JP2002366578A - Onboard information terminal and information retrieval system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an onboard information terminal and an information retrieval system capable of relieving a burden on a retrieval operation by a user in acquisition of information. SOLUTION: The information retrieval system includes an information center (8) and a navigation device as the on-vehicle information terminal, when any one of a plurality of candidates for retrieval items displayed on a menu display area of a monitor (3) is selected as a retrieval item in the case of information retrieval from an onboard data base stored in a CD-ROM (4) or a data base (9) of the information center (8), related items corresponding to the retrieval items are extracted from a related definition dictionary (15) by a related item extracting part (13), an extraction item useful for display is sorted among the extraction items and displayed on the menu display area based on a comparison result between a state dependence attribute and state data of selection items by a state dependence decision part (14).

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an in-vehicle information terminal device having a communication function, and more particularly to an in-vehicle information terminal device capable of obtaining information from an in-vehicle database and an external database, and an information retrieval system including this type of device. .

[0002]

[Related Background Art] Vehicle navigation devices include:
Some navigation devices have a communication function and can be used as an information terminal. For example, according to a navigation device having a text information receiving function, text information FM-multiplexed from a broadcasting station such as a VICS (road traffic information system) can be used. This can be received and displayed on the screen or output as audio. Also,
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-37 for improving the usability of character information
In the information search system described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 772, a broadcast station transmits character information and related position data together with the character information.
The in-vehicle information terminal displays a mark on the road map when the area represented by each data is included in the road map being displayed on the screen, and displays character information when any of the marks is selected by a user operation. It has become. This in-vehicle information terminal has a communication function. When a user requests a detailed display, the terminal receives detailed information from an information center and displays it on a screen.

In general, the information required by a user is not only different for each user, but also varies depending on the daily action schedule of each user. Therefore, in order to provide such a wide variety of information, a huge amount of information is stored in the database of the information center. Further, the navigation device constituting the in-vehicle information terminal generally includes a large-capacity information medium such as a DVD, and presents information appropriately read from a database stored in the storage medium.

As described above, the information constituting the database has a huge amount of information, so that the information is usually classified by genre (category), and the information belonging to each genre is further classified into a larger number of layers. . And, in order to be able to obtain the information that the user wants from the hierarchical information,
The in-vehicle information terminal displays the top menu first on the screen, and then displays the lower menu in response to a user's selection operation.

Therefore, the user repeats the operation of selecting one of the search item candidates (options) displayed on the menu, traverses the hierarchical tree, finally selects one search item, and responds to the selected item. The required information is obtained by reading the information to be performed from the database, but if the user desires to obtain a plurality of information, it is necessary to sequentially select a plurality of search items. After retracing and displaying the top menu again, another retrieving item is selected by retracing another hierarchical tree.

For example, when a menu display is instructed by a remote control operation or the like to a navigation device having a menu hierarchy database shown in FIG. 5, a genre "sports weather &course",.
A top-level menu including “road traffic information” is displayed. When “sports weather & course” is selected, a lower-level menu including “ski resort information”, “golf course weather” and the like as search item candidates is displayed. Then, if you select "Ski resort information", it will be switched to a lower menu and search item candidates such as "Niseko / Hakodate area" will be displayed. . Next, to display the today's weather forecast in this direction on the screen, display the top menu on the screen by tracing the hierarchical tree in reverse, select the genre “weather forecast”, and then select “today's weather”. , "Near the navigation destination" are sequentially selected.

[0007]

As described above, in order to sequentially obtain information related to a plurality of search items, the user needs to repeat complicated operations, and it is difficult to remember the hierarchical structure of the entire menu. Since it is difficult, information must be obtained through trial and error, and a burden is imposed on the user.

An object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle-mounted information terminal device and an information search system capable of supporting a search operation performed by a user when acquiring information from a database.

[0009]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an in-vehicle information terminal device which is provided with a search item candidate presented at the time of information search from an in-vehicle database or an external database in an information center accessible via a communication line. A storage unit for storing a related item corresponding to each of the search item candidates in advance, and a related item corresponding to the search item candidate selected as the search item is extracted from the storage unit and presented as a further search item candidate And a presenting means.

