An agent control device that presents, on a display device, a display screen showing procedure information to set up and establish communication between a mobile terminal and an onboard device; and in a case in which information to reject establishment of communication between the mobile terminal and the onboard device has been input, or in a case in which input of a procedure has not been received after a predetermined time period has elapsed since presentation of the display screen on the display device, outputs to the display device a display screen recommending activation of a specific agent from among a plurality of agents that are utilizable inside a vehicle.

A parking support apparatus configured to perform a parking control for automatically parking a vehicle in a target parking position. The parking support control is provided with: a detector configured to obtain a signal of a vehicle external sensor that can detect at least one of a movement and a voice/sound of a user who is outside the vehicle and to determine whether or not the at least one of the movement and the voice/sound of the user matches a parking instruction action set in advance, thereby detecting a particular parking instruction action of the user; and a starter configured to start the parking control if the parking instruction action is detected.

An information interaction method includes: receiving an information interaction request sent by a terminal device, wherein the information interaction request includes a device identifier of a target device and a name of a first server associated with the target device; sending an authorization request to the first server based on the name of the first server; and receiving authorization information sent by the first server, and sending a control instruction for the target device to the first server.

Systems and methods are disclosed herein for implementation of a vehicle command operation system that may use multi-modal technology to authenticate an occupant of the vehicle to authorize a command and receive natural language commands for vehicular operations. The system may utilize sensors to receive data indicative of a voice command from an occupant of the vehicle. The system may receive second sensor data to aid in the determination of the corresponding vehicular operation in response to the received command. The system may retrieve authentication data for the occupants of the vehicle. The system authenticates the occupant to authorize a vehicular operation command using a neural network based on at least one of the first sensor data, the second sensor data, and the authentication data. Responsive to the authentication, the system may authorize the operation to be performed in the vehicle based on the vehicular operation command.

A method for providing interactive feedback for vehicle occupants includes outputting a spoken announcement to a vehicle occupant. An acoustic reaction sensing means detects whether the vehicle occupant has understood the spoken announcement. The announcement is repeated when it is detected that the vehicle occupant as not understood the spoken announcement.

An apparatus and a method for controlling the output of driver information to a driver of a vehicle, with the objective of entertaining the driver and/or the passengers of the vehicle and/or increasing the driver attentiveness of the driver. A database of points of interest or objects of general interest, a database of topographic information, a device for determining the whereabouts of the vehicle, and an evaluation device to which these information items are delivered, are provided. The evaluation device ascertains, from the current whereabouts of the vehicle and from the topographic information, which points of interest or objects of general interest are present in the driver's field of view, and outputs via an output device the driver information regarding the point of interest or the object of general interest which has been ascertained by the evaluation device to be located in the driver's field of view.

An agent device includes a microphone configured to collect a speech sound inside a vehicle cabin, a speaker configured to output a speech sound inside the vehicle cabin, and a plurality of agent function elements having different functions. Each of the plurality of agent function elements generates a speech sound of an agent that speaks to an occupant of a vehicle on the basis of a meaning of the speech sound collected by the microphone, causes the speaker to output the generated speech sound of the agent. The agent function element serving as a main agent that has a dialogue with the occupant is switched on the basis of content of the speech sound collected by the microphone.

Detecting and isolating competing speech for voice controlled systems are provided herein. An example method includes isolating a voice command from a plurality of competing voice sound signals received internally or externally to a vehicle, wherein at least a portion of the plurality of competing voice sound signals are received using a sensor coupled with a window of the vehicle, and processing the voice command by the voice command system.

It is an aspect of the present disclosure to provide a dialogue system capable of providing an extended function to the user by registering a new vocabulary that matches the user's preference and by changing the pre-stored conversation pattern.

A vehicle control apparatus to be used in a vehicle controllable on the basis of a voice input includes a determination unit and an input unit. The determination unit is configured to determine whether a main operator of the vehicle is in a predetermined state where the main operator is not possible to perform an operation or is not performing an operation. The input unit is configured to accept an operational input based on a voice of the main operator, as well as to accept an operational input based on a voice of a passenger of the vehicle in a case where the determination unit has determined that the main operator is in the predetermined state.