Patent ID: 8442760

Claim:
A mobile object positioning device comprising: a GNSS receiver installed on a mobile object for receiving a signal transmitted from a GNSS satellite and for detecting a current position of the mobile object based on the received signal; a speed detector for detecting a travel speed of the mobile object; a direction detector for detecting a travel direction of the mobile object; a position estimation unit for estimating a current position of the mobile object based on the travel speed of the mobile object detected by the speed detector and travel direction of the mobile object detected by the direction detector; an error calculation unit for calculating an error of the estimated current position of the mobile object based on a time-wise accumulation of at least one of the error of the travel speed of the mobile object and the error of travel direction of the mobile object; a control unit for repeating (i) turning off a power supply for the GNSS receiver after correcting the estimated current position of the mobile object estimated by the position estimation unit based on the current position of the mobile object detected by the GNSS receiver, (ii) determining whether the error of the estimated current position of the mobile object, calculation of which is started at a time of turning off of the GNSS receiver, is within a predetermined error tolerance, and (iii) turning on the power supply for the GNSS receiver to correct the estimated current position of the mobile object from the position estimation unit based on the detected current position from the GNSS receiver, wherein the GNSS receiver includes: a reception antenna for an electric wave from the GNSS satellite; a front end unit for converting the electric wave received by the reception antenna to an output signal of a frequency that is suitable for signal processing and for outputting the output signal; a base-band unit for performing signal processing for the output signal from the front end unit and for outputting the processed signal as data; a positioning unit for performing a positioning process based on the data output from the base-band unit; a first clock signal generation unit for generating a front end clock signal for operating the front end unit; a second clock signal generation unit for generating a real-time clock signal for reducing a standby electric current of the positioning unit and for reducing a positioning time of the positioning unit; and a third clock signal generation unit for generating a standard clock signal that has a higher frequency than the real-time clock signal for operating the positioning unit, and wherein when the power supply for the GNSS receiver is turned off, the control unit turns off the power supply for the front end unit, the base-band unit, the first clock signal generation unit to stop the front end clock signal, and the second clock signal generation unit to stop the real-time clock signal.