According to the present invention, search item candidates are presented when information is retrieved from a vehicle-mounted database, for example, a database in a vehicle-mounted information terminal device or an external database in an information center. One or more related items are associated in advance with each of the search item candidates, and each related item corresponds to information that is likely to be desired by the user following acquisition of information related to a certain search item. ing. The association between the search item candidate and the related item is performed by, for example, the manufacturer of the in-vehicle information terminal device in consideration of the structure of both databases and the contents of information constituting each database.

[0011] When the user selects one of the presented search item candidates as a search item, on the one hand, information on the search item is presented, and on the other hand, the information corresponding to this search item (search item candidate). The presenting unit determines whether or not the related item is stored in the storage unit. If there is a related item, the related item is extracted and presented as a search item candidate.

As described above, when information related to a certain search item is acquired, the related item corresponding to the information that the user is likely to want to acquire next is presented as the next search item candidate. The selection of items becomes easy, and necessary information can be obtained efficiently. It should be noted that, even in the related art in which hierarchical menus are sequentially displayed, search item candidates related to acquisition of a plurality of pieces of information may be displayed in the same menu or in a menu having a similar hierarchy to reduce the operational burden on the user. But,
This method devises the menu structure itself and has a drawback. In other words, when the menu display contents are to be improved from the viewpoint of reducing the burden on the user, the menu structure itself and the display contents of each menu (for example, search item candidates) are created inseparably. It is necessary, but it is difficult to correct it due to labor and cost.

In this respect, in the present invention, even when a plurality of sets of search item candidates are stored as a hierarchical menu, the means for storing the hierarchical menu and the storage means for storing the related items are provided independently of each other. Therefore, the storage contents of the storage means, that is, the association between the search item candidates (search items) and the related items can be corrected independently of the menu structure. As described above, according to the present invention, since the association between the search item and the related item can be corrected without changing the menu structure, the correction for reducing the burden on the user side and improving the usability can be performed easily and at low cost. .

[0014] In the invention described in claim 2, the presenting means determines whether or not the extracted related item can be presented as a further search candidate item, and presents the related item determined to be unsuitable for presentation. The feature is to cancel. The information to be obtained from the database is not only different depending on the taste of each user, but also varies depending on the daily action schedule of each user. The information to be acquired also differs depending on the season, time zone, and the specifications of each user's vehicle. According to the second aspect of the present invention, it is possible to select a related item to be presented as a search item candidate on the terminal device side in accordance with, for example, user preference, date and time, vehicle specifications, and the like, so that unnecessary information acquisition can be performed beforehand. It is something to prevent.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information retrieval system for retrieving information from an in-vehicle database accessible from an in-vehicle information terminal device or an external database in an information center accessible through a communication line from the in-vehicle information terminal device. Storage means for storing related items corresponding to each of the search item candidates presented in the information terminal device in advance in association with each search item candidate, and storage means for storing the related item corresponding to the search item candidate selected as the search item And a presenting means for presenting to the in-vehicle information terminal device as a further search item candidate extracted from the in-vehicle information terminal device.

The information retrieval from the database according to the third aspect of the present invention is performed basically in the same manner as the case of the first aspect of the present invention. Briefly, when the user selects one of the search item candidates presented in the in-vehicle information terminal device as a search item, a related item corresponding to the search item is selected to support the user's search item selection operation. Present as a search item candidate.

[0017]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An information retrieval system according to one embodiment of the present invention will be described below. As shown in FIG. 1, the information retrieval system includes a large number of in-vehicle information terminal devices (only one is shown) and an information center 8 that provides service information to these information terminal devices.

A navigation device as an in-vehicle information terminal device includes a navigation body 1 for setting a guidance route and the like based on map information and input information such as a destination, etc.
A receiving antenna 2 for receiving radio waves from a PS satellite, a monitor 3 for displaying map information, and a CD-ROM storing map information.
It has a ROM 4 and basically recognizes the current position of the vehicle based on radio waves received by the receiving antenna 2 and sets a route to the destination. The set route is superimposed on the map information and displayed on the monitor 3. This is to display and guide the route.

