(19)
TEPZZ¥55?9?7A_T
(11)
EP3 552 927A1
(12)
(43)Date of publication:
EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION
(51)Int Cl.:
B62D15/02(2006.01)G06F3/16(2006.01)
G06F3/01(2006.01)G06K9/00(2006.01)
16.10.2019Bulletin2019/42
(21)Application number: 19160591.4(22)Date of filing: 04.03.2019(84)Designated Contracting States:
AL AT BE BG CH CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GB GR HR HU IE IS IT LI LT LU LV MC MK MT NL NO PL PT RO RS SE SI SK SM TRDesignated Extension States: BA ME
Designated Validation States: KH MA MD TN
(71)Applicant: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI
KAISHA
Toyota-shi, Aichi-ken 471 8571 (JP)
(72)Inventor: SUGANO, Tatsuya
Aichi-ken, 471-8571 (JP)
(74)Representative: J A Kemp
14 South Square Gray’s Inn
London WC1R 5JJ (GB)
(30)Priority:19.03.2018JP 2018050863
(54)(57)
PARKING SUPPORT APPARATUS
the vehicle and to determine whether or not the at leastone of the movement and the voice/sound of the usermatches a parking instruction action set in advance,thereby detecting a particular parking instruction actionof the user; and a starter configured to start the parkingcontrol if the parking instruction action is detected.
A parking support apparatus configured to per-form a parking control for automatically parking a vehiclein a target parking position. The parking support controlis provided with: a detector configured to obtain a signalof a vehicle external sensor that can detect at least oneof a movement and a voice/sound of a user who is outside
EP3 552 927A1Printed by Jouve, 75001 PARIS (FR)
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EP3 552 927A12
DescriptionBACKGROUND1. Technical Field
[0001]Embodiments of the present disclosure relateto a parking support apparatus configured to support aparking operation of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
[0002]For this type of apparatus, for example, thereis known an apparatus configured to automatically per-form a parking operation by controlling the driving of avehicle. For example, Japanese Patent Application LaidOpen No. 2016-99953 (Patent Literature 1) proposes atechnology/technique of automatically parking an un-manned vehicle in a parking space by allowing the auto-matic driving of the vehicle on a route in a parking lot.The Patent Literature 1 discloses that a user of this ap-paratus operates a remote operation terminal from theoutside of the vehicle to start an automatic parking controlof the vehicle.
[0003]In the technology/technique described in thePatent Literature 1, when staring the automatic parkingcontrol, the user may need to take out the remote oper-ation terminal and perform a predetermined operation.Such an operation may cause the user to feel trouble-some. In other words, in the technology/technique de-scribed in the Patent Literature 1, there is room for im-provement to preferably start the automatic parking con-trol.SUMMARY
[0004]In view of the aforementioned problems, it istherefore an object of embodiments of the present dis-closure to provide a parking support apparatus that canpreferably start a parking control of a vehicle.
[0005]The above object of embodiments of thepresent disclosure can be achieved by a parking supportapparatus configured to perform a parking control for au-tomatically parking a vehicle in a target parking position,the parking support control provided with: a detector con-figured to obtain a signal of a vehicle external sensor thatcan detect at least one of a movement and a voice/soundof a user who is outside the vehicle and to determinewhether or not the at least one of the movement and thevoice/sound of the user matches a parking instructionaction set in advance, thereby detecting a particular park-ing instruction action of the user; and a starter configuredto start the parking control if the parking instruction actionis detected..
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS[0006]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configurationof a vehicle according to an embodiment;
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating a specificexample of a vehicle external sensor;
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FIG. 3A is a table illustrating a specific example of amovement detected as a parking instruction actionand a specific example of a movement detected asanother action;
FIG. 3B is a table illustrating a specific example of10
the movement detected as the parking instructionaction and a specific example of the movement de-tected as another action; and
FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a flow of operationof a parking support apparatus according to the em-15
bodiment.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENT[0007]A parking support apparatus according to an20
embodiment of the present disclosure will be explainedwith reference to the drawings.
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[0008]Firstly, an explanation will be given to an entireconfiguration of a vehicle on which the parking supportapparatus according to the embodiment is mounted, withreference to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustratingthe configuration of the vehicle according to the embod-30
iment.
[0009]As illustrated in FIG. 1, a vehicle 10 accordingto the embodiment is provided with a vehicle interior userinterface (UI) 110, a vehicle external sensor 120, a ter-minal signal receiver 130, and a parking support appa-35
ratus 200.
[0010]The vehicle interior UI 110 is provided, for ex-ample, with a switch, a touch panel, or the like, and isconfigured to receive various operations performed by auser who is in a vehicle interior. The vehicle interior UI40
110 according to the embodiment is particularly config-ured to accept or receive a reservation operation (whichwill be detailed later) of a parking control for automaticallyparking the vehicle 10. Information about the reservationoperation may be outputted to a parking control reserva-45
tion unit 210 of the parking support apparatus 200.
[0011]The vehicle external sensor 120 is configuredto detect at least one of a movement and a voice/soundof the user who is outside the vehicle 10. Specifically,the vehicle external sensor 120 is provided to detect a50
parking instruction action, which includes a particularmovement and a particular voice/sound for staring theparking control of the vehicle 10. Information about theuser’s movement and voice/sound detected by the vehi-cle external sensor 120 may be outputted to a parking55
instruction action detector 220 of the parking support ap-paratus 200.
[0012]Now, a specific configuration example of the ve-hicle external sensor 120 will be explained with reference
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