JPH1019590A - Car navigator - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To search for a new traveling route without returning on a traveling route having passed so far, on the occasion of resetting an initially set traveling route to a new traveling route, in the middle of traveling. SOLUTION: Road map information from an external memory 10 is stored in a map memory 1. An initial condition memory 2 stores the initial position data and destination data of a car. A present position detecting part 3 detects the present position of the car. A rerouting instruction part instructs for resetting the traveling route, and a small area extracting part 5 extracts only small areas in the direction of the destination from the present out of the map memory 1. A hindrance information detecting unit 11 receives hindrance information, and a weighing part 6 receives this hindrance information, and performs weighing. A route length calculating part 7 calculates the distance of the traveling route, and a route selecting part 8 selects a traveling route of a shortest distance. A display controlling part 9 outputs a traveling route guide.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a car navigation apparatus suitable for resetting a set traveling route during traveling.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a car navigation system used for guiding a vehicle, when it is desired to change the initially set traveling route, the traveling route to be followed thereafter is reset. In this case, the conventional car navigation device is assumed to return to the main road or the main intersection that has already passed,
It does not meet the user's request to change the traveling route. In addition, it was not practical in actual road conditions where there were many restrictions such as prohibition of U-turn and prohibition of right and left turns.

For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 5-197336 discloses that when a request for changing a traveling route to a given traveling route occurs for some reason, traveling from the current position to the destination is performed. A system for recalculating and displaying routes is described. In this case, an instruction switch for detour driving route search is provided so that the operation can be easily performed, and recalculation is performed in consideration of the quality of the road condition.

In Japanese Patent Publication No. 6-43899,
If you get lost, the nearest route guidance is possible to eliminate the need for troublesome and complicated operations such as returning to the starting intersection for the guidance start operation or restarting the route setting operation from the beginning There is a description of a device that can guide a vehicle from an intersection to a destination. However, none of them mentions avoiding a trajectory that has already traveled when resetting the travel route.

[0005]

However, in the above-described conventional apparatus, the reference for recalculation when the vehicle is lost is determined based on the trajectory that has already passed, and in accordance with the user's request to change the traveling route. They had no choice but to go back further and were more likely to become infeasible due to time loss and traffic restrictions.

Accordingly, the present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems. When changing the initially set traveling route, the trajectory that has already passed is changed according to the resetting of the traveling route. A new traveling route is searched without returning, and an object of the present invention is to provide a car navigation device that meets a request of an actual user.

[0007]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a car navigation apparatus comprising: a block map memory for storing road map information divided into small areas; Initial condition memory storing the destination in the information, current position detecting means for detecting the current position of the vehicle and outputting position information, reroute instructing means for instructing resetting of the traveling route to the destination, Upon receiving an instruction from the reroute instruction means, based on the position information from the current position detection means, a small area extraction means for extracting only a small area in the direction of the destination from the small area in the map memory; A route length calculating unit for calculating a distance of a traveling route from the current position detected by the current position detecting unit to the destination within the extracted small area; It has a configuration which is characterized in that from the calculated travel route calculating means and a route selection means for selecting a shortest distance or shortest time of the travel route.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a car navigation device comprising: a map memory for storing road map information; an initial condition memory for storing a destination in the road map information; and a current position of the vehicle. A current position detecting means for outputting position information, a traveling path memory for storing a traveling path of the vehicle to the present based on the position information from the current position detecting means, and an instruction for resetting a traveling route to a destination. Reroute instructing means, receiving from the reroute instructing means, traveling locus avoiding means for adding weighting information indicating that traveling is difficult to the traveling locus, and receiving the output of the traveling locus avoiding means, Route length calculation means for calculating the distance of the travel route from the position to the destination, and the shortest distance or the shortest distance from the travel routes calculated by the route length calculation means. Characterized by comprising a route selection means for selecting a traveling route of the shortest time.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a car navigation device comprising the car navigation device according to the first or second aspect, wherein the road map information in the map memory includes a road difficulty level. Alternatively, weighting information indicating the degree of ease of travel is added and stored, and the route selecting means selects a travel route from the extracted small area based on the travel route length to the destination and the weighting information of the road. It is characterized by.

[0010] According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a car navigation apparatus which receives a road obstacle information which hinders the running of a vehicle, in addition to the means constituting the car navigation apparatus according to the first or second aspect. An information detecting means, and a weighting means for weighting the road map information with the fault information from the fault information detecting means and outputting the weighted road map information to the route length calculating means.

According to the above configuration, the car navigation device according to the first aspect of the present invention, when resetting the initially set traveling route to a new traveling route during traveling,
Since a new travel route is searched by extracting only a small area in the direction of the destination from the current position, a new travel route can be reset without reverting to a travel route that has been passed so far.

In the car navigation device according to the second aspect of the present invention, when resetting the initially set traveling route to a new traveling route during traveling, weighting information indicating that traveling is difficult on the traveling locus. Is added to search for a new traveling route, so that a new traveling route can be reset without reverting to a traveling route that has been passed so far.

