Development of the New Navigation System - Voice Route Guidance

We have developed a new navigation system which utilizes voice synthesis function, and mounted it on the new model. This paper reports the details of the navigation system. The navigation system was developed with the aim of providing a system which is capable of reducing the load on the driver and helping reach the destination smoothly and more safely than the conventional system.

This system has such features as follows.

1. 1)
   Displaying digital mapping information by means of a full-color TFT-LCD ( Thin Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Display ) incorporated in the instrument panel
2. 2)
   Automatic location of present position through combination of map matching and GPS(Global Positioning System)
3. 3)
   Automatic determination of typical route to reach around the destination which can be specified by means of address, telephone number or selected from names of many locations, and display of the route in the map
4. 4)
   Direction of the route through synthesized voice of high quality, using proper nouns including the names of intersections and destination of expressway, which are stored on the eight CD-ROM's (Compact Disc-Read Only Memory)
5. 5)
   Automatic display of intersection routing diagram which allows to make sure of the direction to go and features of the intersection
6. 6)
   “Re-search route” function which can easily change the route even when running

In the following paragraphs, construction of the navigation system, method and procedure of the voice advisories will be described.