Patents by Inventor Kazuo Muto

Kazuo Muto 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).

  • Patent number: 11769355
    Abstract: A system for guiding a driver to an ideal driving pattern in order to eliminate dependency on the driver's driving pattern in a fault diagnosis of an automobile part based on automobile running data, even if the driver's driving pattern is far from the ideal driving pattern. The system comprises a fault diagnosis support device equipped with: a diagnosis model selector for outputting a diagnosis model in which, for a feature value used for an examination of an automobile part, an available range available for making a diagnosis and a reference point are stipulated; a driver model generator generating, as a representative point of the feature value that corresponds to a driver's driving pattern; and a recommendation model generator generating, if the representative point is outside the available range, a recommendation model in which a boundary of the available range is set as a recommendation point.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 26, 2023
    Assignee: HITACHI, LTD.
    Inventors: Takehisa Nishida, Mariko Okude, Masayoshi Ishikawa, Kazuo Muto, Zixian Zhang
  • Publication number: 20220180287
    Abstract: There is provided an optimization support apparatus enabling it to reduce the number of runs of experiments or analysis and the cost therefor.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 23, 2021
    Publication date: June 9, 2022
    Applicant: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Kazuo MUTO, Tatsuya HASEBE
  • Publication number: 20220051117
    Abstract: A field data monitoring device comprises a field data database which accumulates field data; a failure mode database which records a failure mode list and a failure-mode word-probability table, the failure mode list recording names of failure modes of products and occurrence probabilities of the failure modes, and the table holding appearance probabilities of words in the field data; a design production operation database which accumulates data of the products; a failure-mode estimating section that calculates attribution probabilities of the field data to the failure modes based on the occurrence probabilities and the appearance probabilities, the failure-mode estimating section classifying the field data according to the failure modes; and a failure-mode cause finding section that extracts conditions under which the failure modes easily occur, the conditions being extracted from the data in the design production operation database and of the products associated with the classified field data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 19, 2021
    Publication date: February 17, 2022
    Inventors: Kazuo MUTO, Takayuki UCHIDA
  • Patent number: 11130499
    Abstract: A failure detection device that detects a failure in a plurality of external sensors onboard a vehicle, the failure detection device comprises: an overlapping region storage unit that stores an overlapping region of detection areas of the external sensors; an environment performance storage unit that stores an environment-dependent performance of sensing of the external sensors; an environment information acquisition unit that acquires environment information about the vehicle; a recognition result comparison unit that compares recognition results of an object in the overlapping region from the external sensors; a failure likelihood computation unit that computes a failure likelihood of each external sensor based on a comparison result of the recognition results, the environment information, and the environment-dependent performance; and a failure determination unit that determines a failure in each external sensor based on the failure likelihood of each of the external sensors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 19, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 28, 2021
    Assignee: HITACHI, LTD.
    Inventors: Takehisa Nishida, Mariko Okude, Kazuo Muto
  • Publication number: 20210248557
    Abstract: There is provided a design support system including a designer terminal, a maintenance personnel terminal, and a design support device, in which the design support device includes a failure causal model database, a failure causal model updating unit that updates the failure causal model based on an assumed cause of a failure of the input target equipment, a maintenance support unit that estimates a type of a failure having a high occurrence probability and the cause thereof based on a symptom of the input target equipment and the failure causal model, and outputs the estimated result to the maintenance personnel terminal, a maintenance record database that stores authenticity information input from the maintenance personnel terminal for the estimated type of the failure and the cause, and a failure cause analysis unit that updates the failure causal model based on the authenticity information stored in the maintenance record database, estimates a failure cause of the target equipment based on the updated fail
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 29, 2020
    Publication date: August 12, 2021
    Inventors: Kazuo MUTO, Yasuharu NAMBA, Shuntaro HITOMI, Toshiyuki UKAI
  • Publication number: 20210082213
    Abstract: A system for guiding a driver to an ideal driving pattern in order to eliminate dependency on the driver's driving pattern in a fault diagnosis of an automobile part based on automobile running data, even if the driver's driving pattern is far from the ideal driving pattern. The system comprises a fault diagnosis support device equipped with: a diagnosis model selector for outputting a diagnosis model in which, for a feature value used for an examination of an automobile part, an available range available for making a diagnosis and a reference point are stipulated; a driver model generator generating, as a representative point of the feature value that corresponds to a driver's driving pattern; and a recommendation model generator generating, if the representative point is outside the available range, a recommendation model in which a boundary of the available range is set as a recommendation point.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 21, 2018
    Publication date: March 18, 2021
    Applicant: HITACHI, LTD.
