JPH08278154A - Route guiding system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To guide a vehicle in selecting its route to go ahead as it is without selecting such a process as going back to the initial route in the case where the vehicle deviatively travels from the initial route by installing a route guiding system consisting of a route selecting means selecting anyone out of plural pieces of routes, a deviation judging means and a traveling route judging means. CONSTITUTION: A vehicle mount navigation system body 1 is equipped with a controller 16 on the inside, while this controller 16 is equipped with a central processing unit 161, an S-random access memory 162 securing a work area and a D-random access memory 163 stored with a processing program or the like, respectively. When this CPU 161 acquires a route of up to the destination through a route data receiving part 15, it stores the contents in the S-random access memory 162, selecting those being shortest in time and distance among the stored routes and displaying them on a display 3. On the basis of an output signal out of a vehicle position derecting element 14, a fact of whether the vehicle travels along the shortest route or not is judged, and when any route other than the shortest one is acquired, whether a route, where the vehicle is running out of them is existent or not is judged, and if the route exists, the CPU 161 guides a driver.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is a route for guiding a driver by instructing a traveling route for each important point such as an intersection based on a route set to a destination or a route calculated to a destination. The present invention relates to an induction device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a navigation device has a function that a computer automatically calculates and displays a shortest route by setting a destination, and provides a voice or an enlarged view of an intersection when approaching an intersection on the route. Known (JP-A-5
80697). This navigation device has an azimuth sensor, a distance sensor, a GPS receiver, a road map memory, a computer, etc. mounted on a vehicle, and azimuth data input from the azimuth sensor, mileage data input from the distance sensor, and a GPS receiver. In addition to having a function to detect the vehicle position based on the match with the input position data and the road pattern stored in the road map memory, in order to determine the shortest route from the current position to the destination, The computer has a function to automatically calculate the route from the current position of the vehicle to the destination in response to the driver's setting input of the destination.

In brief, this route calculation method divides roads to be calculated into a plurality of sections, defines the separated points as nodes, and sets vectors connecting the nodes as links to determine the current position (even at the destination). The node or link closest to (good) is the calculation start node or link, and the node or link closest to the destination (which may be the current position) is the calculation end node or link, and the roads stored in the road map memory between them. The map data is read and moved to the work area, all of the links are searched in the work area, and the link costs of the routes that make up the tree starting from the calculation start node or link are sequentially added to reach the destination or the current position. This method selects only routes with low link costs (Shibata, Tenmoku, Shimoura "Development of stochastic route search algorithm") Friend electric No. 143, p. 165,1
September 993).

If the route is calculated by this method, the destination can be surely reached if the vehicle travels along the route without knowing the route. On the other hand, the traffic control center, which manages road traffic information, calculates the shortest route from all points in the route provision area to all points at predetermined times, The route information is transmitted to the road beacon placed in the, and when the road beacon indicates the destination from the vehicle and the request for the route information is provided, the route information is sent back to the vehicle. The system is being considered.

According to this system, the traffic control center considers the time-varying road traffic information such as traffic jams, accidents, and weather conditions, and determines the shortest route that reflects the changing road conditions at a predetermined time. It can be calculated for each and the result can be sent to the vehicle via the road beacon.

[0006]

By the way, the driver is
If the user does not like the route previously calculated by using the navigation device or the route previously obtained through the route providing system or the like (hereinafter referred to as “initial route”), the user may make a decision to deviate from the route and travel. In this case, displaying only the initial route is useless, so the navigation device determines that the route has been deviated, calculates a new route starting from the current position of the vehicle, and presents it to the driver.

When calculating this new route, for example,
It has been conventionally practiced to repeat the route calculation from the current position of the vehicle to the destination (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 63-163).
No. 210 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-141899).
However, with this technique, the calculation of the shortest route from the current position of the vehicle to the destination is redone, so there is a high possibility that a route returning to the initial route will be calculated early.

