Patents by Inventor Hirofumi Nishimura

Hirofumi Nishimura has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20190367006
    Abstract: Provided are a driving force control method and device for a hybrid vehicle, each capable of effectively absorbing torque fluctuation of an engine while suppressing deterioration in energy efficiency. The driving force control device for a hybrid vehicle comprises a PCM configured to: identify a vehicle acceleration; estimate an average torque output by an engine; estimate a torque fluctuation component of the torque output by the engine; set a countertorque for suppressing the estimated torque fluctuation component; and control an electric motor to output the set countertorque, wherein the PCM is operable, under a condition that an engine speed and the average torque output by the engine are constant, to set the countertorque such that, as the absolute value of the vehicle acceleration becomes smaller, the absolute value of the countertorque becomes larger.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 23, 2018
    Publication date: December 5, 2019
    Inventors: Kentaro Furusho, Hirofumi Nishimura, Tsuyoshi Goto, Yuta Enokizono, Wataru Yamamoto
  • Patent number: 10371810
    Abstract: An object detection device that detects an obstacle in an object by transmitting a signal by a transmission unit, and using reflection signals by a receiving unit, the device including: a sidewall detection circuit that determines whether the vehicle is running on a road having the sidewall, based on an azimuth angle of the object, a distance from the vehicle to the object, Doppler velocities of the reflection signals, and intensities of the reflection signals; a multiple reflection position detection circuit that detects multiple reflection wave components from the reflection signals, based on the Doppler velocities, the azimuth angle, and the reflection intensities when the road is determined to have the sidewall; a detection exclusion range setting circuit that removes the detected multiple reflection wave components from the reflection signals; and an object detection circuit that detects the object using the reflection signals with the multiple reflection wave components removed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 24, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 6, 2019
    Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hiroshi Iwai, Hirofumi Nishimura, Asako Hamada
  • Patent number: 10353398
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides a moving object detection device including a first input circuitry that receives positional information indicating a position of an object present around a vehicle in time sequence from an object detector included in the vehicle, and a controller that processes the positional information received by the first input circuitry in time sequence, detects at least a first continuum along a traveling road of the vehicle, and when a shape of a detected first continuum of this time is changed in comparison with a shape of a previous first continuum, outputs information indicating that another moving object different from the vehicle is present to a vehicle control circuitry of the vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 17, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 16, 2019
    Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Takahiro Shima, Hirofumi Nishimura
  • Patent number: 10325162
    Abstract: There is provided a detection device that includes: a position estimator that estimates a candidate position of a crosswalk in a movement direction of a vehicle and estimates a length of the crosswalk and an intersecting angle between the crosswalk and a roadway using the candidate position; a corrector that corrects the numbers of periods and widths of two basis functions based on the estimated length of the crosswalk and the estimated intersecting angle, the two basis functions corresponding to intervals of white lines of the crosswalk and are orthogonal to each other; and a crosswalk detector that detects whether or not the crosswalk is present using both image data which include the candidate position and the two corrected basis functions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 18, 2019
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Masakatsu Maeda, Hirofumi Nishimura, Takahiro Shima, Naoya Yosoku, Yoshito Hirai
  • Patent number: 10284061
    Abstract: Provided is a rotor (1) of a permanent magnet-type electric rotary machine, the rotor being able to restrain a decrease of a magnetic characteristic. A pair of endplates (6a, 6b) placed at both axial ends of a rotor core (3) are each provided with a pressing portion (10, 10) configured to abut with an outer peripheral side of an end of the rotor core (3) to apply a pressing force toward the other end plate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2015
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2019
    Assignee: FUJI ELECTRIC CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Kenichi Mae, Toshiharu Mochida, Masao Shuto, Hirofumi Nishimura
  • Patent number: 10267907
