JPH07260499A - Vehicle navigation device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce the processing load of a map matching in a navigation device and at the same time improve accuracy and achieve original navigation functions also for a road which is not registered in a basic map which a system has. CONSTITUTION:The driving information of vehicle obtained from a sensor part 1 and the basic map information of an auxiliary storage M1 and the new map information of an auxiliary storage M2 are subjected to operation and synthesis by an operation part 6 and a current vehicle position and the surrounding map are displayed, at the same time data which at least do not match the basic map information out of data in the driving information are recorded in the auxiliary storage M2 as data for constituting operation information, and then the data in the work information are registered as data for constituting the new map information under sitting conditions, thus reducing the processing load of map mapping even when driving a road not listed in the basic road data, thus speeding up decision time and improving accuracy and further achieving original navigation functions.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vehicle navigation device for displaying the current position of a vehicle together with a map of the surrounding area.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a navigation device for a vehicle such as an automobile has been developed to display a map of the current position of the vehicle and its surroundings on a screen of a display device to assist a driver in traveling.

This navigation device is generally shown in FIG.
The system configuration is as shown in FIG. 2, and the sensor unit 100 that collects the traveling information of the vehicle, the read-only auxiliary storage device 101 that stores the basic map data, the map, the vehicle position, the direction, the time, etc. are displayed. An information display unit 102, an operation unit 103 for inputting an operation for changing the scale of a map, a detailed display of a place name, a region information display, and the like, and traveling information obtained from the sensor unit 100 and the auxiliary storage device 101. An arithmetic unit that calculates and synthesizes map information obtained from the above and sends the result to the information display unit 102 based on an operation signal sent from the operation unit 103, and displays a map of the current position of the vehicle and its surroundings. It is composed of 104.

In this case, the information from the sensor section 100 contains an unavoidable error, and due to this error, the current position of the vehicle may deviate from the road on the basic map owned by the system. . For example, in the case of receiving the radio wave from a positioning satellite and measuring the absolute position of the vehicle, the traveling distance of the radio wave from the satellite changes when traveling on a mountain road, and the reflected wave from the mountain As the error increases, the detected position of the vehicle deviates from the position on the map where it should be. Further, in the case where the relative position of the vehicle is measured by the direction sensor such as the distance sensor and the geomagnetic sensor, when the vehicle travels on the iron bridge or the like, the vehicle body is magnetized and an error occurs. It will deviate from the position on the map.

Therefore, in the conventional navigation system, a so-called map matching process is carried out in which the running locus of the vehicle is recognized by pattern recognition or the like to forcibly match with the map. Of the map information obtained from the device 101, a section (α
The map data of the section) is roads a, b, as shown in FIG.
When the travel information as shown in FIG. 14 is obtained, the travel locus is not on the coordinates of roads a and b, but travels from T0 point to T2 point via T1 point. Since the locus is similar to the route from the road a to the road b, the road is forcibly driven from the point T0 to the point T1,
It is recognized that the vehicle is traveling from point T1 to point T2 on road b.

On the other hand, in the α section, when the traveling information as shown in FIG. 15 is obtained, there is no road information between the points T1 and T3, but on the road a there are points T0 to T1. It does not recognize that it is traveling from T1 point to T2 point on road b, and it travels on road a from T0 point to T1 point, passing through an unregistered road to T3 point from T1 point. It is recognized that the vehicle is traveling from the point T3 to the point T4 on the road c. Such a process is made to correspond to more complicated map information, and high-speed and error-free map matching is performed.

A technique of such a map matching process is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2-266219, and in this prior art, the position of the vehicle is calculated every moment by calculating the traveling distance and the traveling direction of the vehicle. The position of the vehicle that changes is displayed as a running locus along with surrounding road information, and if there is a deviation between the actual running locus and the running locus of the vehicle displayed on the display screen, While extracting road information similar to the traveling locus from the inside and correcting the traveling locus displayed on the display means according to the extracted road information, when traveling on an unregistered road not displayed on the display screen, By prohibiting the modification of the vehicle's running locus (prohibiting map matching), the running locus of the vehicle displayed on the display screen can be matched with the actual running locus. .

