Patent ID: 7683767

Claim:
A control device controlling in-vehicle units in a vehicle for providing an occupant of the vehicle with at least one service selected from one or more possible services, the selected service being provided to the occupant independent of a driving operation of the vehicle, the control device comprising: a situation detection unit that detects a situation of at least one of (i) the vehicle, (ii) an occupant, and (iii) a surrounding area; an in-vehicle service execution model storage unit for storing, with respect to each of the one or more possible services by using an associated in-vehicle unit, a model that represents association between a variable indicating the situation and a variable indicating presence of a need to start providing the each service by controlling the associated in-vehicle unit as an in-vehicle service execution model; an inference execution unit that sets the situation detected by the situation detection unit for the variable indicating the situation in the in-vehicle service execution model with respect to each of the one or more possible services read from the in-vehicle service execution model storage unit, and determines presence of a need to start providing each of the one or more possible services; an in-vehicle unit control unit that controls an operation of the associated in-vehicle unit based on an affirmative result of determining the presence of the need to start providing each of the one or more possible services by the inference execution unit; an operation detection unit that detects an operation of the associated in-vehicle unit with respect to the each service, providing of which is started; and a model learning unit that learns the in-vehicle service execution model stored in the in-vehicle service execution model storage unit by using (i) a situation detected by the situation detection unit when the operation of the associated in vehicle unit with respect to the each service is detected by the operation detection unit, and (ii) an event involving the presence of the need to start providing each of the one or more possible services.