    Abstract: A radar apparatus is mountable on a vehicle, transmits a radar signal, and includes a radio receiver that receives reflected wave signals being the radar signal reflected by multiple objects present in the viewing angle of the radar apparatus via a receiving antenna mountable on a side of the vehicle, a signal processing unit that determines the azimuths of the objects, the Doppler speeds between the radar apparatus and the objects, and the intensities of the reflected wave signals by using the reflected wave signals, and a radar state estimation unit that estimates the speed and traveling direction of the radar using the azimuths of the objects, the Doppler speeds, and the intensities.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 2015
    Date of Patent: April 23, 2019
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Maiko Shikatani, Hirofumi Nishimura, Asako Hamada, Takaaki Kishigami
  • Patent number: 10263482
    Abstract: Cracking and flying around of permanent magnets in a permanent magnet embedded-type rotating electric machine is prevented. Thermally hardening FRP is used as a reinforcement sheet, and the reinforcement sheet is wrapped around the periphery of a permanent magnet and caused to adhere to the surface of the permanent magnet by being thermally hardened. Subsequently, the permanent magnet to which the reinforcement sheet is adhering is embedded in magnet embedding holes of the rotor. The surface of the reinforcement sheet after thermal hardening is in a state of not being attached to the inner wall surface of the magnet embedding holes. Consequently, no stress caused by the difference between the linear expansion coefficients of the rotor and permanent magnets acts on the permanent magnets when the temperature of the rotor rises, and cracking of the permanent magnets can thus be prevented.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2015
    Date of Patent: April 16, 2019
    Assignee: FUJI ELECTRIC CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Toshiharu Mochida, Takashi Sakiyama, Masao Shuto, Toshiya Sasaki, Hirofumi Nishimura, Takeshi Iwamoto, Yuji Nakazaki, Takasumi Chikazawa, Keizou Kato
  • Patent number: 10222471
    Abstract: A vehicle movement estimation device has a radar that is provided in a vehicle and that performs transmission of a radar wave and reception of a reflected wave that is the radar wave reflected by an object, a radar movement estimator that estimates a radar movement velocity and a radar movement direction of the radar based on the received reflected wave, an angular velocity estimator that estimates a rotational angular velocity of the vehicle, and a vehicle movement estimator that estimates a movement velocity and a movement direction of a prescribed position of the vehicle based on the estimated radar movement velocity and radar movement direction, the estimated rotational angular velocity, and a spatial relationship between the radar and the prescribed position.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 7, 2016
    Date of Patent: March 5, 2019
    Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Yunyun Cao, Hirofumi Nishimura, Takaaki Kishigami, Asako Hamada
  • Patent number: 10158265
    Abstract: An embedded permanent magnet type motor, which has one pole configured of two permanent magnets and has a plurality of poles of permanent magnets embedded in a rotor, includes a rotor whose magnet embedding holes communicate with a rotor outer periphery. The rotor has, between adjacent poles, a q-axis projection projecting in a direction away from a rotor rotation center. The magnet embedding holes are disposed so as to form an inverted V shape. An outer peripheral edge portion on the outer side of the permanent magnets has a curvature radius smaller than the distance from a rotation center axis to a rotor outermost peripheral portion. Circular intermediate plates of an outside diameter larger than the outside diameter of rotor steel plates are provided in intermediate positions in the rotor in a rotor rotation axis direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 2015
    Date of Patent: December 18, 2018
    Assignee: FUJI ELECTRIC CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Toshiharu Mochida, Akio Toba, Hiroshi Shimada, Hirofumi Nishimura
  • Patent number: 10101448
    Abstract: An on-board radar apparatus includes a transmitter/receiver that transmits a radar signal to a detection range for every frame and receives one or more reflected signals which are the radar signal reflected by one or more objects; a detector that detects, for every frame in each direction within the detection range, a position of a reflection point closest to the on-board radar apparatus as a boundary candidate position, which serves as a boundary with a region where no object exists within the detection range, among one or more reflection points detected on the basis of the one or more reflected signals; a calculator that calculates movement amount concerning an amount of movement of the on-board radar apparatus; an estimator that generates, for every frame in each direction within the detection range, an estimated boundary position by converting the boundary candidate position detected in a past frame into a boundary position in a current frame on the basis of the movement amount; and a smoother that perfor