In this case, the driver is recommended to follow a route different from his own judgment, and the navigation device feels uncomfortable. Therefore, when the driver is traveling off the initial route, it is desirable to be able to obtain and display a route that follows the route that has left the initial route. Therefore, in the present invention, when the vehicle is deviating from the initial route, the route that returns to the initial route is not selected, but the route that goes off the route is selected, and this route is selected. It is an object of the present invention to provide a navigation device that can provide guidance based on a route.

[0009]

A route guidance device according to claim 1 for achieving the above object is capable of obtaining a plurality of routes to a destination by a route obtaining means, and A route selecting means for selecting one of a plurality of routes acquired by the route acquiring means, and a deviation for determining whether or not the vehicle is traveling along the route selected by the route selecting means When it is determined by the determination means and the deviation determination means that the vehicle is not traveling along the selected route, routes other than the route selected by the route selection means are acquired by the route acquisition means. And whether a route other than the route selected by the route selecting means is acquired, it is determined whether or not there is a route in which the vehicle is traveling. A that travel route determining means, route guiding means, if the path of traveling of the vehicle is to be present by the travel path determination unit, is to induce the driver along the route.

The route acquisition means may be capable of acquiring a plurality of routes to the destination through the communication means outside the vehicle (claim 2). The route acquisition means is
A plurality of routes may be acquired by calculating the route to the destination (claim 3).

[0011]

According to the above structure, the driver is guided to travel on a route selected from the plurality of routes acquired to the destination. If the vehicle is deviating from the above, it is checked whether a route other than the selected route is acquired, and if a route other than the selected route is acquired, the vehicle It is determined whether or not there is a traveling route, and when it is determined that there is a traveling route of the vehicle, the driver is guided along the route.

Therefore, it is possible to guide the driver based on a route that goes directly on a route that is not the route that returns to the initial route early. In particular, according to the configuration of claim 2, since it is possible to acquire a plurality of routes to the destination through the communication means outside the vehicle, a plurality of routes suitable for the road traffic situation at the time are acquired. be able to.

In particular, according to the structure of claim 3, a plurality of routes are acquired by calculating the route to the destination by the vehicle itself, so that when there is no communication means outside the vehicle or when communication is performed outside the vehicle. Even if there is a way, even when it seems that only traffic regulation information and congestion information are received but route information is not received,
Different routes can be acquired according to the driver's judgment.

[0014]

Embodiments will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings showing embodiments. In this embodiment, a case where a vehicle acquires route information from the traffic control center B through a road beacon which is a communication means will be described. However, it is first noted that the communication means is not limited to a road beacon and may be, for example, a car phone.

FIG. 2 shows a configuration in which the traffic control center B and the on-road beacon C are connected by a communication line L to perform two-way communication by light or radio waves between the on-road beacon C and the vehicle. More specifically, the road beacon C includes a modem 210, a control device 220, and a transceiver 2.
The traffic control center B is provided with a map dedicated memory 110, a control device 120, a modem 130, and a database 140.

The map-dedicated memory 110 stores data (referred to as link data) about links connecting points corresponding to major intersections in the route providing area. The stored link data includes the identification number of each link and the points (nodes) corresponding to both ends of this link.
Latitude and longitude, link cost when passing through the link (travel time obtained from the distance of the link and the traveling speed of the vehicle), link distance, and other approach links connected to the starting point of the link (previous link (Also called) pointer to
It includes a pointer to another exit link (also called a rear link) connected from the end point of the link, a connection cost, and the like.

The connection cost is a right-left turn or straight-ahead cost for exiting from this link and entering the next link. For example, if the entry is prohibited, the connection cost will be infinite, and if there is a signal, the cost will take into consideration the average signal waiting time when turning right or left or going straight. As the link cost and connection cost (collectively referred to as "link cost" below), the cost for traveling at legal speed is usually used, but if the traffic control center B has the latest traffic information, Changes will be made accordingly. For example, if a certain link is cut off due to an accident, the link cost of this link will be infinite until reopening. If the up lane of a certain road is congested, the cost of the link is increased according to the congested traffic.