In the car navigation system according to the third aspect of the present invention, when setting the reroute, the reroute is performed by selecting a condition of difficulty of travel or ease of travel such as a general road or an expressway, or a road width. Can be set.

The car navigation device according to the fourth aspect of the present invention can perform rerouting by receiving trouble information such as traffic congestion at the time of rerouting.

[0015]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a first embodiment of the car navigation device of the present invention. The external storage device 10 selectively reads a necessary road map file from a storage medium such as a CD-ROM,
It is divided into small areas and stored in the map memory 1. The road map information includes intersection information, traffic regulation information, and the like. The initial condition memory 2 receives and stores initial position data indicating an initial position of the vehicle and destination data indicating a destination from an input device (not shown).

The current position detection unit 3 is a GPS (Global Posi
It receives a position signal from the satellite every second and detects the current position of the vehicle as latitude and longitude information. As a means to further assist GPS,
An azimuth sensor and a traveling distance sensor are provided, and the position of the vehicle is specified in a place where radio waves from satellites cannot be received, such as in a tunnel. The azimuth sensor is configured by a piezoelectric vibrating gyroscope that detects a change in a lateral angular velocity, and outputs a signal proportional to a direction change amount accompanying the traveling of the vehicle. The travel distance sensor outputs a travel distance signal in accordance with the rotation of a tire of the vehicle, and includes a photoelectric type, an electromagnetic type, a mechanical contact type, and the like.

The reroute instructing section 4 instructs re-setting of a traveling route to a destination, and is constituted by a remote control device or the like. The small area extracting unit 5 extracts only a small area from the current position toward the destination from the map memory 1.

The failure information detecting unit 11 is provided with a VICS (Vehicle
Information and Communication System) and ATIS (A
Receives trouble information such as traffic congestion from advanced traffic information service (dvd). The weighting unit 6 receives the fault information from the fault information detecting unit 11 and weights the extracted road information of the small area based on the fault information.

The route length calculating section 7 calculates the distance of the traveling route from the current position detected by the current position detecting section 3 to the destination based on the weighted road information. The route selection unit 8 compares the distances of the weighted travel routes and selects the shortest travel route. The display control unit 9 superimposes the travel route guidance for the vehicle to travel on the road map information and outputs the information as a video signal. Then, the traveling route is displayed on a display device (not shown).

The small area extraction unit 5, the weighting unit 6, the route length calculation unit 7, and the route selection unit 8 are a CPU, a program R
It is composed of an OM and a control RAM.

Next, a process of displaying a traveling locus will be described. First, a traveling route from the initial position to the destination is calculated based on the input initial position data and destination data, and a traveling route is set.

The current position value detecting section 3 measures the traveling distance of the vehicle by counting the number of pulse signals from the traveling distance sensor in addition to the position information from the GPS, and measures the change in the traveling direction according to the output signal of the direction sensor. By detecting the position, the position on the XY coordinates for each unit traveling distance of the vehicle is obtained by calculation.

The current position is obtained from the ever-changing position data of the vehicle detected by the current position detection unit 3 in accordance with the XY coordinates of the map information stored in the map memory 1.
Then, the image data is combined with the map information read from the map memory 1 by the display control unit 9 and converted into a video signal. Then, the vehicle is supplied to a display unit (not shown), and the vehicle is displayed on a map image by a cursor, and the locus of the vehicle is displayed by a broken line. As a result, the user can visually recognize the visible information.

Next, the reroute setting when the vehicle deviates from the initially set traveling route or when it is desired to select another detour is described with reference to the road map shown in FIG. 2 and the flowchart shown in FIG. Will be explained.

Until a reroute instruction is issued, a normal navigation routine is performed. The CPU constantly monitors whether or not there is a reroute instruction. When the reroute instruction unit 4 instructs the start of the reroute setting, the CPU generates an interrupt to the normal routine processing and shifts to a subroutine of the reroute setting (ST1). ).

When a map of a desired area is designated from the map information of the whole country, the map memory 1 is stored in the external storage device 10.
The map information of the portion including the reroute start point is read. The scale of the map at the time of reading can be set arbitrarily. The map information is further finely divided into 36 blocks from a1 to f6 as shown in FIG.
Then, for each block, a block b shown in FIG.
As in the example of No. 6, intersection type information such as a three-way road and a four-way road, an intersection number indicating a specific intersection, XY coordinate information necessary for calculating a vehicle position and a travel locus, and a determination of travel route selection are required. Road width information, distance information, azimuth information, and a road class indicating whether the road is a general road or a highway are stored. Reroute setting is performed based on the information indicating the degree of difficulty of travel or the degree of ease of travel (ST2).

