NAVIGATION

A digital navigation instrument primarily intended for the general aviation pilot. The navigation instrument combines the functions of a calculator and a stopwatch and provides a method of easy reference to a navigation chart. The resulting unit provides ease of data entry from the navigation chart and...     

An electronic computer having a limited stored program capability and adapted to perform a plurality of problems particularly useful to aircraft pilots. The unit includes an electronic calculator and a stored program controller for instructing the calculator. The programs stored in the controller cause...     

Separate operating condition data measurement sub-systems are provided for each of a plurality of navigation signal transmitters, each sub-system including its own microprocessor and data store, with the data being collected and stored in a collective data store for a plurality of sub-systems, and interconnections...     

This specification discloses a mile post location system particularly useful with a vehicle having a citizens band radio. The system includes a keyboard having switches which are representative of numbered digits, such that the vehicle operator may input an initial mile post designation indicative of...     

An automatic real time navigation communicator that communicates between vehicle mounted speed and heading sensors and the vehicle mounted satellite navigator. The communicator automatically and at predetermined intervals updates the satellite navigator with the most current vehicle speed and heading...     

A position indicator for automobiles, trucks, and other vehicles includes a numerical display of the vehicle position with respect to an interstate highway by providing a readout of the mile marker location of the vehicle. The display is actuated by an electrical circuit including a presettable up/down...     

An electronic navigation calculator having first input key group for navigation functions, second input key group for navigation numerals, third input key group for navigation operations, a memory device supplied with information signals from said first, second and third input key groups and memorizing...     

A cabin display unit accepts information from a plurality of sources such as the petot static tube, a static air pressure source, a temperature source, cabin pressure source and the like and converts the data to corresponding electrical valves. The valves are multiplexed and converted to a digital value...     

A key-operated digital program calculator is adapted to receive in succession a plurality of different kinds of input data items and perform a specified program calculation thereupon. The calculator is further provided with a display capable of visually displaying which kinds of input data items to be...     

A high resolution underwater acoustic navigation system is provided by a combined pulse and continuous-wave or Doppler system. Locations of the object being tracked are periodically determined by the pulse subsystem and are used to initialize the Doppler subsystem. The Doppler Subsystem tracks the location...     

An apparatus to be mounted on conventional sextants permitting faster, more accurate readings with memory storage capability. Alternative transducing means are attached to a sextant arm and generate electronic signals corresponding to amount of rotation of the arm. An electronic timing circuit is coupled...     

A navigational aid system including a microprocessor having peripheral memory devices and being programmed by a read only memory, the system including sensors for measuring variable parameters and thumb switches for inserting known fixed data, and the microprocessor computing from such parameters and...     

A digital magnetic compass provides an octant display of magnetic bearing in alphabetic characters and incorporates a magnetic sensor for providing signals representative of the orientation of the sensor with respect to the earth's magnetic field, a microprocessor for processing the signals from the...     

An indicator system satisfies multiple flight-mission requirements by providing an aircraft pilot with a visual display consisting of a movable map and navigational data. The map is stored in video form in a high-capacity compact mass memory consisting of a video disk. The system further comprises a...     

A method and apparatus for providing highway information contained in plug-in data cartridges (22) by means of a micro-processor (24) is disclosed. Selected highway information is stored and made available with respect to distance markers such as mile markers or kilometer markers along a roadway from...     

In a map display system for vehicles, spot coordinates are preliminarily stored which represent map forming spots and are provided with a coordinate origin of a specified spot, and display coordinates indicating map changing frames are also preliminarily stored. The display coordinate of the present...     

Improved navigational apparatus which interfaces between a Loran C receiver and a ship's auto pilot is disclosed. Output information from the Loran receiver is taken from a standard NMEA jack and is input to the inventive apparatus. Steer and steer correction signals output from the inventive apparatus...     

A vehicle navigation system comprises a magnetic-field sensor mounted on the vehicle and outputting electrical signals corresponding to the measured azimuth of the vehicle, an analog-to-digital converter, and a microcomputer including a storage device having a stored look-up table of correction factors...     

Apparatus and method for aiding a navigator to identify a light pattern or beacon, comprising a microprocessor connected to a memory for storing beacon data in coded form, a keyboard for calling up codes from memory and a display unit simulating the light pattern or beacon for enabling comparison with...     

The invention relates to an information input for a navigation device for highway vehicles in connection with which map markings which represent optically readable information and can be read by a reading device and fed to a data processing unit of the navigation device can be associated with a map,...     

