JPH0585960B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a system for a vehicle that guides a vehicle along a preset route while displaying the shape and traveling direction of the intersection before the next intersection it encounters. The present invention relates to a route guidance device.

[Technical background of the invention and its problems]

A vehicle route guidance device is a device that displays a preset expected route for a vehicle on the screen of a display device, and uses this display to guide the vehicle to its destination (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 55-86000, In this guidance operation, when the vehicle approaches the next intersection to be passed, the shape of the intersection and the direction in which the vehicle will pass through the intersection are displayed on the display device and the vehicle is guided. I'm trying to guide you in the direction you should go.

By the way, conventionally, when displaying the shape of an intersection using such a display device, the directions of roads branching from the intersection are fixed to, for example, eight directions, and the thickness of each branching road is also used in segments of the same thickness. I am doing it. For this reason, for example, even though the left-turning road is actually very wide and the straight-on and right-turning roads are narrow, all roads are displayed with the same width, and the shape of the intersection is not accurately displayed. The problem is that it is not. For this reason, a driver who is driving a vehicle while looking at such a display may be confused and think that the intersection is different from the actual intersection.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in view of the above, and its object is to provide a vehicle route guidance device that accurately displays the shape of an intersection and accurately guides a vehicle.

[Summary of the invention]

In order to achieve the above purpose, in a vehicle route guidance device that displays the shape and traveling direction of the intersection before the next intersection to be passed and guides the vehicle along a preset guidance route, The present invention has a display means 9 for displaying the shape of the intersection so that the shape of the intersection is displayed. "In order to achieve the above purpose, a vehicle route guidance device that displays the shape and traveling direction of the intersection before the next intersection to be passed and guides the vehicle along a preset guidance route. As shown in FIG. 1, the present invention includes a route storage means 1 that stores a vehicle guidance route, an extension direction storage means 2 that stores the extension direction of each road at each intersection, and A road width storage means 3 for storing the road width of each road at an intersection, a current position detection means 5 for detecting the current position of the vehicle, and a current position and route storage means 1 for the vehicle detected by the current position detection means 5. An intersection detection means 7 that detects the next intersection that the vehicle will pass from the stored guidance route, a direction detection means 8 that detects the direction of travel of the vehicle, and a direction of travel of the vehicle detected by this direction detection means 8. and angle calculation means 11 for calculating the relative angle of each road with respect to the vehicle approach direction at the next intersection to be passed based on the extension direction of each road at the next intersection to be passed, which is stored in the extension direction storage means 2. and a readout means 13 for reading out the road width of the road at the next intersection to be passed from the road width storage means 3, based on the relative angle calculated by the angle calculation means 11 and the road width read out by the readout means 13. The present invention has a shape calculation means 15 for calculating the shape of the intersection based on the approach direction of the vehicle, and a display means 9 for displaying the shape of the intersection calculated by the shape calculation means 15.

[Embodiments of the invention]

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

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a route guidance device for a vehicle according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the same figure, 21
is an arithmetic unit composed of, for example, a microcomputer. This calculation unit 21 is connected to its input side with a mileage sensor 23 and a direction sensor 25, a map data storage device 29 in which data related to a road map is stored, and a setting device 30 for setting a guidance route. has been done. On the other hand, the calculation section 21
A display device 33 is connected to its output side via a display storage device 31 that temporarily stores display information signals. That is, according to such a configuration,
When setting a guidance route, the calculation unit 21 calculates the guidance route using the map data stored in the map data storage device 29 based on the positional information regarding the departure point and destination inputted by the setting device 30. During guidance control, the position of the own vehicle is detected from the detection signals from the mileage sensor 23 and the direction sensor 25, and the detected position is compared with the guidance route and monitored, and the position error is corrected as appropriate. It is possible to provide guidance by displaying the shape of the intersection and the direction of travel through correction and the display device 33. Further, the calculation unit 21 includes a calculation device 35 that executes the above-described processing, and a processed data storage device 37 that stores various data processed by the calculation device 35.

In this embodiment, when the vehicle approaches the next intersection to be passed, the shape of the intersection and the direction of travel at the intersection are displayed on the display device 33 to guide the vehicle. In order to display the shape of the intersection in this case as close to the actual shape as possible, the map data storage device 29 stores shape information of each intersection within the range where the vehicle is traveling.
This is what I remember. In order to accurately display the shape of an intersection, it is necessary to accurately display at least the direction of each road extending from the intersection and the width of each road extending from the intersection. However, the map data storage device 29
stores information regarding the direction and width of each road extending from each such intersection.

FIG. 3 shows the structure of data stored in the map data storage device 29. The map data storage device 29 divides the driving area into a plurality of blocks, nine in this example, as shown in FIG. It memorizes the numbers of all intersections (Figure 3 b, c). In addition, for each intersection, as shown in Figure 3d, the intersection type (2 bits), the X coordinate (9 bits) and Y coordinate (8 bits) representing the coordinate position of the intersection, and the intersection name (12 bytes) are stored. Information is commonly stored for each intersection, and for each road extending from the intersection, the number (2 bytes (or number of lanes)) of the adjacent intersection via the road, the number of the intersection It stores information on the number (2 bytes), the direction in which the road extends (1 byte), the distance between the intersection and the adjacent intersection (2 bytes), and the width of the road (2 bits or the number of lanes). ing. FIGS. 3c and 3d show an intersection with intersection number 3, and show an example in which four roads extend from this intersection.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the overall operation of the vehicle route guidance system. It is roughly divided into processing flows (steps 200 to 700) for guiding and controlling the vehicle to the destination. In these processing flows, the intersection shape display processing for achieving the above-mentioned object of the present invention is provided between steps 220 and 230 and is achieved by steps 810 to 890 of the processing flow shown in FIG. . The other processing flow shown in FIG. 4 other than this intersection shape display processing is the same as the processing flow described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application No. 59-242435, so a description thereof will be omitted.

