Patent ID: 8259009
Filing Date: 2012-09-04
Classification: G01S

Abstract:
1. A relative position detecting apparatus which is mounted in one movable object and configured to detect the relative position of the one movable object with respect to another movable object, comprising: an observation data obtaining unit that obtains observation data by observing a satellite signal; a communicating unit that communicates with the other movable object; a positioning calculating unit that performs a positioning calculation using the observation data obtained by the observation data obtaining unit, and observation data received from the other movable object by the communicating unit; and a reliability determining unit that determines the reliability of the results of the positioning calculation performed by the positioning calculating unit, wherein, in a predetermined case in which three or more movable objects including the one movable object communicate with each other, the relative position detecting apparatus is configured to assign to one of the three or more movable objects a status of being a reference movable object and the other two or more of the three or more movable objects being non-reference movable objects one of which is a first non-reference movable object and the other one or more of which is a second non-reference movable object, wherein in the predetermined case, when the relative position detecting apparatus is mounted in the one movable object having the status of being the reference movable object, the communicating unit is configured to transmit data that includes the observation data obtained by the observation data obtaining unit to the other movable objects; when the relative position detecting apparatus is mounted in a movable object having the status of being the second non-reference movable object, the positioning calculating unit is configured to calculate the relative position of the one movable object with respect to the reference movable object by performing interferometric positioning that uses the obtained observation data and data that includes observation data received from the reference movable object, wherein the communicating unit is configured to transmit data that includes an integer bias calculated in the interferometric positioning performed by the positioning calculating unit of the second non-reference movable object to the first non-reference movable objects; and when the relative position detecting apparatus is mounted in the one movable object having the status of being the first non-reference movable object, the positioning calculating unit is configured to calculate the relative position of the one movable object with respect to the reference movable object by performing interferometric positioning using the obtained observation data and the data that includes observation data received from the reference movable object; the communicating unit is configured to receive data that includes the integer bias from the second non-reference movable object; the reliability determining unit is configured to determine the reliability of the interferometric positionings performed by each of the first non-reference movable object and the second non-reference movable object based on the received data that includes the integer bias and the data that includes an integer bias calculated in the interferometric positioning performed by the positioning calculation unit, and the reliability determining unit is configured to transmit the determined reliability to the reference movable object and the second non-reference movable object.