    Inventors: Takehisa NISHIDA, Mariko OKUDE, Masayoshi ISHIKAWA, Kazuo MUTO, Zixian ZHANG
  • Publication number: 20210027556
    Abstract: An abnormality sign diagnosis apparatus uses measurement data on equipment to find a difference between previously acquired data in normal operation and measurement data at a time targeted for diagnosis so as to detect abnormality of the equipment. The apparatus includes: input means that inputs the measurement data on the equipment in operation and a surrounding environment and status of the equipment in operation; storage that stores the data on the equipment in normal operation; and processing means that selects data on the equipment in normal operation in a surrounding environment and status of the equipment similar to the surrounding environment and at a time which is targeted for diagnosis, the processing means further detecting abnormality of the equipment using the data of the equipment in normal operation at the time targeted for diagnosis and the data on the equipment in normal operation selected from the storage.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 30, 2019
    Publication date: January 28, 2021
    Applicant: HITACHI, LTD.
    Inventors: Zixian ZHANG, Kazuo MUTO, Mariko OKUDE, Takehisa NISHIDA, Masayoshi ISHIKAWA
  • Patent number: 10713866
    Abstract: A vehicle operation data collection apparatus includes a vehicle operation history DB which accumulates vehicle operation data acquired from a vehicle; and a processor programmed to evaluate excess or deficiency of vehicle operation data accumulated in the vehicle operation history DB for each of abnormality types, on the basis of accuracy information of classification obtained when classifying the abnormality types occurring in the vehicle by machine learning, using vehicle operation data accumulated in the vehicle operation history DB, extract a vehicle suitable for acquiring data of an abnormality type evaluated as data deficiency from a vehicle maintenance history DB as a collection target vehicle, and distribute a collection command instructing collection of operation data to the extracted collection target vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 26, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 14, 2020
    Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Masayoshi Ishikawa, Mariko Okude, Takehisa Nishida, Kazuo Muto, Atsushi Katou
  • Publication number: 20200207362
    Abstract: A failure detection device that detects a failure in a plurality of external sensors onboard a vehicle, the failure detection device comprises: an overlapping region storage unit that stores an overlapping region of detection areas of the external sensors; an environment performance storage unit that stores an environment-dependent performance of sensing of the external sensors; an environment information acquisition unit that acquires environment information about the vehicle; a recognition result comparison unit that compares recognition results of an object in the overlapping region from the external sensors; a failure likelihood computation unit that computes a failure likelihood of each external sensor based on a comparison result of the recognition results, the environment information, and the environment-dependent performance; and a failure determination unit that determines a failure in each external sensor based on the failure likelihood of each of the external sensors.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 19, 2019
    Publication date: July 2, 2020
    Applicant: HITACHI, LTD.
    Inventors: Takehisa NISHIDA, Mariko OKUDE, Kazuo MUTO
  • Patent number: 10679434
    Abstract: A device diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention includes: a diagnosis model selecting unit that selects a diagnosis model for diagnosing a moving device in accordance with a driving environment of the device; and a diagnosis unit that inputs operation data of the device to the selected diagnosis model, receives an output of a diagnosis result for the device from the diagnosis model, and diagnoses the device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 15, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2020
    Assignee: HITACHI, LTD.
