Patent Application
20140055257
This application claims the benefit of China Patent Application No. 201210302612.7, filed on Aug. 23, 2012, in the State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a prompting system, and more particularly to a gear shift prompting system and a gear shift prompting method thereof that capable of allowing a user to receive a gear shift prompting message when the user switches gear shifts and capable of incorporating with a traffic message channel to provide correspondingly gear shifts to the user.
2. Description of the Related Art
A transmission box of an automobile usually has many different rotational speeds/torque conversion ratios that are so called “gear shift” to provide a user to switch the rotational speeds/torques under different driving speeds. For example, when the automobile starts moving, it may need low rotational speed and high torque. While in high speed driving, it may need high rotational speed and low torque.
As the technology is advanced, the transmission box can be divided into manual operation and automatic operation based upon operating manners, including a manual transmission (MT) and an automatic transmission (AT). In another word, the MT needs labor force to manually operate to switch gear shifts; and the AT is to switch gear shifts by mechanical operation, wherein a continuously variable transmission (CVT) capable of continuously regulating the rotational speeds/torque conversion ratio is recently presented to the public and also one of the AT.
Since the amount of the automobile is rapidly increased, drivers in practice are more and more. For a driver in practice, understanding gear shift switching inside the automobile is a primary issue while driving the automobile. In addition, drivers who frequently drive automobiles may be certainly familiar with gear shift switching. However, when the driver sits an unfamiliar automobile, the driver must be firstly familiar with different gear shift to perform switching.
Therefore, designing a gear shift prompting system and a gear shift prompting method thereof to prevent the driver from wrongly switching gear shifts to cause accidents due to confusion or the driver that is unfamiliar with gear shifts becomes an importation issue that needs to be overcome in the market application.
In view of the shortcomings of the prior art, the inventor(s) of the present invention based on years of experience in the related industry to conduct extensive researches and experiments, and finally developed a gear shift prompting system and a gear shift prompting method thereof as a principle objective to provide gear shift messages to a driver such that after the driver switches gear shifts, fuel consumption of a vehicle can be reduced, and mechanical consumption may be decreased to the minimum.
According to an objective of the invention, a gear shift prompting system is provided and includes a navigation device and a control module. The navigation module includes a prompting module and a processing module. The control module generates a real-time gear shift signal and controls the prompting module to audio-broadcast an audio message of a current gear shift corresponding to the real-time gear shift signal or controls the prompting module to display a graphical illustration message of the current gear shift.
The navigation device obtains a piece of front traffic information through a traffic message channel (TMC).
The processing module analyzes a corresponding gear shift parameter based upon the piece of front traffic information, and controls the prompting module to audio-broadcast an audio message of a corresponding gear shift corresponding to the corresponding gear shift parameter or display a graphical illustration message of the corresponding gear shift on the prompting module.
The processing module transmits a front traffic signal to an external database based upon the piece of front traffic information, and the external database receives the front traffic signal to analyze a corresponding gear shift parameter, and the external database transmits the corresponding gear shift parameter back to the processing module.
The processing module controls the prompting module to audio-broadcast an audio message of a corresponding gear shift corresponding to the corresponding gear shift parameter based upon the corresponding gear shift parameter or display a graphical illustration message of the corresponding gear shift on the prompting module.
The processing module transmits a front traffic signal to an external database through a general packet radio service (GPRS) based upon the piece of front traffic information.
The external database receives the front traffic signal to analyze a corresponding gear shift parameter and transmits the corresponding gear shift parameter back to the processing module, and the processing module controls the prompting module to audio-broadcast an audio message of a corresponding gear shift corresponding to the corresponding gear shift parameter or display a graphical illustration message of the corresponding gear shift on the prompting module based upon the corresponding gear shift parameter.
The control module is connected to the navigation device through a controller area network (CAN) bus and controls the navigation device to audio-broadcast the audio message of the current gear shift corresponding to the real-time gear shift signal or controls the prompting module to display the graphical illustration message of the current gear shift.
According to the objective of the invention, a gear shift prompting method is provided. The gear shift prompting method is suitable for a gear shift prompting system. The gear shift prompting system includes a navigation device, a control module and a processing module. The gear shift prompting method comprises the following steps: generating a real-time gear shift signal to change a vehicle gear shift by utilizing the control module; receiving the real-time gear shift signal through the processing module; and controlling the prompting module to audio-broadcast an audio message of a current gear shift corresponding to the real-time gear shift signal or controlling the prompting module to display a graphical illustration message of the current gear shift based upon the real-time gear shift signal by utilizing the processing module.