The following two types of methods are considered as methods for the traffic control center B to obtain the latest traffic information. One is a method in which the traffic control center B knows traffic information by means of vehicle detectors installed at various points on the road, helicopters navigating over the sky, or the like. The other one is the actual value of the travel time of the road currently being traveled from the vehicle actually traveling on the road via the road beacon C (until the other road beacon C reaches the road beacon C). The time is collected and totaled. With the former method, traffic information can be collected easily, but the accuracy is reduced. In the latter method, the detailed information is good and the accuracy is good, but it takes time for the computer to perform the aggregation process.

The control device 120 of the traffic control center B is
Attention is paid to one point in the route provision area, and at each time when the latest road traffic information enters the traffic control center B (for example, every 10 minutes), based on the link cost information at that time, each main intersection link A route tree starting from the point (referred to as “reference route tree”) is calculated, and the calculated reference route tree is stored in the database 140 in the traffic control center B.

Here, a route tree searching method will be described. The route tree searching method according to the present embodiment uses one of links forming the link data of the route providing area as a departure point link, and the optimum route tree from the departure point link to all other links in the area. Is a procedure for obtaining. Specifically, the route link data stored in the network memory is read out, moved to the work area, and the route is calculated in the work area based on the Dijkstra method or the potential method.

In the Dijkstra method or the potential method, when a route tree is calculated from the current location, the link or node closest to the current location (hereinafter represented by "link") is used as the search start link, and the link starting from the search start link. In this method, a tree of links is constructed by sequentially adding costs at that time. The Dijkstra method is
When constructing a tree of links starting from the search start link, when branching from a certain link into multiple links, the route cost (the total cost from the search start link to the link) of each branch link By comparing the sizes, the methods are sorted in ascending order of the route cost, and the search is further continued from the link with the smallest route cost.

On the other hand, in the potential method, when a certain branch is branched into a plurality of links, all the links are treated equally without comparing the size of the route costs of the links of each branch, and are registered first. The method is to continue the search from the link of the existing branch. In the Dijkstra method, it is necessary to rearrange the links in ascending order of the route cost each time it is searched, so it takes calculation time, whereas in the potential method, the processing of rearranging the links is unnecessary, so the calculation time Is short. In the embodiment, the potential method is adopted.

FIG. 3 shows an example of calculating the path tree. (a) is a reference map, and (b) and (c) are examples of each route tree when starting from one point.
In the route tree in (b), there was a detour route because congestion occurred at that time. In the route tree of (c),
Since the time is vacant, there is no detour route.
Therefore, it can be seen that the form of the route tree changes depending on the difference in link cost.

Since there are usually thousands of major intersections in the route providing area, they are calculated and stored in the database 140.
There are thousands of reference path trees stored in. Further, the reference route tree is calculated and stored for each one or a plurality of combinations of seasons, time zones, months, days of the week, weekdays / holidays, time zones, presence / absence of entertainment during a certain period in the past. This is because the link costs of the links in the route providing area differ for each of these combinations. For example, if we take three of seasons, days of the week, and hours, and calculate once every 10 minutes of the four seasons, seven days of the year, the number of reference route trees is (thousands). ) It becomes a huge number of files of 4x7x24x6.

The reference route tree file is referred to when transmitting to the road beacon C. However, not all files are referenced and used. It goes without saying that only the reference route tree starting from the link at the intersection where the roadside beacon C is located is transmitted, but among them, the season, time zone, day of the week, weekday / holiday at the time of the transmission. Whether or not there is an entertainment (these are referred to as “route calculation conditions”) is determined, and only the reference route tree that matches the result of this determination is referred to.