Reference numeral 5 denotes a navigation remote controller (hereinafter, simply referred to as a remote controller).
Functions as a means for inputting, to the navigation body 1, instructions for displaying information (for example, a landmark name or the like) relating to a destination or a waypoint on route setting and an information menu for information search on the monitor 3. Then, the control unit 11 in the navigation main body 1 performs a route setting function for automatically setting a route to reach the destination based on information input from the remote controller 5, a set route, a current vehicle position,
It has a function of estimating the arrival time at the destination based on the vehicle traveling speed and the like.

Further, the navigation apparatus displays related search items (hereinafter referred to as "related items") associated with the respective search item candidates in advance with or instead of the normal search item candidates as search item candidates on the information menu. It has the function to do. In this regard, in addition to the map information, the CD-ROM 4 used as the in-vehicle database in the present embodiment stores, for example, menu display information that defines the display content of each hierarchical menu. The control unit 11 determines a menu to be displayed and a selected search item in accordance with a menu display instruction or a search item selection by a remote control operation, and controls each of the navigation main units 12 to 14. Then, a menu display based on the menu display information is performed on the monitor 3 under the control of the monitor control unit 12, and one or more search item candidates are displayed on the menu as information search options. .

In this embodiment, when a certain search item candidate is selected as a search item for specifying an information search target, or when a destination (search item in a broad sense) is selected on the screen of the monitor 3. For example, the acquired information relating to the selected item is displayed in an acquired information display area (corresponding to a large area shown on the right side of FIG. 4).
In order to reduce the user's burden on the selection operation in the information search, search item candidates (related items) that are likely to be selected next by the user are displayed in the menu display area (related items shown on the left side of FIG. 4). (Corresponding to the item display area). For this reason, an association definition dictionary (storage means) 15 storing each search item candidate and one or more associated items associated therewith is created in, for example, an XML document format and stored in the navigation body 1. ing.

Also, a vehicle-mounted database (CD-ROM)
4) and the information to be obtained from the database 9 of the information center 8 is selected in the present embodiment in consideration of the fact that it depends on individual user's taste, season, time zone, vehicle specifications of each user, and the like. In accordance with the context-dependent attribute of the search item (eg, user preference, date and time, vehicle specifications, etc.) and the context-dependent attribute of the related item corresponding to the selected item, the navigation device displays related items to be presented as search item candidates. It is possible to select on the side, thereby preventing unnecessary information acquisition.

For this reason, in the related definition dictionary 15, for a search item or a related item having a situation-dependent attribute, the situation-dependent attribute is described after the description of the search item or the related item. In addition, status data (user properties indicating user preferences, vehicle properties indicating vehicle specifications, date and time obtained by the clock function of the navigation device, etc.) are stored in the status data storage unit 16 of the navigation body 1. It is supposed to.

As described above, in the present embodiment, related items associated with a search item are displayed as search item candidates on a menu, and display of inappropriate related items is prohibited. The navigation body 1 is provided with a related item extraction unit 13 and a situation dependence determination unit 14 that operate under the control of the control unit 11. When the selection of a search item or a destination by remote control operation or the like is determined by the control unit 11, the related item extracting unit 13 refers to the related definition dictionary 15, associates it with the search item in advance, and stores the related item in the related definition dictionary 15. It is determined whether or not there is a stored related item, and if there is a related item, it is extracted from the related definition dictionary. Further, the situation dependency determining unit 14 determines whether or not each of the selected item or the corresponding extracted item has a situation dependent attribute, and determines the situation dependent attribute of the selected item or the related item and the status data storage unit 16. By comparing and comparing with the situation data, it is determined whether or not the extracted related item should be displayed as a search item candidate, and the result of the determination is determined by the control unit 1.
1 is to be notified.

