Patent ID: 8692709
Filing Date: 2014-04-08
Classification: G01C,G01S

Abstract:
1. A positioning apparatus comprising: a first positioning unit which intermittently receives signals from a plurality of positioning satellites to obtain positional information of a reference position; a second positioning unit which obtains a present position by continuously calculating a moving direction and a moving amount of the positioning apparatus, and by adding information of the moving direction and the moving amount to the positional information of the reference position; a reference position updating unit which updates the positional information of the reference position by causing the first positioning unit to newly obtain positional information of the reference position; a count unit which counts an elapsed period of time each time after the reference position updating unit updates the positional information of the reference position; a distance calculating unit which calculates a distance between a last-obtained reference position and a present position obtained by the second positioning unit, each time the second positioning unit obtains a predetermined number of present positions; a distance judging unit which judges whether a currently-calculated distance calculated by the distance calculating unit is longer than a predetermined distance and shorter than a last-calculated distance calculated by the distance calculating unit; and a positioning timing control unit which controls a timing when the reference position updating unit updates the positional information of the reference position so as to cause the reference position updating unit to update the positional information of the reference position when it is determined that the elapsed period of time counted by the count unit exceeds a predetermined amount of time, or when the distance judging unit judges that the currently-calculated distance is longer than the predetermined distance and shorter than the last-calculated distance.