JP3214901B2 - Automatic notification device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic reporting device for reporting location information of a vehicle to a predetermined contact when an emergency occurs in the vehicle.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When an emergency situation such as an accident or a breakdown occurs in a vehicle, in order to promptly take rescue measures or the like, the position information of the vehicle is immediately reported to a fire department or a police station. It is desired.

[0003] For this reason, there has been proposed an automatic notifying device for notifying the location information of the vehicle to a predetermined contact using a telephone line or the like in the event of an emergency (for example, Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-open No. Sho 6).
See 3-72699).

[0004]

The above-mentioned emergency situations include situations such as vehicle accidents, vehicle breakdowns, deterioration of the health condition of the driver, and the like, and the type of emergency and the degree of emergency (degree of emergency) should be reported. The contacts will also be different. For example, even in the case of the same vehicle accident, in the case of a major accident, the fire department or police station should be given the highest priority as a contact point, but if it is a minor accident, it is sufficient to contact the home or JAF etc. It is thought that there are many cases.

[0005] However, in the above-mentioned conventional automatic notification device, when an emergency occurs, the notification is made uniformly to a specific contact regardless of the degree of the emergency. If you choose to set up contacts, when an actual emergency occurs,
Depending on the degree of urgency, an unnecessary contact is reported to an unnecessary contact, and a problem arises in that a report to a contact that should be reported with the highest priority is delayed.

[0006] The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and in an emergency situation, it is possible to eliminate the useless reporting and promptly report the location information of the own vehicle to the contact who should be reported. It is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic notification device capable of performing the above.

[0007]

The automatic notification device according to the present invention achieves the above object by selecting a contact to be reported according to the degree of emergency when an emergency occurs. It is designed to work.

[0008] That is, the invention according to claim 1 is an automatic notifying device for notifying the location information of the own vehicle to a predetermined contact when an emergency occurs in the own vehicle, and detecting the position of the own vehicle. Vehicle position detection means, emergency occurrence detection means for detecting that an emergency has occurred in the vehicle, emergency degree determination means for determining the degree of emergency of the detected emergency, and based on the result of this determination. Selecting means for selecting a contact; and notifying means for notifying the contact selected by the selecting means of the position information of the vehicle. The contact includes a first and a second contact group. Is set, and the selecting means selects only one of the first and second contact groups when the degree of urgency of the predetermined emergency is lower than a predetermined level, while selecting the one of the first and second contact groups . The urgency is above the specified level When it is characterized in that it is configured to select both the first and second contact groups.

Further, according to a second aspect of the present invention, when there are a plurality of contacts included in the contact group selected by the selecting means, a report order determination for deciding the order of reporting to each of these contacts is made. Means are provided.

The above-mentioned "emergency situation" is typically a vehicle accident, but is not limited to this. Of course, other situations such as vehicle failure, deterioration of the driver's health, etc. Including.

The "urgency degree" is a concept representing the degree of urgency of an emergency.

The above-mentioned "first contact group " and "second contact group " are concepts including a plurality of contacts, respectively.

[0013]

As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, when an emergency occurs, a contact to be reported is selected according to the degree of emergency. Therefore, specifically, when the degree of urgency of the predetermined emergency is lower than the predetermined,
And one of the second contact groups is selected, and when the degree of urgency of the predetermined emergency is equal to or higher than a predetermined value, both the first and second contact groups are selected. Therefore, it is possible to promptly report the position information of the own vehicle to the contact who should originally report, without wasteful reporting.

Further, according to the second aspect of the present invention, when there are a plurality of contacts included in the selected contact group, the order of reporting to each of these contacts is determined. Therefore, it is possible to promptly notify a contact having a higher urgency among contacts to be reported.

[0015]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the automatic notification device according to the present invention.

As shown, the automatic notification device 10
An apparatus for notifying the location information of the own vehicle to a predetermined contact when an emergency occurs in the own vehicle, comprising a position coordinate detecting means 12 (own vehicle position detecting means) and an emergency occurrence detecting means 1
4, control means 16 (notification means), storage means 18, information replacement means 20, communication means 22, emergency degree determination means 24, selection means 26, and notification order determination means 28.

The position coordinate detecting means 12 is means for detecting the position coordinates of the host vehicle, and uses a GPS, a geomagnetic sensor, a gyro or the like in a navigation system.