Related Item Extraction Unit 13 and Situation Dependence Determination Unit 1
Reference numeral 4, together with the monitor 3, the control unit 11, and the monitor control unit 12, constitutes a presentation unit that presents the extracted related items as search item candidates. As described above, the control unit 11 of the navigation body has a function of determining a selection of a search item by a remote control operation, but when determining a selection of a search item that requires an information search from the database 9 of the information center 8, The information center 8 is called via the communication means, for example, the mobile phone 6, and when a line connection with the information center 8 is established via the mobile phone 6, the information center 8 is notified of a search item. Immediately after receiving the information read from the information center 9 via the mobile phone 6 from the information center 8 or when a predetermined time has elapsed from the time of receiving the information, or when the user instructs the line disconnection by operating the remote control, The line connection between the information center 6 and the information center 8 is released.

The elements 12 to 16 built in the navigation body include, for example, an input / output interface,
It can be configured by a computer including a memory, a processor, and the like. The navigation body 1 has a VICS
Receiving device 7 for displaying character information on the monitor 3. Hereinafter, mainly referring to FIG.
The menu display operation of the navigation device shown in FIG. 1 will be described.

When there is a menu display command by a remote control operation, the control unit 11 of the navigation device supplies menu display information relating to the top menu to the monitor control unit 12 and displays the top menu (not shown) on the monitor 3. Let it. When one of the search item candidates displayed in the top menu is selected as a search item, a menu or a search result related to the search item is displayed. While any of the hierarchical menus is displayed, the menu display control routine shown in FIG. 2 is periodically executed in the navigation body 1.

In this control routine, whether any one of the plurality of search item candidates displayed in the menu is selected as a search item, or whether a destination is selected on the map displayed on the monitor 3 Is determined by the control unit 11 (step S1), and the determination result is negative (N
o), that is, if a search item or a destination (hereinafter simply referred to as a search item) is not selected, the routine proceeds to step S14, where it is determined that "there is no presentation of a related item", and this routine is executed in the current cycle. Terminates execution of.

On the other hand, when a search item is selected, the category to which the selected item belongs is determined by the control unit 11 (step S2), and the control unit 11 notifies the related item extraction unit 13 of the selected item and its category. Related item extraction unit 13
Determines whether there is a related item associated with the selected item in advance by referring to the related definition dictionary 15 (step S).
3) If the result of this determination is negative, step S14 above
After this is executed, this routine is temporarily ended.

When it is determined in step S3 that "there is a related item", the related item extracting unit 13 sets the related definition dictionary 1
5, one or more related items associated with the selection item are extracted, and the "situation-dependent attribute" of the selection item is extracted (step S4). Next, the related item extracting unit 13
Notifies the context-dependent determination unit 14 of the extracted items, the status-dependent attributes, and the total number of the extracted items (hereinafter referred to as the total number N).

When the related item extracting process based on the related definition dictionary is completed as described above, the extracted item analyzing process based on the situation dependent attribute and the situation data is started. In this analysis processing, the situation dependence determination unit 14 sets the number n of analyzed items (n = 1, 2,..., N) (Step S).
5) It is determined whether or not the selected item has a situation-dependent attribute (step S6). If the determination result is affirmative (Yes), that is, if there is a situation-dependent attribute, situation data related to the situation-dependent attribute is acquired from the situation data storage unit 16 (step S).
7) By comparing and comparing the situation-dependent attribute with the situation data, it is determined whether or not it is appropriate to display the n-th related item as a search item candidate (step S).
8). If it is determined in step S8 that the n-th related item is suitable for display, or if it is determined in step S6 that there is no context-dependent attribute, the context-dependent determination unit 1
4 temporarily stores the n-th related item in a memory (not shown) (step S9). If it is determined in step S8 that the n-th related item is not suitable for display, the n-th related item is temporarily stored in the memory. Cancel (step S10).

Next, step S9 or step S10
Then, the process proceeds to step S11 to determine whether or not the analysis on all the items is completed by determining whether or not the number of analyzed items n is equal to the total number of items N, and finish the analysis on all the items. If not, the number of analyzed items n
Is incremented by "1" in step S5, and then the processing from step S6 is performed.

