US 7,617,161 B2
Vehicle appraisal assisting robot and vehicle appraisal system using the robot
Hironori Waita, Wako (Japan)
Assigned to Honda Motor Co., Ltd., Tokyo (Japan)
Filed on Apr. 18, 2005, as Appl. No. 11/107,827.
Claims priority of application No. 2004-143138 (JP), filed on May 13, 2004.
Prior Publication US 2005/0267633 A1, Dec. 01, 2005
Int. Cl. G06Q 99/00 (2006.01); G06F 17/30 (2006.01); G06F 19/00 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 705—500  [705/27; 700/245] 12 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A vehicle appraisal assisting robot, comprising:
an information acquisition unit for acquiring basic information required for appraisal of a vehicle from a client;
an image taking unit for taking an image of a portion of the vehicle required to evaluate a state of the vehicle;
an action generator for generating an action required for the image taking unit to take an appropriate image of the portion of the vehicle;
a communication unit for sending the information acquired by the information acquisition unit and the image information obtained by the image taking unit to an apparatus on an appraiser side, the apparatus on the appraiser side generating appraisal results information based on the information sent from the communication unit, wherein the communication unit also receives the appraisal results information from the apparatus on the appraiser side;
an information output unit for outputting the appraisal results information received by the communication unit to present the appraisal results information to the client;
a controller for executing an application program to control the information acquisition unit, image taking unit, action generator, communication unit and information output unit; and
a mobile robot comprising the information acquisition unit, the image taking unit, the action generator, the communication unit, the information output unit, and the controller,
wherein the apparatus on the appraiser side is configured to determine whether the information gathered by the mobile robot is adequate for appraisal so that the apparatus may generate an appraisal result when the information gathered by the mobile robot is adequate for appraisal, and to remote control the mobile robot to acquire any missing information when the information gathered by the mobile robot is not adequate for appraisal.