A vehicle turn angle detecting device calculates an average value .DELTA..phi. of steering wheel rotation angle at every unit time together with a travelled distance .DELTA.L. And this device calculates a vehicle turn angle .DELTA..theta. at every unit time by using the equation shown below. By adding...     

A system for determining the closest navigation point to an aircraft utilizes a sphere of influence principle wherein the earth is subdivided into a plurality of geographic areas, for example, one quarter degree squares of latitude and longitude. An identifier such as an index number of the closest navigation...     

A novel electronic map display system is disclosed for displaying a map on the basis of a map data stored. Various discontinuous points in each of predetermined areas included a map to be displayed are stored as structured data in the form of vectors. The discontinuous geographic data in each of the...     

A map display apparatus displays a road map of a desired display district in accordance with stored map data. The apparatus includes a map data storing medium storing, in correspondence to a plurality of basic sections forming the whole area of the road map, a plurality of map information representing...     

In an electronic map display system, predetermined linear display object data of all map data are stored in a first memory according to a predetermined coordinate system. Target point data other than the predetermined linear display object data are stored in a second memory in accordance with a relative...     

A map display system for displaying a linear object on a map in accordance with stored map data is disclosed. The coordinate components of at least two specified points on the linear object and other points thereon crossing straight lines drawn in spaced relationship and in parallel with the straight...     

A guiding spot display apparatus displays a number of guiding spots for providing various guiding information on a road map. The apparatus includes a storage medium for storing a plurality of guiding spot data each being assigned a plurality of priorities and corresponding to one of a plurality of guiding...     

A navigation system for detecting the position and controlling the movement of an automatically guided vehicle (1) comprises at least one light source (4) and at least one detector (5) responsive to the light emitted from the light source (4), the vehicle (1) be accompanied by either the light source...     

A digital receiver for GPS C/A-code signals is described. The GPS receiver of the present invention provides reception and tracking a plurality of satellites simultaneously, using four separate receiver channels. The GPS receiver of the present invention includes an analog front-end for selecting and...     

Traveling conditions of a vehicle are detected. A present position of the vehicle is calculated on the basis of the detected vehicle traveling conditions. A memory holds data representing preset reference points located at intersections and at unforked straight roads, data representing whether the respective...     

Phase rotation of an input digital signal is effected by applying the input signal to a look-up table in a memory together with a rotation control signal. The output of the memory is the phase rotated signal. To reduce the size of the PROM required for the look-up table advantage is taken of the symmetry...     

An improved navigation system for a vehicle. The system includes a microprocessor and memory therefor and permits the pilot of an aircraft or other vehicle to display on a screen a navigation chart showing the position of the vehicle with respect to fixed environmental checkpoints. A compact laser disk...     

In a map display system, map-forming data necessary for display of a display area and character data representing display areas are stored in a map data memory. A display area commander reads map-forming data indicating a specified display area out of the map data memory, and produces a display area...     

Automatic guided vehicle system for guiding a driverless vehicle over a predetermined path of travel without any tracks, wires or the like. The vehicle is provided with an active optical navigation section for determining vehicle position and bearing by scanning plural beacons distributed within the...     

A data processing arrangement is operative to combine data representing different kinds of information from disparate sources. The data is stored under assigned addresses having a mutually compatible co-ordinate format, and is processed using those addresses. Relevant portions of data from a very large...     

A multichannel moving map display having a first channel for processing of background geographical data and inputting said process data into a display memory for scanning by a display and a second channel for generating cultural features and storing the same in a second display memory for scanning by...     

The present application discloses an on-demand, portable mass data storage device useful for navigational planning and other applications. One embodiment comprises a flight planning apparatus having a formatted database and a processor control system which accesses the database in response to user inputs....     

A navigational plotter includes a light-transmissive LCD graphical display which serves as a window-like element in relation to a map placed underneath it. The map is calibrated to the plotter by moving a calibration cursor on the display to two known points diagonally displaced on the map, by manually...     

A digital mapping display system for an aircraft wherein map data from a mass memory unit is periodically loaded into RAM in the form of a cache memory in accordance with the aircraft trajectory. The cache memory is randomly addressable within the physical address space of a control processor, individual...     

In a global positioning system (GPS)/self-contained combination type navigation system for a vehicle, the GPS navigation data are received by the GPS antenna of the navigation system which are simultaneously transmitted from more than 3 pieces of satellites inclusively. From the GPS navigation data,...     