Next, the intersection shape display processing flow shown in FIG. 5 will be explained with reference to FIGS. 6 to 8. Note that this intersection shape display processing operation is performed under the control of the calculation unit 21 while reading the intersection information from the map data storage device 29, and the intersection shape depiction data formed as a result is stored in the display storage device 31.
The information is temporarily stored in , and displayed on the display device 33 from there.

Now, the vehicle is at the intersection PKNO as shown in Figure 6.
, the vehicle is proceeding towards the next intersection KNO, and then the vehicle turns left at the next intersection KNO and then turns right at the next intersection NKNO.

The calculation unit 21 receives intersection information indicating that the last intersection PKNO has been passed, and the mileage sensor 2.
3 and the current position of the vehicle detected from the mileage information and heading information from the azimuth sensor 25;
Then, based on the route information set in advance, the next intersection KNO on the driving route to pass through and the intersection NKNO to pass after that are detected (step 810), and information about the next intersection KNO is first extended from this intersection KNO. The directions of all roads are read from the map data storage device 29. Then, based on this read direction information, the intersection is
The relative angle θ of each road with respect to the direction of vehicle entry into the KNO is determined, and the roads are sorted in descending order of relative angle θ (steps 820 and 830). In the illustrated example, the intersection KNO branches into three roads, excluding the vehicle approach route, as shown in Figure 7, and the relative angle of each road to the approach route is θ.
1, θ2, and θ3, and these angles are arranged in ascending order. Next, the intersection KNO to pass next detected as described above, the intersection to pass next
The direction in which the vehicle will travel through the intersection KNO is determined from the NKNO (step 840). Next, the width of each branch road whose angle order has been determined as described above is read from the map data storage device 29 (step 850).

The shape data of the intersection KNO, that is, the intersection drawing data, is created with the direction in which the vehicle enters the intersection KNO as the front, based on the orientation, road width, and vehicle traveling direction of each branch road at the intersection KNO obtained as above. and stored in the display storage device 31 (step 860). Further, on the intersection drawing data created in this way, data for drawing arrows indicating the direction of movement of the vehicle, that is, the direction in which the vehicle enters and exits the intersection KNO, is created and similarly stored in the display storage device 31 (step 870). ). Creating such drawing data is done when the vehicle is at an intersection in front of it.
Immediately after passing PKNO, the next step is to check whether the vehicle has come 500 meters before the intersection KNO (step 880). When the vehicle comes 500m before the intersection KNO, the drawing data stored in the display storage device 31 is supplied to the display device 33 to display the shape and traveling direction of the intersection KNO as shown in FIG. An arrow indicating this is displayed (step 890). The shape of the intersection KNO displayed in this way is determined based on the information stored in the map data storage device 29 regarding the width and direction of each branch road, that is, the shape is exactly the same as that of the actual road. Since the information is displayed, the driver can confirm the intersection and proceed smoothly without being confused. Furthermore, after you arrive 500m before the intersection, the intersection display as shown in Figure 8 will change to the lower part of the arrow in Figure 8, that is, the lower end of the arrow indicating the approach direction, every time you proceed 50m further. The section display disappears little by little and becomes shorter as you approach the intersection. Then, come 100m before the intersection.
The arrow part is flashing, that is, the point is reduced to more clearly indicate to the driver the direction of travel at the intersection.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, the shape of each intersection is practically adjusted so that the direction and width of each road branching from each intersection are accurately displayed according to the intersection shape information from the intersection information storage means. Since the shape of the intersection, especially the display of the branching direction and road width, is displayed accurately and in accordance with the actual intersection, drivers can easily confirm that the actual intersection matches the displayed intersection. It is possible to quickly confirm without being confused, and to guide the user accurately and quickly.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram corresponding to claims of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a configuration of a vehicle route guidance device showing an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is map data storage used in the vehicle route guidance device of FIG. 2. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the vehicle route guidance device of FIG. 2, and FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the structure of data stored in the device.
A flowchart showing the intersection shape display process, which is a part of the flowchart in the figure, Figures 6 and 7 are diagrams used to explain the flow in Figure 5, and Figure 8 shows the intersection shape and vehicle display process. It is a figure which shows an example of the display on a display device which shows the advancing direction to guide|guide. 1...Route storage means, 3...Intersection information storage means, 5...Current position detection means, 7...Intersection detection means, 9...Display means.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A vehicle route guidance device that displays the shape and traveling direction of the intersection before the next intersection to be passed and guides the vehicle along a preset guidance route, comprising: route storage means for storing the road width at each intersection; road width storage means for storing the road width of each road at each intersection; and road width storage means for storing the road width of each road at each intersection. current position detection means for detecting the current position of the vehicle; intersection detection means for detecting the next intersection the vehicle will pass from the current position of the vehicle detected by the current position detection means and the guidance route stored in the route storage means; a direction detecting means for detecting the traveling direction of the vehicle; and a direction detecting means for detecting the traveling direction of the vehicle; Angle calculation means for calculating the relative angle of the road with respect to the approach direction of the vehicle at the intersection to be passed through; reading means for reading out the road width of the road at the intersection to be passed next from the road width storage means; a shape calculation means for calculating an intersection shape based on the approach direction of the vehicle based on the calculated relative angle and the road width read by the reading means; and a display for displaying the intersection shape calculated by the shape calculation means. A route guidance device for a vehicle, characterized in that it has means.