[0008]

As described above, conventionally, in the navigation device, the map matching
Although the running locus of the vehicle is made to coincide with the displayed road, it is impossible to completely eliminate the error of this map matching, and as shown in FIG. If the vehicle travels on a road that is not registered in the owned basic map, it cannot be determined which one of the roads a, b, and c is traveling, and the calculation unit 104 will be heavily burdened.

In this case, it is possible to reduce the load on the calculation unit 104 by prohibiting the map matching as in the above-mentioned prior example, but the original function as navigation for an unregistered road. Will be lost.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and reduces the map matching processing load in the navigation device and improves accuracy, and also for roads not registered in the basic map owned by the system. It is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle navigation device capable of realizing the original navigation function.

[0011]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is a vehicle navigation device for displaying the current position of a vehicle together with surrounding map information, and a first read-only storage means for storing basic map information and the basic map. A readable / writable second storage means for recording new map information that complements the information and work information based on the traveling information of the vehicle; and checking the consistency between the map information including at least the basic map information and the traveling information, Data in the travel information that does not match the map information is recorded in the second storage means as data that constitutes the work information, and the data in the work information under the set conditions is data that constitutes the new map information. And a new map information creating means registered as.

[0012]

According to the present invention, the consistency between the traveling information of the vehicle and the map information including at least the basic map information is checked, and the data in the traveling information that does not match the map information is recorded as the data constituting the work information. Then, the data in the work information is registered as data constituting the new map information under the set conditions, the basic map information is complemented by the new map information, and the current position of the vehicle is displayed together with the surrounding map information.

[0013]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1 to 11 relate to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 1 is a functional configuration diagram of a navigation device, FIG. 2 is a circuit configuration diagram of the navigation device, FIG. 3 is a flowchart of map matching processing, and FIG. FIG. 5 is an explanatory view showing basic map data of the α section, FIG. 6 is an explanatory view showing new map data of the α section, FIG. 7 is an explanatory view showing synthetic map data of the α section, and FIG. 8 is a work. FIG. 9 is an explanatory view showing data, FIG. 9 is an explanatory view showing work data in which traveling data is written, FIG. 10 is an explanatory view showing new map data to which new data of α section is added, and FIG. 11 is registration of work data. It is explanatory drawing which shows and deletion.

The navigation device according to the present invention is shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 1, a sensor unit 1 that collects travel information related to the absolute position or relative position of the vehicle, an auxiliary storage device M1 as a read-only first storage unit that stores basic map information, new map information to be described later, and Auxiliary storage device M as a readable / writable second storage means for recording work information
2. An information display unit 4 for displaying a map, a vehicle position, a direction, a time, etc., a scale change of the map, a detailed display of a place name, an operation unit 5 for inputting an operation for switching the display to regional information, and the above-mentioned. The vehicle travel information obtained from the sensor unit 1 and the basic map information and the new map information are calculated and combined,
The operation section 5 is provided with a result of the operation based on an operation signal sent from the operation section 5 to display a map of the current position of the vehicle and its surroundings.

Of the data in the travel information, the arithmetic unit 6 also records at least data that does not match the basic map information in the auxiliary storage device M2 as data that constitutes the work information, and under the set conditions. Has a function as a new map information creating means for registering the data in the work information as data forming the new map information, and as shown in FIG. 2, for example, CPU 11, ROM 12, RAM 1
3. The microcomputer 10 including the interface circuit 14.

CPU 1 of the microcomputer 10
1, a wheel speed sensor 15 and a geomagnetic sensor 16 which form the sensor unit 1, a CD-ROM device 17 corresponding to the auxiliary storage device M1, a magneto-optical disk device 18 corresponding to the auxiliary storage device M2, and the information. A liquid crystal display 19 corresponding to the display unit 4, for example, a keyboard 20 provided integrally with the liquid crystal display 19 and corresponding to the operation unit 5 is connected via the interface circuit 14.

The wheel speed sensor 15 is composed of an electromagnetic pickup or the like which is installed so as to face the outer circumference of the rotor fixed to the wheel. The wheel speed sensor 15 detects a protrusion on the outer circumference of the rotor which rotates as the vehicle travels, and outputs a pulse signal. Output. Further, the geomagnetic sensor 16 is a sensor for detecting an absolute traveling direction of the vehicle, and the relative position of the vehicle can be detected from the traveling direction by the geomagnetic sensor 16 and the traveling distance by the wheel speed sensor 15. .