A method of navigation and serial guidance under utilization of elevational data correlation, wherein a correlator compares terrain specific elevational reference data, with actually acquired and processed altitude data, is improved by using a millimeter wave sensor operating in the atmospheric window...     

A combination of a movable structure (adapted to ride on or over a surface while supporting or carrying at least one person) and a velocity-measuring device which includes means responsive to air flow develop an electrical signal representative of current velocity of the movable structure. A voice synthesizing...     

A navigation system for use in a self guided material handling vehicle provides guidance during operation in areas having densely stacked rows of containers and reduces the potential of deviation of the self guided vehicle from the desired path of travel. A laser signaling device is mounted on the vehicle...     

An aircraft navigation system uses an infra-red scanner to provide an image of the ground, and a laser doppler system to measure the speed of the aircraft relative to the ground. The apparent movement relative to the aircraft of features in the image is extrapolated to find the point in the image at...     

A vessel speed detecting device that incorporates an arrangement for providing a more accurate speed indication from a pressure transducer under the condition of abrupt vessel speed changes. The output signal from the pressure transducer is modified under these conditions to provide the more accurate...     

An intelligent vehicle-highway system utilizes a transmitter installed on the vehicle for communicating with modules having memory elements for storing site-specific information, a receiver for receiving an enabling signal from the transceiver on the vehicle, and a transmitter for making the site-specific...     

A route planner comprises a control unit, a working memory and a storage memory in which a topological road network is stored in the form of at least one n-cell table. For the planning of a route between a starting point and a destination point a set of candidate cells is searched each time on the basis...     

An improved navigation system for a vehicle. The system includes a microprocessor and memory therefor and permits the pilot of an aircraft or other vehicle to display on a screen a navigation chart showing the position of the vehicle with respect to fixed environmental checkpoints. A compact laser disk...     

A system used for determining and recording the location of a vehicle during the occurence of predetermined events. The vehicle is equipped with a sensor or sensors which respond to the occurrence of the predetermined events. The sensors are connected to a navigational system which receive positional...     

A data processing device for providing data related to the categories of services available at locations along a highway in response to operator input is disclosed. The device includes a memory, a keyboard for entering input data identifying a desired service and an origin position into the memory. The...     

Disclosed is a navigation apparatus for showing a driver the current position of his vehicle by estimating the vehicle position on the basis of the travel direction and travel distance thereof and matching the current vehicle position thus estimated to map information stored previously. The apparatus...     

A navigation apparatus in which the scale of a displayed map is automatically adjusted in dependence on parameter such as the distance between the moving object and a preselected destination.

A method for navigation and updating of navigation for aircraft uses range image processing and a reference store, segmentizing the range image data are segmentized in order to obtain a particular pattern of type features for purposes of classifying particular types of objects across which the craft...     

The automated repeating sextant (ARS) is a navigational instrument suitable for air, sea and land use. The ARS uses an electronic artificial horizon, an A/D conversion board and either microchips or a computer, with software, to read a celestial body's altitude above the horizon repeatedly in a brief...     

A knotmeter impeller eliminator system is provided which includes a circuit that simulates the pulsed output of an impeller-type transducer system by generating pulses having a pulse repetition rate corresponding to speed, with the speed being derived from a navigation unit such as a LORAN, GPS, SAT/NAV...     

A backup navigation system that is failure resistant. The backup navigation ystem has a multiple member of navigation subsystems. The backup navigation system has the same multiple number of computers. Each computer has the same multiple number of computer processors. Each navigation subsystem is connected...     

A data processing device for providing data related to the categories of services available at locations along a highway in response to operator input is disclosed. The device includes a memory, a keyboard for entering input data identifying a desired service and an origin position into the memory. The...     

An on-vehicle navigation apparatus has enhanced efficiency of the use of a memory for storing the locus data, without losing the details and accuracy of a locus pattern drawn on the basis of collected locus data. The on-vehicle navigation apparatus acquires vehicle location information C and time information...     

A system and process for providing systematic, updated, weather information from the ground to the pilot of an aircraft are disclosed. A ground station receives and assimilates weather data for satellite broadcast as digital weather data that is received by an aircraft (while on the ground or while airborne)...     

The navigation system using GPS signals from satellites first checks whether or not there are four or more satellites in radio range of the moving body. If so, the position calculation section performs an ordinary three-dimensional positioning operation to provide an accurate fix of the moving body....     

