JPH026714A - Navigation system for vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obstruct oversight of a main intersection by providing a voice reproducing means on an operation processing control part, and allowing an information storage medium to store path guidance data of each advance direction in the main intersection together with the corresponding map data. CONSTITUTION:Road data consists of plural nodes, the node which a road crosses is used as an intersection node and this intersection node is used as an index of guidance data. First of all, a navigation control part 2 determines a running road number by the present position which is calculated. Subsequently, by searching a data table of every road number, the advance direction is determined. Next, the next intersection node is retrieved, and intersection information of the advance direction concerned is inputted. Thereafter, whether the guidance data exists or not is checked, and when voice data exists, the data is outputted to a voice reproducing means 7, and from a loudspeaker 8, a path guidance corresponding to the advance direction is outputted by a voice. Also, in the case of display data, data (bit image data) is outputted to a CRT 5, and the path guidance is displayed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a vehicle navigation system that informs a driver of the vehicle's current position, trajectory, traveling direction, and other moving conditions on a screen or the like.

[Conventional technology]

The navigation system is
It has been used in the fields of aircraft and ships for a long time. On the other hand, until recently, navigation devices for automobiles were almost unthinkable, except in deserts. However, in recent years, not only inertial navigation devices for military vehicles have appeared, but also simple inertial navigation devices for general automobiles have become commercially available, and it has become common sense for automobiles to use navigation as well. It came to be.

Recently, with this type of vehicle navigation device, a map is converted into digital information pixel by pixel in raster mode and stored in a recording medium in advance, and map information of the area where the vehicle is planned to be traveled is read out from the storage medium and the driving trajectory is read out. displayed on the display screen with
A device that displays service information such as road guidance superimposed on the screen has been developed and put into practical use (see Figure 7).

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, in vehicle navigation devices, relatively small display screens are generally used due to space issues, which often causes the inconvenience of missing major intersections and targets on the map. There is.

Furthermore, when passing through an intersection, the user is often distracted by the two display screens, which poses a safety problem.

Furthermore, if the current position on the display screen differs from the actual driving position due to a positioning error of the device, it is difficult to notice it unless you look carefully at the contents displayed on the screen.

[Purpose of the invention]

The purpose of the present invention is to improve the disadvantages of the conventional example, and in particular, to effectively prevent overlooking of major intersections, targets, etc. on the map, and to effectively reduce inattentive driving when passing through intersections, etc. It is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle navigation device that can be used in a vehicle.

[Means to solve the problem]

In the present invention, there is provided a position detecting means for detecting the constantly changing moving position of the vehicle and outputting a signal corresponding to the position;
Calculate the position on the dimensional coordinates.

An arithmetic processing control unit that holds this determined position data and performs overall centralized control, an information storage medium that stores necessary map information, etc. in advance, and a storage medium that reads necessary information from this information storage medium. The present invention includes a reproduction means and a display means for displaying the map and the movement position in an overlapping manner on the same screen based on the detected vehicle position data and map image information. Then, the arithmetic processing control unit is equipped with an audio reproduction means and a speaker for audio output, and the information storage medium stores in advance route guidance data for each direction of travel at major intersections together with the corresponding map data, and the arithmetic processing is performed. The control section is configured to have a function of reading out the route guidance data via the storage medium reproducing means as necessary and displaying a sign on the screen of the display means 9 or outputting sound from the speaker. This aims to achieve the above-mentioned purpose.

[Embodiments of the invention]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 6.

The embodiment shown in FIG. 1 includes a position detecting means 1 which detects the moving position of the vehicle which changes from moment to moment and outputs a signal corresponding to the detected position, and a position detecting means 1 which detects the moving position of the vehicle which changes from time to time and outputs a signal corresponding to the detected position. The position on the two-dimensional coordinates for each unit mileage is determined by calculation, and the data of the determined position on the two-dimensional coordinates that changes step by step is sequentially stored in the internal memory to create a finite series corresponding to the current position of the vehicle. A navigation control unit 2 serves as an arithmetic processing control unit that holds information as information and performs centralized control of the entire device, and an information storage unit that stores map information etc. that have been digitalized pixel by pixel in raster mode in advance. A medium 3, a storage medium reproducing means 4 for reading out necessary map information, etc. from the storage medium 3, and displaying a map surface image on a screen according to the read map information and storing it in the navigation control unit 2. Based on the position data, the CRT 5 serves as a display means for constantly updating and displaying the vehicle's current position, current direction of travel, trajectory of movement up to that point, etc. on the same screen, and gives commands to selectively display map information to the navigation control unit 2. ,CR
Shifting the display position of the map and movement trajectory displayed on T5, changing display format settings such as partially enlarged display of the map and movement trajectory 1 selection of display scale, searching for the map and movement trajectory, etc. as appropriate. It is equipped with an operating means 6 that can