The gear shift prompting system and the gear shift prompting method thereof according to the invention can use the navigation device to display and notify the driver that the gear shift is being switching so that the driver can quickly and accurately understand and is familiar with the gear shift switching of the automobile. At the same time, front traffic information can be obtained real-time through the TMC by utilizing the navigation device, and the driver is notified to shift original gear shifts to properly corresponding gear shifts so that fuel consuming and mechanical consumption of the automobile can be reduced to the minimum, and driving risk can be reduced as well.
The foregoing and other technical characteristics of the present invention will become apparent with the detailed description of the preferred embodiments and the illustration of the related drawings.
With reference to
The control module 11 can also be connected to the navigation device 10 through a controller area network (CAN) bus and controls the prompting module 13 to audio-broadcast the audio message of a current gear shift 121 corresponding to the real-time gear shift signal 110 through the CAN bus or controls the prompting module 13 to display a graphical illustration message of the current gear shift 122.
With reference to
Therefore, when a driver switches the foregoing gear shifts, the processing module is utilized to receive the real-time gear shift message generated by the control module through the gear shift prompting system of the invention and controls the prompting module based upon the real-time gear shift signal to audio-broadcast or display a current audio signal or a graphical illustration signal corresponding to the real-time gear shift signal.
In another word, when the driver switches D gear shift to S gear shift, the audio signal can be audio-broadcasted directly through the prompting module so that the driver can be prompted that the current gear shift is S gear shift. When the driver switches P gear shift to N gear shift, the graphical illustration signal can be displayed through the prompting module of the invention so that the driver can be prompted that the current gear shift is N gear shift. Accordingly, the user can further allow the navigation system to obtain the audio message or the graphical illustration message of the current gear shift through the gear shift prompting system of the invention based upon the real-time gear shift signal generated by switching gear shifts from the driver, thereby understanding which gear shift is currently set for the driver. It should be noted that the foregoing depiction of the gear shift is only the example. People who have ordinary skill in the art would know that the invention can be applied in the modification of different types, structures, allocation, proportion and components.
A concept of the gear shift prompting method of the invention has been explained during the process of depicting the gear shift prompting system of the invention. However, to further understand the concept, the gear shift prompting method is further depicted in the following flowchart.
In a step S11, generating a real-time gear shift signal to change driving gear shifts of an automobile by utilizing the control module.
In a step S12, receiving the real-time gear shift signal through the processing module.
In a step S13, controlling the prompting module to audio-broadcast an audio message of a current gear shift or control the prompting module to display a graphical illustration message of the current gear shift by the processing module.
The detail depiction and embodiments of the gear shift prompting method in the gear shift prompting system according to the invention have been depicted in the gear shift prompting system of the invention, and there is no need to describe herein.
Next, according to the first embodiment, the invention further provides a second embodiment as a further example.
With reference to
With reference to
With reference to
The concept of the gear shift prompting method of the invention has been explained during the process of depicting the gear shift prompting system of the invention. However, to further understand the concept, the gear shift prompting method is further depicted in the following flowchart.
In a step S21, obtaining front traffic information though a traffic message channel (TMC) by using the navigation device.
In a step S22, using the processing module to connect the prompting module through a controller area network (CAN) bus.
In a step S23, using the processing module to analyze a corresponding gear shift parameter based upon front traffic information.
In a step S24, transmitting a front traffic signal to an external database based upon front traffic information by using the processing module.
In a step S25, receiving the front traffic signal through the external database to analyze the corresponding gear shift parameter.
In a step S26, transmitting the corresponding gear shift parameter back to the processing module through the external database.
In a step S27, controlling the prompting module to audio-broadcast an audio message of a corresponding gear shift corresponding to the corresponding gear shift parameter or display a graphical illustration message of the corresponding gear shift on the display module based upon the corresponding gear shift parameter by utilizing the processing module.
The detail depiction and embodiments of the gear shift prompting method in the gear shift prompting system according to the invention have been depicted in the gear shift prompting system of the invention, and there is no need to describe herein.
The gear shift prompting system and the gear shift prompting method thereof according to the invention have one or more advantages as the following:
The invention improves over the prior art and complies with patent application requirements, and thus is duly filed for patent application. While the invention has been described by device of specific embodiments, numerous modifications and variations could be made thereto by those generally skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention set forth in the claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 201210302612.7 | Aug 2012 | CN | national |