    Inventors: Mariko Okude, Takehisa Nishida, Masayoshi Ishikawa, Kazuo Muto, Atsushi Katou
  • Publication number: 20200150639
    Abstract: A plant inspection planning optimization apparatus includes: a plant operation estimation unit that estimates the variation of the operation of a plant; a degradation probability distribution estimation unit that estimates the probability distributions of the degradations of plural inspection-scheduled points of the plant with the use of the variation of the operation of the plant and the degradation state and the probability distribution of the parameter of an estimation model obtained at the previous inspection; an inspection point optimization unit that selects inspection points selected from the inspection-scheduled points in accordance with a selection index with the use of the probability distributions of the degradations of the plural inspection-scheduled points; and an output unit that provides the selected inspection points and inspection techniques.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 19, 2019
    Publication date: May 14, 2020
    Inventor: Kazuo MUTO
  • Patent number: 10453276
    Abstract: A reporting device that is connected to at least one vehicle, which is controlled based on a result of recognition by an outside recognizer, via a network provides the vehicle with information on a possibility of a failure in outside recognition on the basis of a condition under which a failure in outside recognition has occurred previously. Preliminarily, if a failure such as non-detection or erroneous detection occurs due to an outside recognizer of a connected car, the abnormality is stored while being linked with an external traveling environment such as the position of the vehicle or a weather.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 17, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 22, 2019
    Assignee: HITACHI, LTD.
    Inventors: Takehisa Nishida, Mariko Okude, Masayoshi Ishikawa, Kazuo Muto
  • Patent number: 10423841
    Abstract: An abnormality detection device includes a space recognition success determination unit which determines whether an outside space recognition device is successful in space recognition from information which contains space recognition information and environment information, an environment dependence recognition failure classifying unit which determines and classifies whether a failure of the space recognition corresponds to any one of a failure type previously stored in an environment dependence recognition failure type storage unit with respect to the space recognition information determined as failing in the space recognition, and an abnormality detection unit which uses the space recognition information determined as not corresponding to any failure type by the environment dependence recognition failure classifying unit to detect an abnormality of the outside space recognition device in the space recognition information determined as failing in the space recognition.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 26, 2017
    Date of Patent: September 24, 2019
    Assignee: HITACHI, LTD.
    Inventors: Takehisa Nishida, Mariko Okude, Masayoshi Ishikawa, Kazuo Muto, Atsushi Katou
  • Patent number: 10249112
    Abstract: An object of the present invention is to grasp information regarding the state of a vehicle (for example, an automobile) that cannot be obtained from an OBD, and to monitor the state of the vehicle. An aspect of the present invention includes: a state estimation unit that estimates the state quantities of a monitoring-target vehicle based on sensor data obtained from sensors mounted on a mobile information terminal in the monitoring-target vehicle using a state estimation device that has learned the relationship between sensor data obtained from sensors mounted on a mobile information terminal in an arbitrary vehicle and state quantities of the arbitrary vehicle in advance; a state evaluation unit that executes evaluation regarding a state of the monitoring-target vehicle on the basis of the estimated state quantities of the monitoring-target vehicle; and an evaluation result output unit that outputs a result of the evaluation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2018
    Date of Patent: April 2, 2019
    Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Kazuo Muto, Mariko Okude, Takehisa Nishida, Masayoshi Ishikawa, Atsushi Katou
  • Patent number: 10169932
    Abstract: To provide an anomality candidate information analysis apparatus capable of early confirming that an unexpected anomality occurs in a monitoring object such as a vehicle. There is provided an anomality candidate information analysis apparatus for analyzing anomality candidate information of a vehicle that is a monitoring object. The anomality candidate information analysis apparatus includes a storage unit and an analysis unit. The storage unit stores monitoring object information regarding the vehicle, environment information regarding an environment around the vehicle, operator information regarding an operator of the vehicle, and anomality candidate information detected in the vehicle in association with each other.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 7, 2017