Of these, the position detection means 1 is actually a photoelectric type that outputs a pulse signal proportional to the number of rotations of the tie A.

Distance detectors consisting of electromagnetic sensors etc. that generate signals according to the distance traveled by the vehicle, and direction detectors such as geomagnetic compasses that detect the absolute direction and output signals corresponding to the moving direction of the moving object. It consists of

In this embodiment, a CDROM, which is a type of non-volatile memory, is used as the information storage medium 3 in consideration of its characteristics such as an access time of 3 seconds or less and a large storage capacity.

In this embodiment, the navigation control unit 2 is further provided with an audio reproduction means 7 and a speaker 8 for outputting audio, so that route guidance according to the direction of travel is provided by audio before major intersections, as will be described later. It is about to be done.

In the information storage medium 3, route guidance data for each direction of travel at major intersections is stored in advance together with map data corresponding thereto.

Next, the basic operation of the above embodiment will be explained.

First, when the vehicle is traveling, when the driver selects a map in the area to be traveled by specifying a map number using the operating means 6, the navigation control unit 2 uses the storage medium reproducing means 4 in response to the map selection input. The map information in a predetermined memory block is read out from the information storage medium 3 via the information storage medium 3, and the read map information is sent to the CRT 5 to display a map of the planned travel area on the screen. At this time, the navigation control unit 2 stores the map information read from the information storage medium 3 in an internal RAM (not shown), and constantly reads the map information from the RAM.
By supplying the information to RT5, a predetermined map is continuously displayed on the screen.

Next, a current position display mark (see N in Fig. 2) indicating the current position and direction of travel is displayed on the screen of the CRT 5 by the manual key input from the operating means 6, and then the current position is displayed by operating a switch on the operating means 6. Shift the mark so that it is at the starting point position on the display map, and initialize the display mark.

Thereafter, when the vehicle starts traveling, one pulse signal is sent to the navigation control unit 2 for each unit traveling distance from the distance detector constituting the position detection means 1.
The output of the direction detector is also sent to the navigation control unit 2, where the distance traveled and the direction of travel of the vehicle at each moment are determined. The navigation control unit 2 continuously updates the current position (x, y) on the XY coordinates according to a preset map scale based on the detected vehicle travel distance and change in direction as described above. The calculation results are sequentially sent to the CRT 5 and stored in the internal memory.

Here, the stored contents are constantly read out and continuously sent to the CRT 5. At the same time, a direction signal at the current position is sequentially sent from the navigation control unit 2 to the CRT 5.

In this way, the CRT 5 displays a display mark N1 indicating the current position of the vehicle on the travel schedule map displayed on its screen.
Also, a movement trajectory display mark from the starting point to the current position is displayed in a simulated manner, following the movement state of the vehicle.

In addition to the basic operations described above, in this embodiment, as described above, route guidance according to the direction of travel of the vehicle is provided by voice or road sign display before major intersections. Next, this will be explained along the flowchart of FIG.

As shown in Fig. 4, the road data consists of multiple nodes and
It is vector data consisting of links connecting adjacent nodes, and a node where roads intersect is an intersection node, and this intersection node is an index of guidance data.

FIG. 5 shows an example of the configuration of road data stored in the information storage medium 3, in which node #1 is an intersection node and has route guidance data, and forward direction data is audio data. The data in the opposite direction is the displayed data.

First, the navigation control unit 2 determines the traveling road number based on the current position calculated based on the detection result of the position detection means 1 (SIOI).

