Patents by Inventor Makoto Aso

Makoto Aso 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: 20130138320
    Abstract: A vehicle control device, a vehicle control system and a traffic control system are provided, in which it is possible to execute generating a parameter associated with a driving state of a vehicle, the parameter being variable on the basis of acquired predetermined information, and predetermined control for carrying out at least one of drive control over the vehicle based on the parameter and provision of information to a driver to assist achieving the parameter with driving operation. The predetermined information is the percentage of predetermined vehicles that are able to execute the predetermined control.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 1, 2011
    Publication date: May 30, 2013
    Applicant: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Makoto Aso
  • Publication number: 20130124012
    Abstract: A traffic control system sets a target value related to a travel state based on a correlation between a vehicle travel speed and a traffic volume, and controls multiple vehicles (CS) on a road in accordance with the target value as a common target value. The target value can be set based on a predicted traffic volume at a region (103) that is ahead of, in a vehicle travel direction, the multiple vehicles on the road. For example, the traffic control system sets, as the target value, a target speed or a target value of a parameter related to an inter-vehicle distance.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 19, 2011
    Publication date: May 16, 2013
    Applicant: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Mitsuhisa Shida, Makoto Aso
  • Patent number: 8401737
    Abstract: A vehicle control device calculates an operation amount and a motion state amount for varying an operation amount necessary for a real vehicle's operation based on a dynamic vehicle model modeling the motion state of a vehicle running in accordance with running targets such as a target path and a speed pattern and determines whether the calculated operation amount and the motion state amount satisfy prescribed running requirements. The operation amount and the motion state amount determined to satisfy the running requirements are a feed-forward (FF) operation amount and a target state amount in a state feedback (FB) control, respectively.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2007
    Date of Patent: March 19, 2013
    Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Makoto Aso
  • Publication number: 20120166059
    Abstract: When a preceding vehicle in front of a host vehicle reduces speed, other vehicles between the preceding vehicle and a system-mounted vehicle successively reduces speed. An ECU and an ACC control the traveling of the system-mounted vehicle on the basis of prediction information of speed reduction propagation when the system-mounted vehicle reduces speed such that the system-mounted vehicle and an ordinary vehicle immediately in front of the system-mounted vehicle have a predetermined relative positional relationship. Therefore, it is possible to suppress the speed reduction propagation between the preceding vehicle and the system-mounted vehicle in advance, making it possible to more effectively suppress congestion.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 28, 2009
    Publication date: June 28, 2012
    Applicant: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Makoto Aso
  • Patent number: 8090493
    Abstract: A vehicle state quantity prediction apparatus has sensors such as a GPS receiver that observe prescribed state quantities representing a movement state of a vehicle and a Kalman filter that inputs the state quantities observed by the sensors into a model of the movement state of the vehicle to predict a state quantity including the prescribed state quantities representing a movement of the vehicle. The reliability of the prescribed state quantities observed by the sensors is evaluated, and the degree to which the prescribed state quantities are reflected in the Kalman filter is set based on the evaluated reliability.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 18, 2007
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2012
    Assignee: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Makoto Aso
  • Publication number: 20100185317
    Abstract: A valuable-medium processing apparatus includes a receptacle in which valuable mediums are put; an escrow unit that temporarily holds the valuable mediums; a storage unit that stores therein the valuable mediums; a transporting unit including a holding route in which the valuable mediums put in the receptacle are temporarily held in the escrow unit and then transported to the storage unit, and a non-holding route in which the valuable mediums put in the receptacle are transported to the storage unit without being held in the escrow unit; and a control unit that, when a predetermined condition is satisfied, controls the transporting unit to determine a transporting route by selecting one of the holding route and the non-holding route, and transport the valuable mediums via the determined route.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 22, 2009
    Publication date: July 22, 2010
    Inventors: Makoto ASO, Tomoyuki Kubo, Hirofumi Ozaki, Yoshifumi Kawabata, Kenichi Hattori
  • Publication number: 20100125515
    Abstract: A fund management system comprises a banknote and coin handling system which handles a banknote and a coin, a check handling apparatus which handles a check, a lobby deposit handling apparatus which executes a lobby deposit process, a money change handling apparatus which changes the money, and a server which manages the banknote and coin handling system, the check handling apparatus, the lobby deposit handling apparatus, and the money change handling apparatus.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 14, 2008
    Publication date: May 20, 2010
    Applicant: GLORY LTD., a corporation of Japan