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 24, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 16, 2018
    Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Asako Hamada, Hirofumi Nishimura, Kiyotaka Kobayashi, Maiko Shikatani
  • Patent number: 10009594
    Abstract: Device (100) comprises: a stereo image acquisition unit (101) for acquiring a standard image and a reference image for a stereo image; an image segmenting unit (102) for acquiring standard pixel data and reference pixel data from the stereo image; a phase correction unit (103) for carrying out for each of the pixel data a phase correction process making the values of the standard pixel data more symmetrical; a windowing unit (104) for applying a windowing function to each of the pixel data that have undergone phase correction; a phase correlation unit 105 for calculating a phase correlation value between the two pixel data that have undergone windowing; and a peak position detection unit (106) for calculating, on the basis of the phase correlation value, the parallax of a corresponding point of the reference image with respect to a standard point on the standard image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 4, 2013
    Date of Patent: June 26, 2018
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Takuya Nanri, Hisashi Kurokawa, Takeshi Ishihara, Hirofumi Nishimura
  • Publication number: 20180172814
    Abstract: An object detection device includes: a classifier that receives, from a radar device that transmits a transmission wave and receives a reflected wave that is the transmission wave reflected by an object around a subject vehicle, detection result information indicative of an intensity, an azimuth, and a Doppler velocity obtained from a Doppler frequency shift of the reflected wave, and determines whether the detection result information is first detection result information corresponding to a moving object or second detection result information corresponding to a still object; a calculator that calculates distances from the radar device to reflection points of the moving object on the basis of the first detection result information; and an output that supplies, to a predetermined device, first reflection point information indicating the distances of the reflection points and azimuths of the reflection points based on the radar device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 7, 2017
    Publication date: June 21, 2018
    Inventors: YUKIO OKAZAKI, HIROFUMI NISHIMURA, ASAKO HAMADA
  • Publication number: 20180137760
    Abstract: A monitoring-target-region setting device includes: an object detector that detects one or more objects present around an own vehicle; a discriminator that discriminates, on the basis of position information of the own vehicle accumulated in every determined cycle, whether the own vehicle is located within a determined distance range from an assumed region; a monitoring-target-region setter that sets, when the own vehicle is located within the determined distance range, a monitoring target region including the assumed region and being updated according to the position information of the own vehicle; and an object selector that selects, from the one or more objects detected in the monitoring target region, a target for which alarm is performed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 17, 2017
    Publication date: May 17, 2018
    Inventors: KIYOTAKA KOBAYASHI, ASAKO HAMADA, HIROFUMI NISHIMURA
  • Patent number: 9958541
    Abstract: A radar device mounted in a moving object includes a radar transmitter and a radar receiver. The radar receiver includes a plurality of antenna brunch processors that perform correlation processing of the received returning signals and the radar transmission signal, and generate respective correlation signals each including arrival delay information of each of the received returning signals, an electric power profile generator that generates an electric power profiles for each arrival direction of the received returning signals and Doppler frequency component, using the generated correlation signals, and a stationary object group distribution generator that, based on the generated electric power profiles, obtains a first distribution of a Doppler frequency components of a stationary object group including a plurality of stationary objects as the plurality of targets in the perimeter of the moving object, for each azimuth angle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 28, 2015
    Date of Patent: May 1, 2018
    Assignee: PANASONIC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Takaaki Kishigami, Hirofumi Nishimura
  • Patent number: 9921305
    Abstract: A radar apparatus includes an antenna that receives echo signals, each of the echo signals being a radar signal reflected by one or more objects; a Doppler-frequency acquirer that acquires Doppler frequencies at each range bin from the received echo signals; a direction correlation power-value calculator that calculates direction correlation power values for respective combinations of the Doppler frequencies and at least one of a distance to the one or more objects and an arrival direction of the echo signals, each direction correlation power value indicating a strength of a corresponding echo signal; and a normalized direction correlation-value calculator that calculates, for the respective combinations, normalized direction correlation values, each normalized direction correlation value indicating a probability of the arrival direction of the corresponding echo signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2018