Then, the situation-dependent determining unit 14 determines whether or not one or more of the first to N-th related items is temporarily stored in the memory (step S12).
If there is no stored item, the routine proceeds to step S14, and after it is determined that the presentation is unnecessary, the execution of the routine in the current cycle ends. On the other hand, if there is a save item, the save item is notified to the monitor control unit 12 via the control unit 11, and the save item, that is, the related item is displayed as a search item candidate on the menu (step S13).

As described above, in the control routine of FIG. 2, it is determined whether or not it is appropriate to display the extracted items. This will be described with reference to a specific example shown in FIG. 5 shows an example in which “Hirugano Kogen Ski Resort” is selected as the destination on the map displayed on the monitor 3. In accordance with the destination selection, in step S2 of the control routine in FIG. 2, it is determined that the category to which the destination (selection item) belongs is "facility", and in step S4, a related item corresponding to the selection item is extracted. In addition to this selection item, the first situation-dependent attribute "is suitable for skiing in the winter season, but suitable for paragliding and hiking in the summer season" and "the travel time zone is night, daytime or all day. The second item depends on whether there is a related item. " Then, in step S7, in case 1 shown on the left side of FIG.
The situation data that “It is 1:00 am on January 2, 2000 and the arrival time is 5:00 am on the same day” is acquired, and in case 2 shown on the right side of FIG. 3, “the current time is July 22, 2000 8:00 am, and the arrival time is 12:00 am on the same day. "

Next, in steps S8 and S9, the relevant items that are appropriate to be presented are determined and stored. In case 1, however, since the user is moving to the ski resort from late night to early morning in winter, the user is required to make a presentation. As search items (related items) that are likely to be information search targets, "weather information (overview,
"Snowfall)", ..., and "24-hour restaurant near the route" are stored. In case 2, however, the user is traveling to the ski resort in the morning in the summer, so that "weather information (general conditions, precipitation, Wind direction),..., “Hiking course information” are stored as related items.

Then, in step S13, related items are presented. In case 2 of FIG. 3, as shown in FIG. 4, a map is displayed in the acquired information display area of monitor 3, while menu display of monitor 3 is performed. In the area, the related items stored in step 9 are displayed as options. In this way, when a destination or a search item is selected, options for information that the user is likely to want to obtain next are displayed, but options for meaningless information are not displayed. Thus, efficient information acquisition becomes possible.

When, for example, "peripheral parking lot" is selected as a search item from the related item display (menu), a menu or a peripheral parking map relating to the selected item "peripheral parking lot" is displayed. However, the situation-dependent attribute of the selection item “peripheral parking lot” is also considered in this case. For example, the allowable maximum vehicle height at each parking lot is compared with the vehicle height of the own vehicle described in the vehicle property of the situation data, and the display of the parking lot map where the own vehicle cannot be parked is canceled. In case 1, similar considerations are made by comparing the available time zone of each parking lot with the arrival time of the situation data. Also, in case 1, if “restaurant” is selected as a search item, the user property of the situation data indicates “Chinese preference,
Japanese food is not preferred ", the Japanese restaurant is excluded when displaying the restaurant map.

"Return" in the related item display menu of FIG.
Is selected, the menu is switched to a higher-level menu. When "discard" is selected, the related item display menu is discarded and the menu is switched to the original menu of the navigation device. The description of the embodiment is finished above, but the present invention is not limited to this embodiment and can be variously modified.

For example, in the embodiment, the related definition dictionary is provided in the navigation body, but the related definition dictionary may be stored in the CD-ROM and read from the navigation body as needed. In addition, the information center analyzes the access status of many users, examines the search items that are frequently searched after each search item, reviews related items that should be associated with each search item, and reflects the results. The latest version of the related definition dictionary may be created and stored in the database in the information center. In this case, the navigation device (vehicle information terminal device) of each user can update the related definition dictionary as needed when accessing the database of the information center, and the user support effect of the navigation device is improved.

In the embodiment, the appropriateness of the display of each related item corresponding to the selected item is determined based on the situation-dependent attribute of the selected item. However, it is described in the related definition dictionary in association with each related item. It is possible to determine whether the display of each related item is appropriate based on the situation-dependent attribute of the item. Although it is possible to prevent meaningless information acquisition by performing display appropriateness determination based on the situation-dependent attribute, such determination is not essential in the present invention.