The emergency occurrence detection means 14 is a means for detecting that an emergency has occurred in the own vehicle, and a detection means corresponding to the mode of the emergency is used. For example, in the case of a vehicle accident, a G sensor or the like for operating an airbag that detects vehicle acceleration can be used. In the case of a vehicle failure, a safety monitor or the like that detects an abnormality of each part of the vehicle can be used. Can be used, and furthermore, in the case of deterioration of the health condition of the driver, the grip strength of the driver,
It is possible to use a grip force sensor, a sweat sensor, a pulse sensor, or the like provided on the steering wheel to detect a sweating state and a pulse.

When the occurrence of an emergency is detected by the emergency occurrence detecting means 14, the control means 16 determines the position information of the own vehicle in accordance with the communication system of the contact, out of the position coordinate data and the location name information. This is a means for selecting one of them and notifying the contact. The position coordinate data is the data of the position coordinate itself detected by the position coordinate detecting means 12 (for example, data including longitude and latitude), and the place name information is information of the place name corresponding to the position coordinate data. (For example, information in which the names of cities, towns and villages, names of roads on which the vehicle is running, names of nearest intersections, names of facilities, and the like are represented by voice data, character data, image data, and the like).

The above-mentioned contacts are telephones, facsimiles, etc. of ordinary households and repair shops, and computer terminals of fire departments, police stations, and the like. The communication is performed using a communication network 32 of a telephone line via the Internet. The communication is performed via the nearest base station 34. The information notified from the control means 16 to each contact includes not only the position information of the own vehicle but also ID information such as a vehicle number and a blood type of the driver.

The storage means 18 stores the position coordinate detecting means 1
The data of the position coordinates detected by 2 is stored while being rewritten as needed. Also, this storage means 1
8 stores in advance the ID information, the map data, the telephone number of the contact, and the like.

The information replacing means 20 converts the position coordinate data into the position coordinate data for a contact that cannot recognize the vehicle position only by the position coordinate data detected by the position coordinate detecting means 12. This is a means for replacing with corresponding point name information, and generates voice data by voice synthesis or the like and generates character data or image data according to the communication system of the contact.

The urgency determining means 24 is a means for determining the urgency of the emergency detected by the emergency occurrence detecting means 14. The type of the emergency occurrence detecting means 14 which outputs the detection signal and the emergency Situation detection means 1
Based on the level of the detection signal from the control unit 4, it is determined whether the emergency is a vehicle accident, a mere vehicle failure, a change in the physiological condition of the driver, and to what extent. ing. For example, if there is a detection signal from the G sensor provided in each part of the vehicle body, it is considered that a collision accident has occurred. If there is a detection signal from the inertia switch, it is considered that a vehicle rollover accident has occurred. If there is a signal, it is considered that a submergence accident has occurred, if there is a detection signal from a safety monitor etc., it is considered that a vehicle failure has occurred, and if there is a detection signal from a grip sensor, the driver's health condition has deteriorated. Conceivable. Further, for example, even if the detection signal is from the same G sensor, if there is a detection signal from the G sensor for operating the airbag, it is considered that a serious accident involving human life has occurred, and the detection from other G sensors has occurred. In the case of traffic lights, it is considered a relatively minor accident. Therefore, the urgency level determination means 24 determines the urgency level by integrating these detection signals.

The selection means 26 is provided with an emergency degree determination means 2
This is a means for selecting a contact based on the determination result of step 4. For example, in the case of a vehicle accident, if the accident is a major accident, the contact may be fire department, police station, home, JAF, and work place.
(That is, both the first and second contact groups) , and if the accident is a light accident, the home and JAF (that is, one contact
Only the first group) .

The above-mentioned report order determining means 28 comprises the selecting means 2
6. When there are a plurality of contacts included in the contact group selected by step 6, a means for determining the order of notification to each of these contacts. For example, in the case of the vehicle accident, The order of reporting is as follows: fire department-police station-home-JAF-office.
To home.

The degree of urgency and the order of notification are stored in the storage unit 1.
8 is stored.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an example of the control contents of the control means 16.

First, the position coordinates of the host vehicle are calculated based on the detection signal from the position coordinate detecting means 12 and stored in the storage means 18 as position coordinate data (step S1, step S1).
S2).

The above operation is repeatedly performed at predetermined time intervals (for example, every one second) in a normal state. However, when the emergency occurrence detecting means 14 detects that an accident has occurred in the own vehicle, for example, The degree of an accident is determined by the emergency degree determining means 24 (steps S3 and S4).

