INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE

The disclosure of Japanese Patent Application No. 2019-000781 filed on Jan. 7, 2019 including the specification, drawings and abstract is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Technical Field

The disclosure relates to a program for operating a vehicle from outside the vehicle.

2. Description of Related Art

Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2016-007959 discloses a vehicle device that allows parking operation to be performed from outside a vehicle by using a mobile terminal. Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2015-089733 (JP 2015-089733 A) discloses a parking assist system that measures a distance between a vehicle and a mobile terminal by transmitting and receiving an ultrasonic wave between an in-vehicle device and the mobile terminal and that moves the vehicle when the measured distance is within a prescribed range.

SUMMARY

In the case of performing remote parking operation (hereinafter called “remote parking”) using a mobile terminal from outside a vehicle, it is necessary to restrict an area that is operable from a mobile terminal within a range determined by law. According to the configuration disclosed in JP 2015-089733 A, the distance between the vehicle and the mobile terminal is measured by transmitting and receiving an ultrasonic wave. However, it is not realistic to mount an ultrasonic communication function on general-purpose mobile terminals, such as smartphones.

Therefore, it is an object of the present disclosure to provide a program capable of restricting a vehicle operable range that is operable from outside the vehicle using a general-purpose mobile terminal such as a smartphone.

The present disclosure relates to a program stored in a mobile terminal including a computer, a camera, a display, and a communication device, the program being configured to operate an operation target vehicle from outside with use of the mobile terminal, the operation target vehicle being registered in advance. The program causes a computer to execute: a step of estimating a distance from the mobile terminal to the operation target vehicle based on a size of an image of the operation target vehicle included in a photographed image of the camera; a step of determining whether or not the estimated distance is less than a prescribed threshold; a step of receiving an operation instruction with respect to the operation target vehicle when the estimated distance is less than the threshold; and a step of causing the communication device to output a signal instructing an operation in response to the received operation instruction.

The present disclosure can provide a program capable of restricting a vehicle operable range that is operable from outside the vehicle using a general-purpose mobile terminal such as a smartphone.