In the above embodiment, the related definition dictionary as storage means for storing related items in association with each search item, the related item extraction unit as presentation means for presenting related items extracted from the storage means, and The dependency determination unit is provided in the navigation device (vehicle information terminal device), but a part related to a related item corresponding to a search item related to an information search from a database in the information center is stored in the storage unit and the presentation unit. It can also be provided on the center side. In this case, a part of the storage means and the presenting means on the information center side and the rest of the storing means and the presenting means on the in-vehicle information terminal device connected via a communication line cooperate to perform a related item presenting function. become.

[0042]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an on-vehicle information terminal device.
Storage means for storing in advance a related item corresponding to each of the search item candidates presented at the time of information search from an in-vehicle database or an external database in the information center in association with each search item candidate; and a search selected as the search item And a presenting means for extracting a related item corresponding to the item candidate from the storage means and presenting the related item as a further search item candidate, so that a burden on a user for selecting a search item when sequentially acquiring a plurality of pieces of information can be reduced. Thus, the user can efficiently obtain necessary information.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, it is determined by the presenting means whether or not the extracted related item can be presented as a further search candidate item, and the presentation of the related item determined to be unsuitable for presentation is made. Since the cancellation is cancelled, the related items to be presented can be selected according to the preference of each user, the date and time, the specifications of the vehicle, and the like, thereby preventing unnecessary information acquisition.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information retrieval system for retrieving a related item corresponding to each of the retrieval item candidates presented in the on-vehicle information terminal device when retrieving information from the on-vehicle database or an external database in the information center. Storage means for storing in advance associated with the item candidates, and presentation means for extracting related items corresponding to the search item candidates selected as search items from the storage means and presenting them as further search item candidates to the in-vehicle information terminal device. Since it is provided, it is possible to reduce the operational burden on the user when acquiring information.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram showing an information search system according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a menu display control routine executed by the navigation device shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a diagram exemplifying the situation dependency of a related search item displayed as a search item candidate by executing the control routine shown in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a display example of a related inspection item based on the situation dependency shown in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a conventional search operation in a hierarchical menu.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 navigation body 3 monitor 4 CD-ROM (in-vehicle database) 5 remote controller 6 mobile phone 8 information center 9 database (external database) 11 control unit 12 monitor control unit 13 related item extraction unit 14 situation dependent determination unit 15 related definition dictionary 16 situation Data storage

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Naoka Takeura 2-3-2 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo F-term (reference) 2F029 AA02 AB13 AC02 AC09 AC13 AC16 5B075 KK07 ND06 ND20 PR10 UU14 5H180 AA01 BB05 BB13 FF13 FF22 FF32 FF38

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An in-vehicle information terminal device capable of retrieving information from an in-vehicle database and an external database in an information center accessible via a communication line, wherein a search presented when retrieving information from the in-vehicle database or the external database A storage unit that stores a related item corresponding to each of the item candidates in advance in association with each of the search item candidates; and a related item corresponding to the search item candidate selected as the search item is extracted from the storage unit. Presentation means for presenting related items as further search item candidates. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the presenting unit determines whether or not the extracted related item can be presented as the further search candidate item, and cancels the presentation of the related item determined to be unsuitable for presentation. The in-vehicle information terminal device according to claim 1. 3. An information retrieval system including an in-vehicle information terminal device capable of accessing an in-vehicle database and an information center having an external database accessible from the in-vehicle information terminal device via a communication line, wherein the in-vehicle database or the Storage means for storing related items corresponding to each of the search item candidates presented in the in-vehicle information terminal device at the time of information search from an external database in advance in association with each of the search item candidates; and a search selected as the search item. An information retrieval system comprising: a presentation unit that extracts a related item corresponding to an item candidate from the storage unit and presents the extracted related item as a further search item candidate to the in-vehicle information terminal device. 4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the presenting unit determines whether or not the extracted related item can be presented as the further search candidate item, and cancels the presentation of the related item determined to be unsuitable for presentation. The information retrieval system according to claim 3.