Patent ID: 11967100
Assignee: ZF FRIEDRICHSHAFEN AG
Field: Transport (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  G | IPC B  G

Claim 0:
1. A navigational system for guiding a boat onto a trailer, the navigational system comprising:
at least one marker mounted on the trailer so as to assist the navigational system with estimating a longitudinal axis of the trailer;
a camera being located on the boat to assist the navigational system with determining a longitudinal axis of the boat, and the camera being located so as to generate images of at least a front area of the boat and the at least one marker on the trailer, during a loading operation;
an image processing unit for receiving and processing at least some of the images from the camera to determine the at least one marker, and, upon determining the at least one marker, the image processing unit estimating the longitudinal axis of the trailer;
the image processing unit, based upon the longitudinal axis of the boat and the longitudinal axis of the trailer, generating guidance information to assist a user with aligning the longitudinal axis of the boat with the longitudinal axis of the trailer and facilitate loading of the boat on the trailer;
the generated guidance information, provided by the image processing unit, comprises a display screen, communicating with the image processing unit, for displaying an image of the camera to the user; and
the navigational system generates a loading trajectory image overlay, of a desired boat trajectory, which is layered over the image displayed on the display screen of a mobile device.