Therefore, if it is assumed that the condition of Sundays, holidays, and no entertainment during the time of spring morning when transmitting to the roadside beacon C, every 10 minutes of the same time period that meets the same past route calculation conditions. A total of 25 reference path trees with different calculated times will be referred to. However,
From a practical point of view, if the conditions are subdivided too much, the amount of data to be stored in the database 140 becomes enormous and the control becomes complicated. Therefore, it is preferable to make a decision in consideration of economical efficiency and efficiency. The simplest way is to distinguish between two types of holidays and weekdays. Further, since it is possible that the situation of midnight on weekdays and the situation of holidays are similar in the central part of the city, holidays and weekdays may not be distinguished, but may be distinguished simply by the time zone.

As described above, the reason for transmitting the plurality of reference route trees is that the roadside beacon C calculates a plurality of trees having a difference as much as possible for each vehicle, and indicates a plurality of routes to the vehicles to select them. This is because it is desirable. The reason is that if only similar routes to the same destination are shown, it is expected that the selected route will be congested and that the destination cannot be reached in the shortest time.

The control device 220 of the on-road beacon C is connected to the traffic control center B via the communication line L and the modem 210.
When the data of the route tree transmitted from the device is received, it is stored in the memory (not shown) in the control device 220. When the destination is indicated by the vehicle, the on-road beacon C refers to each of the stored route trees to trace the route to the destination, and transmits the route information to the vehicle. The time to trace to this destination is short enough (typically tens of ms
ec) On the road beacon C, after the destination is indicated by the vehicle, while the vehicle is within the communication range of the road beacon C, two-way communication can indicate a plurality of routes to the vehicle.

Next, the structure of the vehicle-mounted device will be described.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a vehicle-mounted navigation device to which the route guidance device of the present invention is applied. The vehicle-mounted navigation device body 1 includes a CD-ROM, a floppy disk, a mini disk, which stores road map data in advance,
A CD drive 2 for reading stored data from a disk D composed of an IC card or a magneto-optical disk, a display 3 for displaying a map or a vehicle, a joystick remote control key for setting route calculation conditions (hereinafter referred to as "remote control key"). 4), GPS receiver 5, vehicle speed sensor 6, direction sensor 7 including a geomagnetic sensor, gyro, etc.
Beacon transceiver A etc. are connected.

A controller 16 is provided inside the vehicle-mounted navigation device body 1, and the controller 16 has a CPU 161 for controlling the control of the device.
(Central processing unit) and SRAM that secures a work area
162 and DRAM in which processing programs and the like are stored
163 is provided. Further, in the vicinity of the controller 16, a memory control unit 11 to which road map data is input from the disk D via the CD drive 2 and a display for outputting the display data to the display 3 for displaying a map or a vehicle. Vehicle position detection for inputting direction and vehicle speed information from the control unit 12, the input processing unit 13 for inputting a signal from the remote control key 4, the GPS receiver 5 for detecting the position of the vehicle, the direction sensor 6, and the vehicle speed sensor 7. The unit 14 and the route data receiving unit 15 that receives the route signal from the beacon transceiver A are connected to each other. Signals to each of these processing units,
Alternatively, all signals from each processing unit are C in the controller 16.
It is processed by the PU 161.

The CPU 161 uses the route data receiving unit 1
When the route to the destination is acquired through 5, the contents are S
It has a function of selecting a route having the shortest travel time or traveling distance from the routes stored in the RAM 162 and displaying the shortest route on the display 3 through the display control unit 12. Then, based on the output signal of the vehicle position detection unit 14, it is determined whether the vehicle is traveling along the shortest route, and when it is determined that the vehicle is not traveling along the shortest route, It is checked whether a route other than the shortest route has been acquired, and if a route other than the shortest route has been acquired, it is determined whether or not there is a route in which the vehicle is running.

If there is a running route, the CPU
161 creates display data and voice data for guiding the driver along the route, and guides the driver using these data each time the vehicle approaches an intersection. The schematic control procedure performed by the CPU 161 will be described below with reference to flowcharts (see FIGS. 4 and 5).