A terrain reference navigation system for an aircraft, surface vessel or subsurface vessel utilizing three sets of geo-physical correlation data. A kalman filter is used to correlate terrain data, electromagnetic data and gravimetric data with the output of a digital map of terrain, electromagnetic field...     

An electronic cursor (12) is movable over a digitising table (10) on which a chart (16) has been spread. The cursor can give an indication of which way it should be moved to reach a defined position on the chart. The cursor can also convert positions in terms of x, y coordinates of the table into positions...     

A navigation system on an automobile has a GPS receiver for producing first positional data indicating the automobile position based on radio waves from GPS satellites, and a self-operating sensor for producing second positional data indicating the automobile position based on speed and orientation sensor...     

An on-board navigation apparatus constantly displays characters of name data associated with geographical data in legible order and direction whenever the display direction is changed to one of the north, south, east, and west directions. In operation, after the geographical data and associated name...     

A warning system for predicting collision between two or more relatively moving objects, comprising a position determination element for determining at a predetermined frequency for each one of the objects a respective location in space relative to a fixed frame of reference so as to produce successive...     

An on-board navigation apparatus in which coordinate data of formerly set designations are held in a memory, the destination coordinate data stored in the memory are read out at the time of destination setting, and one piece of destination coordinate data is selected from the read designation coordinate...     

An on-vehicle navigation apparatus displays travel locus marks that permits a user to grasp the driving condition of a vehicle having this apparatus installed therein, while securing good visibility of the background map. The on-vehicle navigation apparatus has a storage means for storing a plurality...     

A communication network keeps track of the locations of mobile units which utilize the network. On powering up, the mobile units determine their current locations using signals broadcast, for example, by overhead satellites. They then send data communication messages to the network describing their locations....     

Apparatus for visually displaying simultaneously on one screen two variables that characterize the path followed by a land, marine or airborne vessel with reference to a preselected or ideal path that extends from a beginning point to an ending point. Using two distinguishable icons or other indicia...     

A support base of an angular velocity sensor is supported rotatably at one end, and the support base is vibrated by a piezoelectric element. By this vibration, a known rotational angular velocity is applied to the angular velocity sensor. For example, a difference of two output signals of the angular...     

High degree of accuracy of the position of a vehicle can be ensured by maintaining the continuity of the running path of the vehicle and by correcting the vehicle position to a vehicle position measured by a GPS navigation system when a positional deviation occurs due to sensor errors. Specifically,...     

An on-board navigation apparatus is designed to shorten the time for a display operation at the time of displaying a map and scrolling a screen while employing a buffer memory with a smaller memory capacity. The apparatus reads only block data of a block containing a display center point and block data...     

A vehicle-carried navigation system wherein a current position is judged rapidly even when setting or extensive correction of a current position is executed and displaying of a map is updated rapidly in a current position displaying mode even when a vehicle moves at a high speed and a map around a current...     

A vehicle-mounted navigation system initially computes an optimal route from a starting point to a destination. A microcomputer computes the total distance the vehicle has travelled from a signal obtained from an axle sensor and computes the bearing of the vehicle (azimuth) from a signal obtained from...     

The navigation system includes sensors for detecting a condition of a vehicle's movement, an imaginary location calculating device for calculating an existence location of the vehicle, a straight condition processing device for judging whether or not the vehicle is traveling straight, thereby forming...     

A navigation apparatus is provided with a measurement device for measuring a present position of a movable body, and memory device for storing map data and a map matching device. The map matching device performs map matching on the basis of the present position data and the map data to obtain a plurality...     

A vehicle-surroundings monitoring apparatus is free from mistakenly identifying a lane marker on a road surface or a guard rail as a vehicle traveling in the blind spot of a nearby lane. A distance detecting section detects the distance up to a vehicle which is traveling in the blind-spot of a nearby...     

A vehicle locator and communication system including a plurality of road vehicle mounted GPS receivers, each for receiving navigation signals from a plurality of GPS satellites, a plurality of road vehicle mounted communicators, an airborne control transceiver communicating with the plurality of road...     

A road information displaying method characterized in that detailed information can be obtained on an auxiliary indicator 1 without changing the scale of a main indicator 21 by setting a small auxiliary indicator 1 in an instrument panel 10 in addition to a main indicator 21 of a center console 20 and...     

A navigation apparatus is provided with: a measurement unit for measuring a self-position and outputting self-position data; a memory unit for storing map data which includes crossing data and road data; a map-matching unit, for map-matching the self-position data with respect to the road data; and a...     