    Inventors: Makoto Aso, Tomoyuki Kubo, Kazuki Ishino, Hirofumi Ozaki, Hideki Aniya
  • Publication number: 20100042282
    Abstract: A travel control plan generating system 1 includes: upper level plan generating means 22a for generating an upper level plan corresponding to a travel policy of a vehicle A; lower level plan generating means 22b for generating a lower level plan, which is a plan for achieving the upper level plan and includes at least a travel course; lower level plan obtaining means 16, 30 for obtaining a lower level plan including at least a travel course of a peripheral vehicle B, C; evaluating means 24 for evaluating the lower level plan of the vehicle A in accordance with a predetermined index, taking into account the lower level plan of the peripheral vehicle B, C; and lower level plan selecting means 26 for selecting a lower level plan to be executed by the vehicle A on the basis of an evaluation performed by the evaluating means 24.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 20, 2007
    Publication date: February 18, 2010
    Applicant: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Koji Taguchi, Makoto Aso
  • Patent number: 7631911
    Abstract: A transporting arm has two protruding support sections. Front ends of the support sections are formed such that a thickness of the support sections decreases toward the front ends of those. A surface of the transporting arm on which a wafer is placed is provided with a plurality of suction holes formed at equal intervals in a fan-shaped region. The wafer is fixed to the transporting arm through the suction holes. The wafer is charged with a large amount of static electricity. The transporting arm is charged with the static electricity. A surface of the transporting arm is coated with a conductive fluorinated graphite material. Therefore, an electrical discharge rate of the transporting arm into an atmosphere increases. Accordingly, elevation of a surface potential of the transporting arm in a floating state can be appropriately suppressed. Reduction of repulsive force due to the static electricity acting between the transporting arm and the wafer leads to reduction of vibration of the wafer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2007
    Date of Patent: December 15, 2009
    Assignee: Seiko Instruments Inc.
    Inventor: Makoto Aso
  • Publication number: 20090287376
    Abstract: A vehicle control device calculates an operation amount and a motion state amount for varying an operation amount necessary for a real vehicle's operation based on a dynamic vehicle model modeling the motion state of a vehicle running in accordance with running targets such as a target path and a speed pattern and determines whether the calculated operation amount and the motion state amount satisfy prescribed running requirements. The operation amount and the motion state amount determined to satisfy the running requirements are a feed-forward (FF) operation amount and a target state amount in a state feedback (FB) control, respectively.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 5, 2007
    Publication date: November 19, 2009
    Applicant: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Makoto Aso
  • Publication number: 20090093924
    Abstract: A vehicle state quantity prediction apparatus has sensors such as a GPS receiver that observe prescribed state quantities representing a movement state of a vehicle and a Kalman filter that inputs the state quantities observed by the sensors into a model of the movement state of the vehicle to predict a state quantity including the prescribed state quantities representing a movement of the vehicle. The reliability of the prescribed state quantities observed by the sensors is evaluated, and the degree to which the prescribed state quantities are reflected in the Kalman filter is set based on the evaluated reliability.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 18, 2007
    Publication date: April 9, 2009
    Applicant: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Makoto Aso
  • Publication number: 20070212544
    Abstract: A transporting arm has two protruding support sections. Front ends of the support sections are formed such that a thickness of the support sections decreases toward the front ends of those. A surface of the transporting arm on which a wafer is placed is provided with a plurality of suction holes formed at equal intervals in a fan-shaped region. The wafer is fixed to the transporting arm through the suction holes. The wafer is charged with a large amount of static electricity. The transporting arm is charged with the static electricity. A surface of the transporting arm is coated with a conductive fluorinated graphite material. Therefore, an electrical discharge rate of the transporting arm into an atmosphere increases. Accordingly, elevation of a surface potential of the transporting arm in a floating state can be appropriately suppressed. Reduction of repulsive force due to the static electricity acting between the transporting arm and the wafer leads to reduction of vibration of the wafer.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 20, 2007
    Publication date: September 13, 2007
    Inventor: Makoto Aso
  • Patent number: 7268445
    Abstract: An airbag device includes a squib, an ignition circuit, and a noise protection circuit. The noise protection circuit includes two zener diodes whose cathodes are facing each other and connected with each other. Further, the noise protection circuit is connected in parallel with the ignition element to thereby protect the ignition circuit from noise. This decreases the number of components in the noise protection circuit to thereby achieve the compact and low-cost airbag device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 2005
    Date of Patent: September 11, 2007
    Assignee: DENSO CORPORATION
    Inventors: Yutaka Uono, Makoto Aso
  • Publication number: 20050200106
