Patent ID: 6301530
Filing Date: 2001-10-09
Classification: G05D

Abstract:
An automatic following travel system that allows processional travel with a leading vehicle and a plurality of succeeding vehicles automatically following the leading vehicle, wherein each of the vehicles comprises:a vehicle-to-vehicle communicator for communicating with the other vehicles; anda self position detector for detecting the position of the vehicle in which it is mounted, in a self coordinate system which is stored in the vehicle, andeach of the succeeding vehicles comprises:a preceding vehicle position detector for detecting the position of a preceding vehicle in front of the succeeding vehicle in the procession in a succeeding vehicle coordinate system;a succeeding vehicle position transformer for transforming the succeeding vehicle position information from the succeeding vehicle coordinate system to a leading vehicle coordinate system, based on preceding vehicle position information in the succeeding vehicle coordinate system detected by the preceding vehicle position detector, on the succeeding vehicle position information in the succeeding vehicle coordinate system detected by the self position detector, and on information representing the relationship between the preceding vehicle coordinate system and the leading vehicle coordinate system transmitted from the preceding vehicle by the vehicle-to-vehicle communicator;a vehicle controller for driving the succeeding vehicle to follow the leading vehicle, based on the transformation by the succeeding-vehicle-position-to-leading-vehicle-position-coordinate-system transformer and on the position of the leading vehicle.