Patent ID: 11866005
Assignee: HONDA MOTOR CO., LTD.
Field: Control (Instruments)
Classification: CPC B  G  H | IPC B  E  G  H

Claim 4:
5. A vehicle control method to be executed by a vehicle control apparatus performing communication with a mobile terminal used by a user of a vehicle, the method comprising:
a vehicle communication control step of performing communication by a first communication specification with the mobile terminal when the mobile terminal positions within an out-vehicle communication area within a predetermined distance from the vehicle;
a first distance measuring step of measuring a vehicle-terminal distance with first precision, the vehicle-terminal distance being a distance between the vehicle and the mobile terminal;
a vehicle position information obtaining step of obtaining vehicle position information including current position information on the vehicle;
a terminal position information obtaining step of obtaining terminal position information including current position information on the mobile terminal transmitted from the mobile terminal by the first communication specification by receiving the terminal position information from the mobile terminal through processing in the vehicle communication control step;
a second distance measuring step of measuring the vehicle-terminal distance with second precision based on the vehicle position information and the terminal position information, the second precision being measurement precision lower than the first precision;
a high-precision distance measurement determining step of determining whether the first distance measuring step is caused to measure the vehicle-terminal distance or not based on the vehicle-terminal distance measured in the second distance measuring step, and determining to cause the first distance measuring step to measure the vehicle-terminal distance when the vehicle-terminal distance decreases by a predetermined distance or larger in a plurality of the vehicle-terminal distances measured at different points in time by the second distance measuring step; and
an electronic-key-app operation recognizing step recognizing that an electronic key app for remotely operating the vehicle with the mobile terminal is in operation based on operating state information on the mobile terminal transmitted from the mobile terminal to the vehicle control apparatus,
wherein the high-precision distance measurement determining step determines to cause the first distance measuring step to measure the vehicle-terminal distance when the electronic-key-app operation recognizing step recognizes that the electronic key app is in operation even though the vehicle-terminal distance does not decrease by a predetermined distance or larger in a plurality of the vehicle-terminal distances measured at different points in time by the second distance measuring step.