Next, the data table for each road number is searched to determine the direction of travel (S102). Next, search for the next intersection node and import the intersection information for the corresponding direction of travel (
S103). Then, it is checked whether there is any guidance data (5104), and if there is, the data type (audio data or display data) is determined (S105). In the case of audio data, the data (digital pig) is output to the audio reproduction means 7, and finally route guidance according to the direction of travel is output from the speaker 8 in audio form (S106).

On the other hand, in the case of display data, the data (focus image data) is output to the CRT 5, and route guidance is displayed on the CRT 5 (S107).

Here, route guidance using audio data will be specifically explained using the map display example shown in FIG. 2 as an example.

When the vehicle is traveling north as shown in FIG. 2 (■), the speaker 8 outputs route guidance such as "Go left for Nagoya, right for Shizuoka, and straight for Kamoeji." As shown in ■ in the same figure, if you are heading west, the directions are as follows: ``Left for Hamamatsu Station, right for Kamoeji Temple; 6. For Nagoya direction:
While heading south as shown in ■, the route guidance for "go straight ahead" is "Left for Shizuoka, right for Nagoya, right for Hamamatsu Station.
While heading east as shown in ■, the route guidance for "go straight ahead" is as shown in ■: [Left for Kamoe Temple, right for Hamamatsu Station, right for Shizuoka.
The route guidance "Go straight ahead" is outputted as voice from the speaker 8.

When route guidance is performed using display data, road signs such as those shown in FIGS. 2 and 6 are displayed on the display screen of the CRT 5, respectively, as shown in FIGS. 6 and 6.

In the above embodiment, a sensor that detects an absolute azimuth is used as the direction detector, but a rate type gyro or the like that detects angular velocity in the same direction may also be used.

〔Effect of the invention〕

Since the present invention is configured and functions as described above, 11~According to this, route guidance according to the direction of travel at major intersections is provided by voice or sign display. It is possible to effectively avoid the inconvenience of overlooking the driver, and since route guidance is provided by audio or by displaying guidance signs, you can confirm your destination without looking at the display screen at all, or just by looking at it slightly, so when passing through an intersection. It is possible to provide an unprecedented and excellent vehicle navigation system that can effectively reduce inattentive driving caused by being distracted by a display screen.

Furthermore, even if the current position on the map and the actual driving position do not match due to magnetization of the geomagnetic sensor, etc., there is an advantage that this can be detected immediately.

Further, in the above embodiment, the case where the position detection means is composed of a distance detector and a direction detector is illustrated, but for example, a method using an artificial satellite for position detection, so-called G P
Global Positioning
stem) etc. may be used.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a map displayed on the CRT display screen of FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the operation procedure of route guidance. Flowchart, FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the relationship between road links and nodes,
Figure 5 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of road data, Figures 6 (■ to ■) are diagrams showing route guidance using sign displays corresponding to ■ to ■ in Figure 2, respectively, and Figure 7 is an example of a conventional map display. FIG. ■...Position detection means, 2...Navigation control unit as arithmetic processing control unit, 3...
Information storage medium, 4...Storage medium reproducing means, 5.
. . . CRT as display means, 7 . . . Audio reproduction means, 8 . . . Speaker. Patent Applicant Suzuki Motor Co., Ltd. Agent Patent Attorney Isamu Takahashi (J-

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A position detection means that detects the constantly changing moving position of the vehicle and outputs a signal corresponding to the position, and a position on the two-dimensional coordinates of the vehicle that changes every moment according to the detection signal from the position detecting means. an arithmetic processing control unit that calculates the obtained position data and centrally controls the entire system, an information storage medium that stores necessary map information, etc. in advance, and reads the necessary information from this information storage medium. In a vehicle navigation device, the vehicle navigation device is equipped with a storage medium reproducing means for displaying a map and a display means for superimposing a map and a display relating to a moving position on the same screen based on detected vehicle position data and map image information. , the arithmetic processing control unit is provided with an audio reproduction means and a speaker for audio output, and the information storage medium stores in advance route guidance data for each direction of travel at major intersections together with the corresponding map data; The arithmetic processing control unit has a function of reading out the route guidance data as necessary via the storage medium reproducing means and displaying a sign on the screen of the display means or outputting sound from the speaker. Featured vehicle navigation equipment.