This invention relates to a device, particularly mounted in a vehicle, for assisting designation of destination where the vehicle is to go. Specifically, this assist device is incorporated into a navigation system that guides a driver from the current vehicle position to a destination designated by the driver.
With recent development and popularization of vehicle navigation systems, some attempts have been made to help the user to designate a destination or goal position where he wants to go. In fact, a great number of places and points that may be designated as a destination are stored as position data in a database. The user chooses and designates one destination, which might involve troublesome operations.
In one of the prior art attempts, some institutions, places and points around the current vehicle position are proposed for destinations that may be designated by the user. For example, a plurality of locations are listed in a display in the order of distance from the current vehicle position. The nearest destination is shown at the top of the display, which may be first recognized and readily chosen by the user.
In another prior art system, a plurality of locations are categorized in advance into several groups, including restaurants, hotels, golf corses, amusement parks, etc. When the user wants to have a lunch or dinner, he specifies a group of xe2x80x9crestaurantsxe2x80x9d through a microphone or operation of any input device. In response to the input of a specific group, the system retrieves, from the database, position data of restaurants within a predetermined distance from the current vehicle position, which are shown on the display in an alphabetical order, for example.
In the prior art systems, a plurality of restaurants are represented on the display in a distance-related or alphabetical order. In retrieving position data from the database, various factors which may vary from user to user, vehicle to vehicle, and case by case are not at all taken into account.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a novel device that assists the user""s designation of his desired destination in a vehicle navigation system.
To achieve the above object, in accordance with the present invention, there is provided a device for assisting designation of a specific destination in a vehicle navigation system that guides a driver along a scheduled drive route from a current position of the vehicle to a designated destination, comprising memory means storing position data for various destinations; sensor means mounted in or on the vehicle; parameter obtaining means for obtaining at least one parameter which is selected from the group consisting of present date and time, purpose of drive, destination that has already been designated, user""s sex and user""s age; retrieval condition determining means for determining a specific condition to be applicable to retrieval of destinations, with reference to information detected by the sensor means and/or at least one of the parameters obtained by the parameter obtaining means; retrieval executing means for retrieving, from the destinations stored in the memory means, destinations that satisfy the specific retrieval condition(s) determined by the retrieval condition determining means; output means for outputting the retrieved destinations; and selecting means that may be operated by the user to select one of the retrieved destinations.
In a preferred embodiment, the retrieval condition determining means comprises first means that determines if the destination retrieval operation should be executed, with reference to the information detected by the sensor means and/or the present date and time obtained by the parameter obtaining means; and second means that operates when the first means determines that the destination retrieval operation should be executed, for determining the specific retrieval condition, with reference to the information detected by the sensor means and/or at least one of the parameters obtained by the parameter obtaining means.
In another preferred embodiment, the retrieval condition determining means comprises first means for storing retrieval starting conditions for starting the destination retrieval operation; second means for storing correlation between a specific one of the retrieval conditions determined by the retrieval condition determining means and at least one of predetermined day of year, day of month, day of week, time of day, purpose of drive, destination, current position, user""s sex and user""s age; third means for determining that the destination retrieval operation should be executed, when the at least one of the items of information detected by the sensor means and the present date and time obtained by the parameter obtaining means satisfy the retrieval starting conditions determined by the first means; and fourth means that operates when the third means determines that the destination retrieval operation should be executed, to determine the specific retrieval condition, in reference to the item(s) of information detected by the sensor means and/or at least one of the parameters obtained by the parameter obtaining means.
In still another preferred embodiment, the retrieval condition determining means comprises first means for storing retrieval starting conditions for starting the destination retrieval operation; second means for storing correlation between a specific one of the retrieval conditions determined by the retrieval condition determining means and at least one of predetermined day of year, day of month, day of week, time of day, purpose of drive, destination, current position, user""s sex and user""s age; third means for outputting a question to the user for confirming that the destination retrieval operation should be executed, when at least one of the items of information detected by the sensor means and the present date and time obtained by the parameter obtaining means satisfy the retrieval starting conditions determined by the first means; fourth means that awaits input, by the user, of a response to the question from the third means; fifth means that operates in response to the input of the user""s confirmative response to the question, to determine that the destination retrieval operation should be executed; and sixth means that operates when the fifth means determines that the destination retrieval operation should be executed, to determine the specific retrieval condition, with reference to the item(s) of information detected by the sensor means and/or at least one of the parameters obtained by the parameter obtaining means. In this embodiment, the device may further comprise agent control means for controlling activities of a personified agent. The question outputted by the third means may be a type of activity by the personified agent, which is controlled by the agent control means.
The assist device may further comprise display means on which the scheduled drive route from the current position to the designated destination is shown on a road map.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vehicle navigation system comprising a sensor that acquires at least one condition related to a vehicle; means for determining, with reference to the vehicle condition acquired by the sensor, if there is a traffic jam condition on a specific road section; and by-pass route finding means that operates in response to a determination of the traffic jam condition to find a by-pass route from the current position to a pre-designated destination that can by-pass the crowded road section, by reference to at least one of date-and-time related items, today""s drive schedule or purpose, locations including the current position and the destination and user-related items.