Further, the CD-ROM device 17 is a read-only CD-R in which map data including known road information is read as a data file of basic map information held by the system.
It is recorded on the OM and you can receive regular update service. On the other hand, the magneto-optical disc device 18 recognizes that the vehicle has traveled on an unregistered road in the traveling information based on the signals from the wheel speed sensor 15 and the geomagnetic sensor 16 by the map matching processing described later, The new map information newly registered to complement the basic map information is written on the readable / writable magneto-optical disk as a work data file and a new map data file, respectively.

In the microcomputer 10, the CPU 11 controls the entire device in accordance with a control program stored in the ROM 12, and the pulse signals from the wheel speed sensor 15 which are output each time the vehicle travels are integrated to integrate the vehicle. The traveling distance of the vehicle is detected, the relative position of the vehicle is detected based on the traveling distance and the signal from the geomagnetic sensor 16, and then the basic map data from the CD-ROM device 17 and the map data from the magneto-optical disk device 18 are detected. Also, the work data is read out, the map matching processing is performed, and the current position of the vehicle and a map of the surrounding area are displayed on the liquid crystal display 19.

The sensor unit 1 includes a geomagnetic sensor 1
Instead of 6, a gyro sensor that detects the relative traveling direction of the vehicle may be used, and a receiver that receives radio waves from positioning satellites such as the Global Positioning Satellite System (GPS) may be used. The provision may be made to detect the absolute position of the vehicle.

As the auxiliary storage device M1, a CD-
A storage medium such as a large-capacity ROM may be used instead of the ROM, and a storage medium such as a floppy disk, a hard disk, or a RAM card may be used instead of the magneto-optical disk as the auxiliary storage device M2. But good.

The map matching process by the microcomputer 10 will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, when the program starts, in step S1, a section corresponding to the current vehicle position (hereinafter referred to as section α) is obtained from the traveling information up to the present time obtained from the signals of the wheel speed sensor 15 and the geomagnetic sensor 16. Basic map data of the auxiliary storage device M1 (CD-ROM device 1
Read from 7). Here, for example, as shown in FIG. 4, the road information including roads R0, R1, and R2 as shown in FIG. 5 is included in the travel information including the travel data of points S0 to S1 to S2 to S3 to S4 to S5. It is assumed that the basic map data of the α section has been read.

Next, in step S2, it is checked whether or not there is new map data for the α section in the auxiliary storage device M2 (magneto-optical disk device 18). For example, when there is no data in the initial state, it is determined that there is no map data and the process jumps to step S4, and when there is new map data for the α section, the process proceeds to step S3.

At step S3, as shown in FIG. 6, for example, from the auxiliary storage device M2 (magneto-optical disk device 18),
The new map data of the α section including the road R3 is read, the new map data and the basic map data read in step S1 are combined, and as shown in FIG.
Create synthetic map data including 0, R1, R2, and R3.

Then, in step S4, the work data is read from the work data file of the auxiliary storage device M2 (magneto-optical disk device 18). This work data is a set of traveling data when traveling on an unregistered road that is not included in the basic map data or the map data in which the basic map data and the new map data are combined. For example, last time, from S3 point to S
When traveling on a route up to four points, as shown in FIG. 8, the traveling data on the route from the point S3 to the point S4 is included as the work data. In this case, similarly to step S2, when there is no data in the second auxiliary storage device M2 (magneto-optical disk device 18), a new work data file is created.

Next, the process proceeds to step S5, and pattern matching is used to check the consistency between the running trajectory of the vehicle and the road shape on the map. For example, the traveling loci S0 to S1 to S2 to S3 in FIG.
For S4 to S5, the road R0 goes through the unregistered road from the point S0 to the point S1 and goes on the road R0 from the point S1 to the point S2, and then on the road R1 from the point S2 to the point S3.
It is recognized that the vehicle has traveled to the point, and further, from the point S3 to the point S4 on the road R2 through the unregistered road, and traveled on the road R2 from the points S4 to S5. Then, the liquid crystal display 19 displays a map of the current position of the vehicle and its surroundings, and the process proceeds to step S6.