After starting the system and setting the destination using the remote control key 4, the vehicle is run. First, it is determined whether or not the destination has been reached (step S1), and if not, it is determined whether or not route data has been received from the on-road beacon C (step S2). If the route data is received, the route and travel time information (the travel time information is also received from the roadside beacon C) are stored in the SRAM.
It is stored in 162 (step S3).

Then, it is judged whether or not the number of stored routes is plural (step S4), and if plural, the route having the shortest travel time is selected (step S5). At this time, the route with the shortest route distance can be selected. If the number is singular, the route is selected, and if the number is plural, the route selected in step S5 is set as the optimal route (step S6), and guidance along the route is started while displaying the route.

That is, in step S7, the traveling route is monitored based on the output signal of the vehicle position detector 14, and it is determined whether or not the vehicle deviates from this optimum route (step S9).
If it does not deviate, it is judged whether or not the route data is received from the on-road beacon C (step S10). If the route data is received, the process returns to step S3. Street beacon C
If the route data is not received, the display 3 is used to display an instruction such as "turn right", "go straight ahead", "turn left" at each timing of the guidance instruction (step S11) (step S12). At this time, a voice device (not shown) may be used to make announcements such as "please turn right", "go straight", and "turn left". Note that the timing of the guidance instruction is, for example, the time when a predetermined distance before the intersection, which is the end point of the link, is reached.

When the vehicle deviates from the optimum route, step S21
Proceeding to FIG. 5, it is checked whether another route is stored in the SRAM 162. If no other route is stored, the process proceeds to step S23, the deviation from the route is set, the driver is notified of the fact, and the driver is warned. At this time, if the vehicle-mounted navigation device has a route calculation function, the route may be automatically recalculated and displayed on the display 3.

If another route is stored in the SRAM 162, it is checked whether or not the route the vehicle is currently traveling on (step S22). If the route is not the one on which the vehicle is traveling, the process proceeds to step S23 to set that the vehicle deviates from the route and informs the driver of that fact, or the vehicle-mounted navigation device has a route calculation function. If so, the route is automatically recalculated and displayed on the display 3.

If there is a route on which the vehicle is traveling, it is judged whether or not there are a plurality of routes to the destination (step S
24) If there is only one route, the route is taken as the shortest route, and if there are multiple routes, the shortest route is selected (steps S25, S2).
6). Then, the shortest route is shown to the driver, and it is displayed on the screen whether or not it is possible to guide along the route, or a voice is asked (step S27). The driver is asked a question in order to confirm whether or not the driver intends to travel along the deviated route.

If the driver permits the guidance by using the remote control key 4 (step S28), the procedure returns to step S7 to continue the guidance along the new route. In this way,
When the vehicle-mounted navigation device acquires one or more routes, it indicates the shortest route, and when the vehicle deviates from that route, if it is traveling on another acquired route, it will be displayed on the other route. I decided to continue to give guidance along.

Therefore, since it is possible to continue to instruct a route that follows the deviating route as it is, when the driver deviates from the route initially indicated by the driver's intention, the vehicle departs from the deviating route. When the route information is obtained, the route can be guided according to the driver's intention. The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. In the above embodiment, the case where the vehicle acquires the route information from the traffic control center B through the road beacon C has been described. However, the vehicle itself internally calculates a plurality of routes, and any one of the plurality of routes is calculated. The present invention can also be applied to the case where the guidance is performed based on the crab.

When the vehicle-mounted navigation device calculates the route, the road map (highway national road, urban highway, general national road, major local road, general prefectural road, general city of designated city) stored in the disk D is used. (Including roads and other living roads) is divided into meshes, and link data in which links are stored for each mesh is used. In this case, the controller 16 responds to the destination setting signal and the route calculation instruction signal provided from the remote controller key 4 in response to the disc D
The link data is read from the device and the traffic regulation information and the traffic jam information received from the beacon transceiver A are referenced to calculate a plurality of routes from the current position to the destination using a plurality of route calculation conditions. .

