Appeal No. 2002-0662 Page 6
Application No. 09/099,963
The microcontroller 22 is coupled to a processing unit 34 which is adapted to
read a road map related to a geographical region in which the automotive vehicle is
currently traveling from the CD-ROM 24 on the basis of the current position of the
automotive vehicle as detected by the GPS receiver 26. Preferably, each stored road
map is converted into a data structure wherein a street map includes at least two fields
including the speed and length of each route stored thereon. The microcontroller 22 is
adapted to then display the actual position of the automotive vehicle overlapped with an
appropriate road map on the display screen of the CRT 20. The processing unit 34 is
further adapted to calculate the best route to a selected destination on the basis
of the travel length and traffic speed of individual routes, as discussed in detail in the
patent.
The method of determining a best route is illustrated in the schematic of Figure
3. The user (e.g., the operator of the automotive vehicle) first activates the best route
program, block 100, by inputting appropriate information into the input source 24. The
user then inputs, via the input source 25, a particular desired destination, block 110.
The microcontroller 22 then retrieves "the current position" of the automotive vehicle
from the GPS receiver 26, block 120. The system 10 next identifies the navigation
routes available for travel between "the current position" of the automotive vehicle and
the aforementioned desired destination and identifies the best route, blocks 130-170.
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