Patents Examined by Courtney Heinle
  • Patent number: 9075701
    Abstract: The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for monitoring abnormal state of a vehicle. In the method, CAN data collected from an ECU mounted on the vehicle is transformed into coordinates. The coordinates are applied to a distribution map in a specific space, a number of clusters is calculated based on results of the application, and an initial center point corresponding to the number of clusters is selected. Clustering is performed based on the initial center point, and then clusters are generated. At least one piece of data is extracted from each of the clusters, and a state feature of a corresponding cluster is decided on using a difference between maximum and minimum values of attributes constituting the at least one piece of data. A current state of the vehicle is monitored based on current CAN data of the vehicle and state features of the clusters.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2013
    Date of Patent: July 7, 2015
    Assignees: ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, CHUNGBUK NATIONAL UNIVERSITY INDUSTRY-ACADEMIC COOPERATION FOUNDATION
    Inventors: Un-Il Yun, Shin-Kyung Lee, Jeong-Woo Lee, Oh-Cheon Kwon, Gwang-Bum Pyun, Heung-Mo Ryang, Gang-In Lee
  • Patent number: 9069650
    Abstract: A method for an entertainment system of a vehicle wherein a distance between the vehicle and a further vehicle is determined, and a symbol for the vehicle and a symbol for the further vehicle are displayed on a display device of the vehicle on the basis of the distance between the vehicle and the further vehicle. Actuation of a user control element is detected after the symbol for the further vehicle has been displayed. An actuation signal is received from the further vehicle indicating that a user of the further vehicle has actuated a corresponding control element of the further vehicle on account of a symbol for the further vehicle and a symbol for the vehicle being displayed on a display device of the further vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 30, 2015
    Assignee: VOLKSWAGEN AG
    Inventors: Filip Piotr Chudzinski, Mathias Kuhn
  • Patent number: 9043077
    Abstract: A method for determining a type of an impact of an object on a vehicle includes: reading in an acceleration value; determining a transverse acceleration value that represents a difference between the lateral acceleration value and an acceleration value based on the rotational acceleration value, for an acceleration transverse to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle, and/or determining a longitudinal acceleration value that represents a difference between the longitudinal acceleration value and an acceleration value based on the rotational acceleration value, in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle; and recognition of the type of the impact if the transverse acceleration value and/or the longitudinal acceleration value stands in a predetermined relation to a respective threshold value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 14, 2011
    Date of Patent: May 26, 2015
    Assignee: ROBERT BOSCH GMBH
    Inventors: Alfons Doerr, Christian Korn, Stephan Rittler
  • Patent number: 9037335
    Abstract: A method for operating a driverless, mobile assembly and/or material transport unit as a driverless transport system (DTS) with fixed assembly and/or warehousing stations. In this method, a system control device is used for the entire assembly process. The driverless, mobile assembly and/or material transport units comprises a travel device for the traveling movement of the unit, a drive device for the travel device, an energy storage device for providing the energy for the drive device and a control device for controlling the traveling movement in coordination with the system control device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 16, 2010
    Date of Patent: May 19, 2015
    Inventor: Ralf Bär
  • Patent number: 9026327
    Abstract: A method for controlling a transmission of a powertrain system includes executing a single source shortest path search to identify a preferred shift path originating with an initial powertrain state and terminating at a target powertrain state, wherein the single source shortest path search employs transition-specific costs and situational costs to identify the preferred shift path. The preferred shift path is executed to achieve the target powertrain state.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 2, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 5, 2015
    Assignee: GM Global Technology Operations LLC
    Inventors: Lawrence A. Kaminsky, Besim Demirovic, Pinaki Gupta, Anthony H. Heap
  • Patent number: 8989981
    Abstract: There is provided a vehicle drive control system that feels less unnatural and that enables an improvement in safety performance. A vehicle motion control system capable of independently controlling a driving force and a braking force of four wheels comprises: a first mode (G-Vectoring control) in which substantially the same driving force and braking force are generated with respect to left and right wheels among the four wheels based on a longitudinal acceleration/deceleration control command that is coordinated with the vehicle's lateral motion; and a second mode (sideslip prevention control) in which different driving forces and braking forces are generated with respect to the left and right wheels among the four wheels based on a target yaw moment derived from the vehicle's sideslip information, wherein the first mode is selected when the target yaw moment is equal to or less than a pre-defined threshold, and the second mode is selected when the target yaw moment is greater than the threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 9, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 24, 2015
    Assignee: Hitachi Automotive Systems, Ltd.
