate calculated by the yaw rate calculation means, and fixed parameters particular to the vehicle, such that the calculated yaw rate converges to the detected yaw rate; means for calculating slip angle of the vehicle body based upon such parameters as detected steering angle, vehicle speed, lateral acceleration, braking forces and yaw rate, the yaw rate calculated by the yaw rate calculation means, a second feedback factor multiplied to the difference between the detected yaw rate and the yaw rate calculated by the yaw rate calculation means, and fixed parameters particular to the vehicle, such that the calculated yaw rate converges to the detected yaw rate; means for detecting saturation index against the difference between a standard yaw rate based upon the calculations by the yaw rate calculation means and the detected yaw rate; and means for modifying the first and second feedback factors according to the saturation index such that non-linearity between lateral forces acting at the wheels and slip angles of the wheels is compensated for by the modification of the first and second feedback factors.

Growing community of inventors

Susono, Japan

Yoshiki Fukada