NAVIGATION APPARATUS INFORMING OF PERIPHERAL SITUATION OF THE VEHICLE AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING THE SAME

A navigation apparatus for vehicles capable of sensing the peripheral situation of a vehicle, thereby automatically displaying the sensed peripheral situation while generating an alarm when the peripheral situation is determined as a hazardous situation. The invention also provides a method for controlling the navigation apparatus. This navigation apparatus includes a current-position computing unit for computing a pseudo current position of the vehicle, based on information from a speed sensor, a gyro sensor, and pseudo coordinates of the current vehicle position provided by artificial satellites, a peripheral situation sensing unit for sensing a peripheral situation of the vehicle, a peripheral image sensing unit for picking up images of peripheral objects existing in the vicinity of the vehicle, an alarming unit for generating a sound signal informing of a hazard in response to an alarming control signal, a display unit for receiving display data and displaying the received display data on a screen, and a system control unit for computing coordinates of the current vehicle position and coordinates of the position of each peripheral object, based on the computed pseudo current vehicle position and the information from the peripheral situation sensing unit, and sending display data to the display unit.