Patent ID: 11926313
Assignee: FAURECIA CLARION ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
Field: Transport (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  G | IPC B  G

Claim 3:
4. A control method for an in-vehicle device that is to be installed in a vehicle, the method comprising:
an entry determination step of determining whether or not the vehicle enters a parking lot;
a location estimation step of estimating a current location of the vehicle;
a map generation step of sequentially obtaining the passing route, which is a route where the vehicle has passed from an entry of the parking lot to a getting-out location where an occupant gets out from the vehicle, by tracing the current location while the vehicle is in the parking lot;
an empty stall determination step of determining, based on sensing of surroundings by a sensor section provided in the vehicle, along the passing route, whether or not a parking stall present in surroundings of the vehicle is an empty stall;
a notification step of outputting a notification to the occupant regarding the getting-out location and the location of a target parking stall which is the empty stall where the vehicle is to be parked;
an empty stall storing step of storing information regarding a location of the empty stall determined in the empty stall determination step in association with a passing route of the vehicle;
an automatic travel control step of, based on the sensing of the surroundings by the sensor section, generating an automatic travel route which travels the vehicle along the passing route from a getting-out location, traveling vehicle along the automatic travel route, and when reaching the vehicle at a position where the vehicle starts performing a loading operation into the empty stall, loading the vehicle merely by a forward motion without a turning operation to perform a direction change from a reverse motion to the forward motion, and performing control to cause the vehicle to be parked; and
a target parking stall setting step of setting a new target parking stall which is a new empty stall, when the vehicle reaches the target parking stall, another vehicle is already parked in the target parking stall, from among other empty stalls wherein the new empty stall has a distance to travel to which from the current location is the shortest or the new empty stall is determined to be an empty stall at the latest timing.