Then, based on the judgment result of the urgency degree judging means 24, a contact according to the degree of the accident is selected by the selecting means 26, and the order of notification to each of these contacts is changed to the order of notification. Determined by the determining means 28 (steps S5 and S6). That is, in the case of a major accident, the order is determined in the order of fire department-police station-home-JAF-workplace, and in the case of a minor accident, JAF-home is determined.

The accident degree and the notification order are stored in the storage means 1
The telephone number of the first priority contact is stored in the storage unit 18 and an automatic call is made to this contact (steps S7 and S8).

This automatic transmission signal is a signal of a communication agreement such as a transmission speed and a transmission format. Therefore, when the communication system on the receiving side is a computer terminal, a response to the automatic transmission signal can be obtained. However, when the communication system on the receiving side is a telephone, etc., the contents of the automatic transmission signal cannot be understood at all. , No response is obtained. Therefore, it is determined whether the communication system on the receiving side is a computer terminal based on the presence or absence of this response (step S9).
Is transmitted as it is (step S).
10) On the other hand, if it is not a computer terminal, these stored data are once input to the information replacing means 20 to create transmission data (voice data, character data or image data) and transmit this transmission data ( Step S1
1, S12, S13).

The transmission data includes the location name information replaced from the position coordinate data. The replacement and creation of the location name information are performed as follows. That is, based on the position coordinate data, the name of the municipalities corresponding to the position coordinate data from the map data, the name of the road on which the vehicle is traveling, the name of the nearest intersection, the name of the facility, etc. are read from the storage means 18 and these are read out by the information replacing means 20 and input the position coordinates of the own vehicle, names of municipalities, running roads, names of nearest intersections and facilities, and positional relationships between these intersections, facilities, and the own vehicle (for example, a point 200 m west from the OX intersection). Create voice data and the like expressing

Next, after the notification is made, the communication circuit is temporarily disconnected (step S14). Then, the above-mentioned notification (automatic transmission and transmission of the position information) is sequentially performed to the contacts having the second priority or lower, and when the notification is completed for all the contacts, the above control is ended (step S15).

In the above flowchart, a vehicle accident is taken as an example of an emergency situation. However, the same control is performed when a situation such as a vehicle failure or deterioration of the driver's health condition occurs.

As described in detail above, according to this embodiment,
When an emergency occurs, the contact information to be reported is selected according to the degree of urgency. can do.

Further, according to the present embodiment, the selected communication
If there are multiple contacts in the group of contacts, the order of reporting to each of these contacts is determined, so the more urgent of the contacts to be reported is Notification can be made promptly.

According to this embodiment, when an emergency occurs, one of the position coordinate data and the location name information is selected as the location information of the own vehicle according to the communication system of the contact. The above-mentioned contact is reported to the above-mentioned contacts, so the position coordinate data is reported to the contacts who can recognize the vehicle position only by the position coordinate data, and the location name information is reported to the contacts that cannot be recognized. By doing so, wasteful notification of unnecessary information can be prevented.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an automatic notification device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the above embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Automatic notification apparatus 12 Position coordinate detection means (own vehicle position detection means) 14 Emergency occurrence detection means 16 Control means (notification means) 18 Storage means 20 Information replacement means 22 Communication means 24 Emergency degree determination means 26 Selection means 28 Notification order Decision means

────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-4-57198 (JP, A) JP-A-1-298856 (JP, A) JP-A-3-283962 (JP, A) JP-A-3-283 6166 (JP, A) (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G08G 1/09 G08G 1/123 H04M 11/04 G08G 1/13

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. An automatic reporting device for reporting location information of a host vehicle to a predetermined contact when an emergency situation occurs in the host vehicle, a host vehicle position detecting means for detecting the location of the host vehicle, and a host vehicle Emergency occurrence detection means for detecting the occurrence of an emergency, emergency degree determination means for determining the degree of emergency of the detected emergency, and selection means for selecting a contact based on the result of the determination. Reporting means for reporting the position information of the vehicle to the contact selected by the selecting means, wherein a first and a second contact group are set as the contacts, The means, when the degree of urgency of the predetermined emergency is lower than the predetermined, the one of the first and second contacts
While selecting only a group , when the urgency of the predetermined emergency is equal to or higher than the predetermined, the first and second contact addresses
An automatic notification device configured to select both groups . 2. A contact group selected by said selecting means.
2. The automatic notification device according to claim 1, further comprising: a notification order determination unit that determines an order of notification to each of the contacts when there are a plurality of contacts included in the notification.