ANTENNA APPARATUS AND ELECTRONIC TOLL COLLECTION SYSTEM AND ELECTRONIC TOLL COLLECTION METHOD USING THE SAME

摘要

In an antenna apparatus and the electronic toll collection(hereinafter, abbreviated to an ETC) system using it, an antennaapparatus (2) is provided in a space over a lane (3) through which anautomobile (1) having ETC on-vehicle equipment (10) passes. Anantenna which the antenna apparatus has radiates a radio wave havinga radio beam emitted area (21) of a radio wave to communicate with theETC on-vehicle equipment and, thereby, electronic toll collection isperformed for the passing automobile. It is an object of the presentinvention to provide an antenna apparatus which is controllable so thatthe ETC on-vehicle equipment is in the center of the radio beam emittedarea of the antenna apparatus, and also to provide an ETC system usingit. The antenna apparatus integrates an antenna and a light emittingunit. The light emitting unit emits a visible light (31) to the radio beamemitted area for communicating with the ETC on-vehicle equipment 10mounted on the automobile along the center line within the radio beamemitted area. A sensor (40) can detect the automobile and candetermine an emitted period of the visible light.