    Inventors: Makoto Yamakado, Shinjiro Saito, Atsushi Yokoyama, Junya Takahashi, Tatsuya Yoshida
  • Patent number: 8972095
    Abstract: An automatic guided vehicle and a method for drive control enable driving of the vehicle with a coordinate system, while using designation of a movement position by address. The automatic guided vehicle measures a surrounding state by a laser, performs matching between map data and measurement data obtained by the measuring to obtain the current position, and runs, following preset route data, based on the obtained current position. The vehicle includes a data memory that stores correspondence information between addresses of certain positions in a drive area where the vehicle runs and coordinates that are set in the drive area, and a processing section that, when a movement target position is designated by address from a host computer, transforms the designated address into coordinates, based on the correspondence information between addresses and coordinates, and drives the vehicle, following the route data to the coordinates corresponding to the address.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 3, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 3, 2015
    Assignee: Hitachi Ltd.
    Inventors: Hideaki Furuno, Yoshiharu Tomioka, Yutaka Yoshida
  • Patent number: 8954218
    Abstract: A vehicle system providing a temporary validation authorization request for one or more processors configured to transmit a signal from the vehicle system to a server once the one or more processors are installed in the vehicle. Once the server receives the installation signal, the processor may receive an in-vehicle authorization message from the server. The in-vehicle authorization message may be accepted by a user-input acceptance transmitted to the server. The system may determine temporary validation authorization if it is determined that the user accepted the in-vehicle authorization message within a predetermined amount of time following transmission of the signal to the server indicating that the processor was installed. Once authorized, the system may initialize to allow for assembly line testing. The temporary validation authorization initializes the vehicle system for temporary communication with the server while on a vehicle manufacturing assembly line for testing to ensure a quality product.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 11, 2012
    Date of Patent: February 10, 2015
    Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC
    Inventors: Brian Petersen, Kelly Lee Zechel, Ritesh Pandya, Michael Kruntovski
  • Patent number: 8948991
    Abstract: Upon determining than an over-steered state exits, a feedback control coefficient for a rear wheel total drive force is set to 0 and a feedback control coefficient for a rear wheel drive force difference is also set to 0 to impose a two-wheel drive state. As a result, it is possible to avoid a turn cruising instability caused by cruising in four-wheel drive in an over-steered state. Upon determining that an under-steered state exists, the feedback control coefficients are set such that four-wheel drive is allowed but a drive force difference is not set between the left and right rear wheels. As a result, when the under-steered state exists, excellent traction can be enjoyed by operating in four-wheel drive and the phenomenon of riding up a canted road surface due to a drive force difference set between the left and right rear wheels can be avoided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 5, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2015
    Assignee: Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Shinichi Suzuki, Yuuki Ozawa
  • Patent number: 8938345
    Abstract: A vehicle left-right wheel drive force distribution control apparatus is provided for improving the handling of a vehicle when a steering wheel of the vehicle is being returned toward a center position. The vehicle left-right wheel drive force distribution control apparatus executes a distributed output of a wheel drive force to left and right drive wheels in accordance with a control. The apparatus has a left-right drive force transient control amount computing section that computes a left-right drive force difference transient control amount based on a driver transient turn response. This control amount computed is used in the aforementioned control and is made smaller as the steering wheel is being turned away from a center position than as the steering wheel is being returned toward the center position.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 5, 2011
    Date of Patent: January 20, 2015
    Assignee: Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Shinichi Suzuki
  • Patent number: 8903567
    Abstract: In a vehicle remote operating system remotely operating a host vehicle VM from a portable terminal 200, a main control unit 112 of an ECU 110 of an in-vehicle device 100 determines an dispatch position of the host vehicle VM on the basis of a parking position of the host vehicle VM and a position of a user U who intends to board the host vehicle VM. Due to this, it becomes possible to dispatch the host vehicle VM according to the parking position of the host vehicle VM and the position of the user U, and convenience is improved in dispatch operation and boarding of the host vehicle VM.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 28, 2013
    Date of Patent: December 2, 2014
    Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Chika Morimoto, Kazunori Kagawa, Yuka Sobue, Satoru Niwa, Shin Tanaka, Kazuhiro Morimoto, Akihisa Yokoyama, Junichi Wakita
  • Patent number: 8890716
    Abstract: In order to provide parking assist even in a situation where an end portion of a vehicle is predicted to come into contact with an obstacle, an available parking space is set, and a target parking position is set within the available parking space. When it is determined that the end portion of the vehicle will come into contact with an end portion of the available parking space if the vehicle travels to be parked in the target parking position, an entering angle of the vehicle with respect to the available parking space is changed so that the vehicle may travel toward a target parking space with the end portion of the vehicle spaced away from a front end point P of the available parking space, and a parking path for the vehicle to travel to a non-final target parking position is calculated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 27, 2011
    Date of Patent: November 18, 2014
    Assignee: Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Teruhisa Takano, Daisuke Tanaka
  • Patent number: 8874297