    Abstract: In a passenger protecting device for a vehicle, an airbag is held in a steering wheel coaxially supported by a steering column which can be shifted in a central axis direction thereof by a telescopic unit. A steering sensor, a seat sensor and multiple driver sensors are provided to respectively detect positions of the steering wheel, a driver seat and a driver. An airbag control unit calculates a distance between the steering wheel and the driver based on the positions, and thus the airbag is deployed corresponding to the distance. Accordingly, a secondary impact to the driver due to the airbag can be effectively restricted.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 23, 2004
    Publication date: September 15, 2005
    Inventors: Yoshinori Hirose, Makoto Aso
  • Publication number: 20050200203
    Abstract: An airbag device includes a squib, an ignition circuit, and a noise protection circuit. The noise protection circuit includes two zener diodes whose cathodes are facing each other and connected with each other. Further, the noise protection circuit is connected in parallel with the ignition circuit to thereby protect the ignition circuit from noise. This decrease the number of components in the noise protection circuit to thereby achieve the compact and low-cost airbag device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 10, 2005
    Publication date: September 15, 2005
    Inventors: Yutaka Uono, Makoto Aso
  • Publication number: 20050187685
    Abstract: An occupant restraint system of a vehicle has an airbag, a pre-crash sensor which calculates a probability of a collision of a vehicle with an object and outputs a pre-crash signal indicating a prediction of the collision when the probability is higher than a predetermined value, a satellite sensor which detects a degree of acceleration of the vehicle and starts outputting an acceleration signal indicating the detected degree of acceleration in response to the pre-crash signal, and an airbag ECU which processes the acceleration signal to obtain a processing result and deploys the airbag when the processing result indicates a collision of the vehicle with the object. Therefore, because the airbag ECU does not start processing the acceleration signal until the satellite sensor outputs the acceleration signal in response to the pre-crash signal, a load on the airbag ECU can be alleviated.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 10, 2005
    Publication date: August 25, 2005
    Inventors: Toshihide Kondo, Makoto Aso
  • Publication number: 20050187683
    Abstract: In a case where a dynamic range of an output signal from each of multiple sensors falls within ±D (LSB) in decimal numeration with a reference value centered, the reference value is set so that entire bits do not change between 1 and 0 when one of values within the dynamic range is added to the reference value. This decreases, within binary data from a data bus, the number of bits that change from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1, further decreasing electric power consumption and enhancing a communications speed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 23, 2004
    Publication date: August 25, 2005
    Inventors: Koji Miki, Makoto Aso
  • Patent number: 5268643
    Abstract: An apparatus for failure identification suitable for determining between existence and nonexistence of failure of the squib in occupant protecting system. The first terminal voltage generated between both the terminals of the squib when the first monitor current is passed through the squib, and the second terminal voltage generated between both the terminals of the squib when the second monitor current is passed through the squib. The first and second terminal voltages are amplified by the differential amplifier circuit into the first and second differentially amplified voltage. Thereafter, the difference between the first differentially amplified voltage and the second differentially amplified voltage is calculated to obtain the monitor voltage difference and it is compared with the reference voltage, and thereupon, decision between existence and nonexistence of a short-circuit in the squib is made.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 11, 1992
    Date of Patent: December 7, 1993
    Assignee: Nippondenso Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Makoto Aso, Akira Kondo
  • Patent number: 4835514
    Abstract: An antitheft system comprises a prohibition device for prohibiting the alarming operation upon receipt of a disarmed memory signal. When an arming signal is inputted, an alarm is generated on the receipt of a theft detection signal generated by handling or operation of vehicle equipment or accessories. When a disarming signal is received, on the other hand, it is sotred and held as the disarmed memory signal in power-supply disconnected state.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 27, 1987
    Date of Patent: May 30, 1989
    Assignees: Nippondenso Co., Ltd., Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Mitsuhiko Masegi, Masao Sakurai, Makoto Aso
  • Patent number: 4742280
    Abstract: A control device for a car wiper apparatus is disclosed, in which the wiper apparatus is driven in forward or reverse directions by the function of an electronic circuit. The control electronic circuit is so configured as to minimize the number of connection brushes for controlling the forward and reverse operations of the wiper motor which reciprocates the wiper blade. The reduced number of the connection brushes, which are arranged in the wiper motor, realizes a compact shape of the wiper motor as a whole. The electronic circuit functions to drive the wiper motor in forward and reverse directions within a predetermined angle thereby to rotate the crank arm connected with the wiper motor and the wiper blade with a small predetermined angle for reciprocal wiping operating, thus making it possible to mount the wiper apparatus in the small internal space of the car.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 6, 1987
    Date of Patent: May 3, 1988
    Assignee: Nippondenso Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Toshihiro Ishikawa, Keiichi Uemura, Makoto Aso, Masaaki Fukaya