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2019
    Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Masayoshi Ishikawa, Mariko Okude, Takehisa Nishida, Kazuo Muto
  • Publication number: 20180286153
    Abstract: An object of the present invention is to grasp information regarding the state of a vehicle (for example, an automobile) that cannot be obtained from an OBD, and to monitor the state of the vehicle. An aspect of the present invention includes: a state estimation unit that estimates the state quantities of a monitoring-target vehicle based on sensor data obtained from sensors mounted on a mobile information terminal in the monitoring-target vehicle using a state estimation device that has learned the relationship between sensor data obtained from sensors mounted on a mobile information terminal in an arbitrary vehicle and state quantities of the arbitrary vehicle in advance; a state evaluation unit that executes evaluation regarding a state of the monitoring-target vehicle on the basis of the estimated state quantities of the monitoring-target vehicle; and an evaluation result output unit that outputs a result of the evaluation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 23, 2018
    Publication date: October 4, 2018
    Inventors: Kazuo MUTO, Mariko OKUDE, Takehisa NISHIDA, Masayoshi ISHIKAWA, Atsushi KATOU
  • Patent number: 10032375
    Abstract: The invention is to specify a poor visibility portion by using only a sensor standardly mounted on a connected car without any special measurement device or equipment and provide information thereon to a driver or an automatic driving device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 19, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 24, 2018
    Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Kazuo Muto, Ichiro Kataoka, Takashi Okada, Toshiharu Sugawara, Atsushi Katou, Katsuhiro Samizo
  • Publication number: 20180157249
    Abstract: An abnormality detecting apparatus disclosed herein includes one or more sensors which measure a variety of conditions of a detecting object; a measurement data acquisition unit which acquires measurement data for prediction computation and measurement data for estimation computation from the sensors; a model database which stores a normal behavior model which represents behavior of the detecting object when the object runs normally and a plurality of abnormal behavior models which represent behavior of the detecting object when abnormality occurs therein due to one of various causes; normal behavior model prediction means for calculating predicted values for measurement data for estimation computation in a normal condition of the detecting object from measurement data for prediction computation and a normal behavior model; abnormal behavior model prediction means for calculating predicted values for measurement data for estimation computation in an abnormal condition of the detecting object due to one of var
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 3, 2016
    Publication date: June 7, 2018
    Inventor: Kazuo MUTO
  • Publication number: 20180158257
    Abstract: A device diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention includes: a diagnosis model selecting unit that selects a diagnosis model for diagnosing a moving device in accordance with a driving environment of the device; and a diagnosis unit that inputs operation data of the device to the selected diagnosis model, receives an output of a diagnosis result for the device from the diagnosis model, and diagnoses the device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 15, 2017
    Publication date: June 7, 2018
    Applicant: HITACHI, LTD.
    Inventors: Mariko OKUDE, Takehisa NISHIDA, Masayoshi ISHIKAWA, Kazuo MUTO, Atsushi KATOU
  • Publication number: 20180137377
    Abstract: An abnormality detection device includes a space recognition success determination unit which determines whether an outside space recognition device is successful in space recognition from information which contains space recognition information and environment information, an environment dependence recognition failure classifying unit which determines and classifies whether a failure of the space recognition corresponds to any one of a failure type previously stored in an environment dependence recognition failure type storage unit with respect to the space recognition information determined as failing in the space recognition, and an abnormality detection unit which uses the space recognition information determined as not corresponding to any failure type by the environment dependence recognition failure classifying unit to detect an abnormality of the outside space recognition device in the space recognition information determined as failing in the space recognition.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 26, 2017
    Publication date: May 17, 2018
    Applicant: HITACHI, LTD.
    Inventors: Takehisa NISHIDA, Mariko OKUDE, Masayoshi ISHIKAWA, Kazuo MUTO, Atsushi KATOU