Patents Represented by Attorney, Agent or Law Firm Arstrong, Westerman, Hattori, McLeland & Naughton, LLP.
  • Patent number: 6321147
    Abstract: An unmanned vehicle running system, capable of reducing a stop time of a vehicle by immediately judging whether or not an obstacle blocks the passage when detecting the obstacle. For this purpose, the unmanned vehicle running system has a plurality of vehicles (1) running without a driver in a predetermined course (3) while detecting the current position and a central monitor station (2) for monitoring operations of the plurality of vehicles, wherein each of said vehicles is provided with a phototaking device (24) for taking a photo of the course, with a vehicle communication unit (23) for transmitting the taken image to the central monitor station, and with an obstacle detecting unit (5) for detecting an obstacle (4) which blocks the passage, wherein the central monitor station is provided with a central communication unit (8) for receiving the image and with a monitor (9) for displaying the image, and wherein the phototaking device takes a photo when the obstacle detecting unit detects an obstacle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 19, 2000
    Date of Patent: November 20, 2001
    Assignee: Komatsu Ltd.
    Inventors: Shu Takeda, Masanori Tojima, Koji Takeda