A cyclocomputer for use on a bicycle displays route instructions stored in the cyclocomputer, displays two dimensional graphs on the face of the cyclocomputer, and is capable of exporting and importing information to and from other computers or cyclocomputers. The route instructions may be displayed...     

A navigation system for use in a vehicle including a route-calculating section and a route guide control section. The route-calculating section searches for an optimum route according to conditions set for the search. The guide control section provides displays necessary to guide the driver of the vehicle,...     

A limited-access computer, such as an on-board flight management computer, stores a first table in a protected area of its memory defining data items in the computer memory which may be accessed, for reading and/or writing purposes, by a user such as an airline operating a ground computer. A second table,...     

A geographic information display apparatus comprises a memory for memorizing graphic data of maps, terminological information representing various names including place names, route names and facility names on maps, position information representing latitude and longitude data corresponding to the names,...     

A biosolids tracking system monitors the quantity and quality of biosolids deposited on a plot of land. Global positioning system technology is used to determine the land coordinates of the boundary of the plot of land for accurate area calculation in order to determine the loading per unit area of biosolids...     

A navigation system includes a first information storage device containing stored map data and a display unit for displaying a map by reading the map data. Provision is made for setting a point on the map displayed by the display unit and for inputting a telephone number. A second information storage...     

A navigation system for a vehicle comprises a central processing unit for executing a plurality of programs including a navigation program and a transmitting program, and an internal nonvolatile storage device electrically connected to the central processing unit through an inner bus and storing therein...     

An intercommunication system for a vehicle is disclosed including a judging mechanism for detecting whether a corner exists ahead of a subject vehicle in a traveling direction on a road based on outputs from a navigating mechanism and a map information outputting mechanism in a navigation system. It...     

The invention relates to an appliance for reading digital geographical maps, in particular topographical or road maps, recorded on magnetic or optical media, the appliance comprising in conventional manner a central processor unit (19), means (4, 5) for reading magnetic or optical media, at least one...     

A computer aided routing system (CARS) determines a travel route between a user selected travel origin and travel destination following user selected waypoints along the way. A CARS database incorporates travel information selected from a range of multimedia sources about the transportation routes, waypoints,...     

A Doppler position locator for determining the bearing of a signal source from a moving receiver. The signal source encodes a digital signal indicating its actual transmitting frequency on a transmitted carrier. The moving receiver such as an airplane receives a Doppler shifted carrier frequency and...     

The assured-integrity monitored-extrapolation (AIME) navigation apparatus selectively utilizes measurements provided by ancillary sources at periodic intervals in determining the state of the platform on which the apparatus is mounted. The measurements have attributes which are measures of quality, quality...     

A guide system for a vehicle includes guide data storage containing guide data for conversion into output information concerning guidance objects along roads to be travelled by the vehicle and in the general area thereof. A TV monitor and microphone serve to output the information. A present position...     

Disclosed is a fault-tolerant and/or fail-safe information processing system architecture for handling information from a plurality of independent subsystems which provide information related to selected input quantities, and which includes a plurality of redundant information processors for deriving...     

The automatic guide method for vehicles relates to an automatic guide method for the operation of unmanned vehicles which, guided along guide paths preset on the floor in factories and warehouses, etc., carry and handle various loads in a fully automated fashion, and more particularly to an automatic...     

An electronic guide device, used preferably as a guide to cities or towns, which has all selection functions distributed over two operational-control areas on both sides of an LCD display for determining the location of geographic objects of a predetermined type and the most favorable routes to reach...     

A navigation system for a vehicle determines a route to be followed which includes a maneuver location in which the vehicle is to carry out a given maneuver. The system issues different kinds of instructions relating to the maneuver in different windows. The system can determine the position of these...     

A system, method, and apparatus for displaying map information in a cardinal direction-up setting. In one embodiment, map information is displayed on a display terminal. Next, an icon representing the position and heading of an item with respect to the displayed map information is placed over the displayed...     

A guide system gives sight-seeing guidance for various sight-seeing objects located within a wide area without an interval of pause. The guide system includes guide data storage wherein guide data, for showing objects located along the travelled road, and for showing streets and other objects in the...     

A navigation system includes a CD-ROM for storing operational schedule data of transportation means operating along railroad, road and air routes contained in a map to be displayed on a screen of the system, and a display for reading the operational schedule data from the CD-ROM and displaying the read...