    Assignee: PANASONIC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Yunyun Cao, Hirofumi Nishimura, Asako Hamada, Takaaki Kishigami
  • Publication number: 20180045811
    Abstract: A first data group, which indicates reflection wave intensities from reflection points for radar directions indicating directions in which the corresponding reflection points exist relative to a radar apparatus and distances from the radar apparatus to the reflection points, and a second data group, which indicates Doppler velocities of the reflection points for the radar directions and the distances from the radar apparatus to the reflection points, are used to generate a third data group, which indicates the reflection wave intensities of the reflection points. A radar moving direction relative to a moving direction of the vehicle for each frame is generated based on the third data group. The radar moving direction when the moving direction of the vehicle is straight ahead is estimated using the radar moving direction in a predetermined number of frames, and the radar installation angle is calculated using the estimated radar moving direction.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 12, 2017
    Publication date: February 15, 2018
    Inventors: YUNYUN CAO, HIROFUMI NISHIMURA, ASAKO HAMADA, HIROSHI IWAMURA
  • Publication number: 20170356991
    Abstract: There is provided a radar device including: a transmitter including a first antenna which, in operation, transmits a radar signal; a receiver including a second antenna which, in operation, receives an echo signal that is the radar signal reflected from an object; a stationary object boundary detector which, in operation, detects a boundary of a first region in which a stationary object exists by using the echo signal; and a stationary object boundary variations detector which, in operation, detects a second region in which temporal changes are observed in the boundary of the first region and detects a third region that is the region moving in a cross-range direction, as a first moving object.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 2, 2017
    Publication date: December 14, 2017
    Inventors: NAOYA YOSOKU, HIROFUMI NISHIMURA
  • Publication number: 20170344022
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides a moving object detection device including a first input circuitry that receives positional information indicating a position of an object present around a vehicle in time sequence from an object detector included in the vehicle, and a controller that processes the positional information received by the first input circuitry in time sequence, detects at least a first continuum along a traveling road of the vehicle, and when a shape of a detected first continuum of this time is changed in comparison with a shape of a previous first continuum, outputs information indicating that another moving object different from the vehicle is present to a vehicle control circuitry of the vehicle.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 17, 2017
    Publication date: November 30, 2017
    Inventors: TAKAHIRO SHIMA, HIROFUMI NISHIMURA
  • Publication number: 20170337432
    Abstract: There is provided a detection device that includes: a position estimator that estimates a candidate position of a crosswalk in a movement direction of a vehicle and estimates a length of the crosswalk and an intersecting angle between the crosswalk and a roadway using the candidate position; a corrector that corrects the numbers of periods and widths of two basis functions based on the estimated length of the crosswalk and the estimated intersecting angle, the two basis functions corresponding to intervals of white lines of the crosswalk and are orthogonal to each other; and a crosswalk detector that detects whether or not the crosswalk is present using both image data which include the candidate position and the two corrected basis functions.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 12, 2017
    Publication date: November 23, 2017
    Inventors: MASAKATSU MAEDA, HIROFUMI NISHIMURA, TAKAHIRO SHIMA, NAOYA YOSOKU, YOSHITO HIRAI
  • Publication number: 20170240180
    Abstract: A determination device includes: route detection circuitry which detects, a first continuous body as a first part of a one or more first direction distance information with respect to a first object, and a second continuous body as a second part of the one or more first direction distance information with respect to a second object, in a first direction along a first route on which the moving body moves, and a third continuous body as the second part, in a second direction; route determination circuitry which determines presence or absence of a second route along the third continuous body.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 9, 2017
    Publication date: August 24, 2017
    Inventors: YOSHITO HIRAI, HIROFUMI NISHIMURA, NAOYA YOSOKU