At step S6, if the result of the map matching at step S5 indicates that there is travel data recognized as travel on an unregistered road among the travel information, the auxiliary storage device M2
Write to a work data file of (magneto-optical disk device 18). Here, as shown in FIG. 9, from S0 point to S1
The traveling data up to the point is newly written in the work data file, and the traveling data from the points S3 to S4 are rewritten.

Then, in step S7, it is checked whether the same route has been passed n times (for example, 3 times), and the same route is passed n times.
If the vehicle has not passed the number of times, the process jumps to step S11. If the vehicle has passed the same route n times, the process proceeds to step S8 to determine whether to register as new road information.
Display it on the screen and confirm with the driver.

As a result, when the driver judges that it is not necessary to register as a new road, or when the driver does not dare to register because there is a risk of erroneous recognition, a signal corresponding to NO is input from the keyboard 20. Has
The process jumps from step S8 to step S10, and when a signal corresponding to YES for registration is input from the keyboard 20, the process proceeds to step S9.

In step S9, the corresponding travel data is written in the new map data file of the auxiliary storage device M2 (magneto-optical disk device 18) and registered as new map data of the α section. For example, when the vehicle has passed the routes S3 to S4 three times, the traveling data of S3 to S4 are registered, and
As shown in 0, the new map data is obtained by adding the road R4 to the road R3.

As a result, not only can the original navigation function be realized even for roads that are not registered in the system-owned basic map, but new map data can be obtained so that basic map data will not be recorded. Even when the vehicle travels on a road that does not exist, it is possible to reduce the processing load of map matching and prevent repeated map matching errors. In addition, it becomes possible to create an original map for each user, and further, the auxiliary storage device M
By accumulating the data recorded in 2 above, it can be used as a material when creating a map unique to each manufacturer.

Then, in step S10, the traveling data registered as new map data or the traveling data which is intentionally not registered is deleted from the work data, and in step S1
In step 1, if there is no running data in the work data, the work data file in the α section is cleared and the process ends.
For example, when the travel data of the routes S3 to S4 described above is registered as new map data, as shown in FIG.
The travel data of 3 to S4 are deleted from the work data file, and other data are left as they are.

[0034]

As described above, according to the present invention, the consistency between the traveling information of the vehicle and the map information including at least the basic map information is checked, and the data in the traveling information that does not match the map information is used as the work information. Is recorded as data that makes up
By registering the data in the work information as the data that constitutes the new map information under the set conditions, the basic map information is complemented by the new map information, and the current position of the vehicle is displayed together with the surrounding map information. The processing load is reduced, the accuracy is improved, and the original navigation function can be realized even for roads that are not registered in the system-owned basic map.

[Brief description of drawings]

1 to 11 relate to an embodiment of the present invention.
Is a functional block diagram of the navigation device

FIG. 2 is a circuit configuration diagram of a navigation device.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of map matching processing.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing driving data.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing basic map data of α section.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing new map data of α section.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory view showing synthetic map data of α section.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing work data.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing work data in which travel data is written.

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing new map data to which new data of α section is added.

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram showing registration and deletion of work data.

12 to 15 are related to a conventional example, and FIG. 12 is a functional configuration diagram of a navigation device.

FIG. 13 is an explanatory diagram showing map data.

FIG. 14 is an explanatory diagram showing driving data.

FIG. 15 is an explanatory diagram showing other travel data.

[Explanation of symbols]

 M1 1st storage means M2 2nd storage means 6 Operation unit (new map information creation means)

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A vehicle-navigation device for displaying a current position of a vehicle together with map information of the surroundings, and a read-only first storage means for storing basic map information.
(M1), a readable / writable second storage means (M2) for recording new map information which complements the basic map information and work information based on the traveling information of the vehicle, and map information including at least the basic map information The data in the travel information that does not match the map information is recorded in the second storage means as data that constitutes the work information, and the data in the work information is set under the set conditions. A new map information creating means (6) for registering the data of 1. as data constituting the new map information, and a vehicle navigation device.