Navigator system for motor vehicle

Abstract

Abstract A navigator system for a motor vehicle comprises a vehicle speed sensor (102) provided for determining a travel distance of the vehicle on the basis of the speed thereof, an azimuth sensor (101) for detecting the azimuth of the travelling direction of the vehicle, a cassette tape device (105) for storing digital road map information of a plurality of predetermined regions, a controller (100) for selecting a map of the desired region from the map information stored in the cassette tape device, determining the initial location of the vehicle in the selected map and updating the locating of the vehicle in the displayed map on the basis of the data fetched from the outputs of the vehicle speed sensor and the azimuth sensor, as the vehicle travels, a manipulating switch panel (Figure 2) for commanding the selection of the map and determination of the initial location of the vehicle, and a display unit (116) for displaying visually the selected map, the initial location of the vehicle and the displacement of the vehicle through graphic memory means. The road map data stored in the cassette tape device contain in addition to the data of standard maps at least the data which indicate the presence or absence of adjacent map and the number of magnified maps together with data of the magnified map. The manipulating switch panel include switches (202, 204) for selecting one of the standard map and the magnified map and is adapted to display whether a magnified map is available for the region in which the vehicle is currently located.

Inventors

• 👤 Hiroshi Shirai
• 👤 Akiro Endo
• 👤 Takanori Shibata
• 👤 Fumio Tsujii
• 👤 Yoji Matsuoka

Bibliographic Details