The above-mentioned "plurality of route calculation conditions" refers to conditions under which routes that are as close as possible to each other and pass through different links are obtained. For example, whether or not to use a highway, shortest time calculation or shortest distance calculation, whether to select a route that avoids a right turn as much as possible, and the like. These "plurality of route calculation conditions" are also set by the driver using the remote control key 4.

When a plurality of routes are obtained, one of the shortest routes is selected as the optimum route, and the guidance along the route is started while displaying the route. If the vehicle deviates from the optimum route, if the vehicle is traveling on another calculated route at that time, the guidance is continued along the other route with the permission of the driver. In this way, as in the case of the above embodiment, when the driver intentionally deviates from the initially indicated route and the route that passes through the deviant route is calculated, the driver's intention The route can be guided along.

Other various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

[0045]

As described above, according to the route guiding apparatus of the present invention, when the driver is deviating from the route which was initially guided by his / her own judgment, the other route while the vehicle is traveling. If it is determined that the vehicle is present, the driver is guided along the route, so that the driver can directly follow the deviated route instead of the route that returns to the initial route early.

Therefore, the route can be guided according to the driver's intention. In particular, according to the route guidance device of the second aspect, it is possible to obtain a plurality of routes to the destination through the communication means outside the vehicle. It is possible to guide along a route suitable for the road traffic situation at the time.

In particular, according to the route guiding apparatus of the third aspect, the vehicle itself obtains a plurality of routes by calculating the route to the destination. Therefore, even when there is no communication means outside the vehicle. Since different routes can be acquired according to the driver's preference, when the driver proceeds on a deviating route as it is, guide along the route calculated according to the driver's preference. You can

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a vehicle-mounted navigation device to which a route guidance device of the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration in which a traffic control center B and an on-road beacon C are connected by a communication line L to perform two-way communication by light or radio waves between the on-road beacon C and a vehicle.

FIG. 3 shows an example of calculation of a route tree, (a) is a reference map, and (b) and (c) show an example of each route tree when starting from one point.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a schematic control procedure performed by a CPU 161 for route guidance.

5 is a flowchart illustrating a schematic control procedure for route guidance performed by a CPU 161 (continuation of FIG. 4).

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 In-vehicle navigation device body 2 CD drive 3 Display 4 Remote control key 5 GPS receiver 6 Vehicle speed sensor 7 Direction sensor 16 Controller 161 CPU 162 SRAM 163 DRAM 11 Memory control unit 12 Display control unit 13 Input processing unit 14 Vehicle position detection unit 15 Route Data receiving unit 110 Map dedicated memory 120 Control device 130 Modem 140 Database 210 Modem 210 220 Control device 230 Transceiver A Beacon Transceiver B Traffic control center C Road beacon D Disk L Communication line

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A route guidance device comprising: route obtaining means for obtaining a route to a destination; and route guiding means for guiding a driver based on the route obtained by the route obtaining means. Is capable of acquiring a plurality of routes to the destination, and the route selecting means for selecting one of the plurality of routes acquired by the route acquiring means, Departure determining means for determining whether the vehicle is traveling along the route selected by the route selecting means, and if the departure determining means determines that the vehicle is not traveling along the selected route, It is checked whether a route other than the route selected by the route selecting means has been acquired by the route acquiring means, and a route other than the route selected by the route selecting means is checked. When a route is acquired, the vehicle is provided with a traveling route determining means for determining whether or not the vehicle is traveling on this route, and when the traveling route determining means determines that there is a traveling route of the vehicle, A route guidance device that guides a driver along a route. 2. The route guidance device according to claim 1, wherein the route acquisition means is capable of acquiring a plurality of routes to a destination through communication means outside the vehicle. 3. The route guidance device according to claim 1, wherein the route acquisition means is capable of acquiring a plurality of routes by calculating a route to a destination.