Patent ID: 7750823

Claim:
An apparatus for allocating an inter-vehicle communication channel to a vehicle, comprising: a traveling direction determiner for determining whether or not a traveling direction of the vehicle is changed, including an instantaneous direction acquisition unit acquiring information as to the instantaneous traveling direction of the vehicle, a map data storage unit storing map data, and a traveling direction recognizer, determining whether the traveling direction of the vehicle is changed according to the instantaneous traveling direction information and the map data, wherein the traveling direction recognizer further determines, based on the map data, whether at least one of a road on which the vehicle is traveling and a side of the road on which the vehicle is traveling is changed; and, if the traveling direction recognizer determines that the at least one of the road traveled on and the side of the road has not changed, the traveling direction recognizer determines that the traveling direction of the vehicle is not changed, even when the instantaneous direction information is changed; and a channel allocator for allocating to the vehicle a previously allocated channel or a new channel based on a determined result of the traveling direction determiner, wherein if the traveling direction determiner determines that the traveling direction of the vehicle is changed, the channel allocator allocates to the vehicle a new channel corresponding to the changed traveling direction, the new channel being orthogonal to the previously allocated channel, and if the traveling direction determiner determines that the traveling direction of the vehicle has not changed, the channel allocator allocates to the vehicle the previously allocated channel.