Patent ID: 7617108

Claim:
A vehicle mounted control apparatus comprising: a switch accessible by a driver of a vehicle, the switch being actuated by the driver to select executing a command execution mode; a voice command receiver inside the vehicle that receives a voice command input when the command execution mode is executed; a voice recognition section operably connected to the voice command input device for recognizing the voice command input by the voice receiver; a user interface on an interior surface of the vehicle, the user interface being actuated by a nonverbal input by the driver to select executing an operation guidance mode, the user interface including a display device that provides visual operation guidance to the driver regarding the command execution mode when the operation guidance mode is executed; a control section operably connected to the switch and the user interface, the control section executing the command execution mode in response to the driver actuating the switch, the control section executing the operation guidance mode in response to the driver actuating the user interface by the nonverbal input, wherein, when the voice command cannot be recognized by the voice recognition section, the control section performs the following: determines a cause of incapability of recognition of the voice command, causes the display device to display a visual notice indicating to the driver the determined cause of the incapability of recognition as a result of the driver visually recognizing the visual notice as representing a particular one of a plurality of distinct causes of incapability of recognition; and a command execution section that executes the voice command when the voice command is recognized by the voice recognition section.