    Abstract: Disclosed are a method and system of controlling anti-jerk for reducing vibration of an electric vehicle using power of a motor. The method includes outputting an actual speed of the motor; outputting a model speed of the motor; obtaining a vibration component based on a deviation between the output motor speed and actual speed of the motor; high pass filtering the vibration component to remove an error component in the vibration component; delaying a phase of the filtered vibration component for a preset time to compensate for phase error occurring during the high pass filtering; and applying a preset gain to the vibration component in which the phase is delayed for the preset time to generate an anti-jerk compensation torque based on the applying of the preset gain.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 28, 2014
    Assignees: Hyundai Motor Company, Kia Motors Corporation
    Inventor: Jae Sung Bang
  • Patent number: 8868255
    Abstract: In a vehicle remote operating system remotely operating a host vehicle VM from a portable terminal 200, a main control unit 112 of an ECU 110 of an in-vehicle device 100 determines an dispatch position of the host vehicle VM on the basis of a parking position of the host vehicle VM and a position of a user U who intends to board the host vehicle VM. Due to this, it becomes possible to dispatch the host vehicle VM according to the parking position of the host vehicle VM and the position of the user U, and convenience is improved in dispatch operation and boarding of the host vehicle VM.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 12, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 21, 2014
    Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Chika Yoshioka, Kazunori Kagawa, Yuka Sobue, Satoru Niwa, Shin Tanaka, Kazuhiro Morimoto, Akihisa Yokoyama, Junichi Wakita
  • Patent number: 8849492
    Abstract: A driving assistance apparatus is provided with: a storing device for storing each of a plurality of past driving situations of a self-vehicle as a group of a plurality of driving situation factors, for storing, correspondingly to each of the plurality of past driving situations, an action characteristic value and a driving situation occurrence frequency, and for storing, correspondingly to each of the plurality of driving situation factors, a factor influence value and a factor change frequency; an estimating device for estimating a future driving action of the driver on the basis of the plurality of past driving situations, the action characteristic value, the driving situation occurrence frequency, the factor influence value, and the factor change frequency; and a performing device for performing driving assistance in accordance with the estimated driving action.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 17, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 30, 2014
    Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Satoshi Uno
  • Patent number: 8849482
    Abstract: A passenger transportation system having at least one rail extending along a path; at least one trolley movable along the rail; an actuating device having a linear electric motor, in turn having at least one slide fitted to the trolley, and a linear stator extending at least partly along the path, and having an elongated body, and a quantity of power windings embedded in the elongated body; and a quantity of sensors configured to control the position of the trolley, the sensors being fitted to the elongated body and so positioned as to minimize noise generated by the power windings on the sensors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 30, 2014
    Assignee: Rolic International S.AR.L.
    Inventors: Walter Sonnerer, Giuseppe Conte
  • Patent number: 8838290
    Abstract: A method for adjusting a flight direction of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) using a control device obtains a first direction of the UAV and a second direction of the control device, and calculates an angle deviation between the first direction and the second direction. The method further adjusts a control command of the UAV according to the angle deviation to obtain an adjusted control command, and transmits the adjusted control command to the UAV to control a flight direction of the UAV.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 10, 2011
    Date of Patent: September 16, 2014
    Assignee: Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hou-Hsien Lee, Chang-Jung Lee, Chih-Ping Lo
  • Patent number: 8830055
    Abstract: A system and method is provided for monitoring aircraft health and status using a situation-aware sensing system. The system includes an independent power source, a sensor that continuously measures a signal of interest to yield sensor data, and a processor that compares the sensor data to threshold data. The processor adjusts an operational parameter of the situation-aware sensing system to conserve power when the sensor data does not exceed the threshold data. The processor further adjusts the operational parameter of the situation-aware sensing system to stop conserving power when the sensor data exceeds the threshold data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 14, 2011
    Date of Patent: September 9, 2014
    Assignee: Simmonds Precision Products, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael A. Lynch, Radoslaw R. Zakrzewski
  • Patent number: 8831808
    Abstract: A vehicle is provided with a motor that is configured to provide drive torque and to facilitate regenerative braking. The vehicle also includes a controller that is configured to receive input that is indicative of a vehicle speed and a battery state of charge (BSOC), and to disable the drive torque when the BSOC is less than a maximum discharge limit. The controller is also configured to activate regenerative braking when the BSOC is less than the maximum discharge limit and the vehicle speed is greater than a predetermined speed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 24, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 9, 2014
    Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC
    Inventors: Joseph Stanek, Jeffery R. Grimes, William David Treharne, Ryan Skaff, Brian Gillespey
  • Patent number: 8831876
    Abstract: Disclosed is technology for providing guidance in a manner that facilitates travel along a guidance route when there is a road which has a carpool lane. A navigation device (100) is provided with: a current-location calculation means for calculating the current location of a moving body; a recommended route search means for searching for a recommended route to a destination; a guidance-point setting means for setting a guidance point in the recommended route; and a guidance information notification means for notifying predetermined guidance information when a moving body reaches a set guidance point. When predetermined conditions are fulfilled, the guidance-point setting means sets in a road which has a carpool lane a guidance point for notifying information for guidance from said road to a branch road, before the guidance point that would be set in a road that does not have a carpool lane.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 27, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 9, 2014
    Assignee: Clarion Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Arata Hayashi, Naoki Shimizu