Patent ID: 7844377

Claim:
An in-vehicle communication system comprising: an on-board terminal arranged on a vehicle; a portable device that is structured to be inside or outside of the vehicle; an information acquiring unit that is structured to acquire vehicle information indicative of a state and a location of the vehicle; a location information acquiring unit that is structured to acquire location information indicative of the portable device; a pattern recognizing unit that is structured to recognize a movement pattern of the portable device; and an operation mode changing unit that is structured to change an operation mode of at least one of the portable device and the on-board terminal based on the vehicle information, the location information and the movement pattern, wherein a communication range from the on-board terminal to the portable device is different from the communication range from the portable device to the on-board terminal, and the operation mode changing unit changes the operation mode based on the movement pattern and whether the portable device is located inside or outside the communication range from the on-board terminal to the portable device.