Patent ID: 8255537

Claim:
A vehicle communication device, comprising: a plurality of application units for performing inter-vehicle communication in accordance with a predetermined purpose; a lower protocol unit for transmitting and receiving data between vehicles; and a middleware unit intervening between said application units and said lower protocol unit, said middleware unit including: a transfer service processing unit for delivering and receiving data to/from said application units and identifying a delivery destination of data received by said middleware unit; a communication control service unit for performing a process to avoid congestion in said inter-vehicle communication and managing a port number for identifying said application units; and a transmission/reception control processing unit for performing a transmitting and receiving control of said data, wherein said communication control service unit controls transmission power, transmission interval, and reception sensitivity transmission power in communication of its own vehicle in said process to avoid congestion based on application priority received for each of said application units, vehicle priority of said its own vehicle, and channel usage rate obtained from said lower protocol unit, and said communication control service unit exchanges said application priority, said vehicle priority, and said channel usage rate of said its own vehicle between said its own vehicle and said other vehicles, generates congestion avoiding control information including transmission power, transmission interval, and reception sensitivity required to set in said other vehicles, and transmits the congestion avoiding control information to said other vehicles, on the basis of said application priority, said vehicle priority, and said channel usage rate of said its own vehicle, and said application priority, said vehicle priority, and said channel usage rate of said other vehicles being received.