Next, "azimuth detection in the traveling direction" is performed, and based on the detection result, it is compared with the azimuth data of each block. The direction data of each block stores, for example, the direction from the reroute start point R to the target point B as vector data. Then, from the fact that "it does not return to the passed trajectory" which is a feature of the present invention, among the 36 blocks of map information stored in the map memory 1, f1, e2, etc. Blocks are excluded (ST3). Then, by comparing the azimuth vector data of each block from a1 to f6 to the target point B, only the blocks having the same vector are selected. In the present embodiment, d3, e3, d4, e4, f4, b5, c5, d
Blocks 5, 5, e6, b6, c6, d6, and e6 are selected (ST4).

Next, it is detected whether or not the selected block contains fault information. In the case of the present embodiment, since there is no such block in the block, there is no process of excluding the block (ST5).

Next, it is detected whether or not each block selected in (ST4) contains intersection information. d
It is determined that 3, e3, d4, e4, f4, e5, and b6 have an intersection. The intersection information includes the intersection number, XY coordinates,
It contains data such as the grade and width of the crossing road,
Based on these, the distance to the target point B is calculated. An advantage of the intersection information is that it can be used as a reference point as a single starting point or a branch point in the distance calculation. The distance of the road between the intersections is calculated, and the distance of the road between the intersections to the target point B is integrated to calculate the total distance (ST6).

Further, the road information includes XY coordinate information necessary for calculating a vehicle position and a traveling locus, road width information, distance information, and azimuth information necessary for determining a traveling route. In combination with the intersection information, an operation is performed according to the reroute instruction condition. When calculating the distance, for each XY coordinate at a predetermined interval, road information is detected, counted up by a counter, integrated, and weighted by the road information to calculate the distance (ST7).

If a reroute condition has been input, a travel route is selected in accordance with the condition (ST).
8). In the present embodiment, the conditions of “shortest distance” and “road width priority” can be selected. In calculating this reroute,
An intersection is a node, a road is a segment between them, and these are correlated with XY coordinates to be one reference data. A road having n lanes in each road is multiplied by the distance as a weight value 1 / n. In other words, on a road with many lanes, the flow of traffic is smooth, and therefore, the calculation distance is set short. For example, a two-lane road has a weight value of 1/2 and a three-lane road has a weight value of 1/3. Then, the distance is calculated by calculating the line segment data of all the possible travel routes to be selected candidates, and the distances are compared to select the travel route determined to be the shortest.

For example, when the shortest distance is desired even if the road width is narrow, "shortest distance" is set as a condition (ST9).
Then, based on the data in the initial condition memory 2, the target point B
Is detected (ST10), and the distance of the possible travel route from the reroute start point R to the target point B is calculated (ST11). At that time, the above (ST
6) The calculation is performed in consideration of the condition in (ST7). Also, within the selected block, a traveling route running backward in the traveling direction is allowed.

As a result, the target traveling route is reroute A
Is “Reroute start point R → intersection 6 → road r8 → intersection 8 → road r14 → intersection 11 → road r17 → target point B”, and reroute B is “reroute start point R → intersection 3”
→ Road r5 → Intersection 4 → Road r6 → Intersection 5 → Road r1
6 → target point B ”and reroute C are“ reroute start point R → intersection 6 → road r9 → intersection 7 → road r10 → intersection 9 → road r11 → intersection 10 → road r15 → intersection 1
1 → road r17 → target point B ”, reroute D is“ reroute start point R → intersection 6 → road r9 → intersection 7 → road r12 → intersection 10 → road r15 → intersection 11 → road r
17 → target point B ”.

Then, the calculated value of the target traveling route is
The respective routes are compared, and the traveling route having the shortest value is selected (ST12). Simply, reroute B is the shortest distance. However, it is necessary to return to the intersection 3 where the vehicle has already passed, and it cannot be said that a practical traveling route is set based on ordinary road conditions in which U-turns and right-turns are often prohibited. Therefore, in the present embodiment, reroute A is selected as the shortest distance (ST13). After the reroute A is selected, the process returns from the subroutine process to the normal navigation routine process.

Next, when it is desired to increase the road width even if it is not the shortest distance, "road width priority" is set as a condition (ST14). Then, based on the data in the initial condition memory 2, the position of the target point B is detected (ST15), and the distance from the reroute start point R to the target point B and the weighted value of the road width are calculated, and the travel is possible. The total value of the route is calculated (ST16). At that time, the above (ST
6) The calculation is performed in consideration of the condition in (ST7).

As a result, the target traveling route is the reroute Aw
Is "Reroute start point R → intersection 6 → road r8 (weighted value 1/2) → intersection 8 → road r14 (weighted value 1 /
2) → intersection 11 → road r17 (weighted value 1/1) → target point B ”, and reroute Bw is changed to“ reroute start point R →
Intersection 3 → road r5 (weighted value 1/2) → intersection 4 → road r6 (weighted value 1/2) → intersection 5 → road r16 (weighted value 1/2) → target point B ” , “Reroute start point R → intersection 6 → road r9 (weighted value 1 /
4) → Intersection 7 → Road r10 (weighted value 1/4) → Intersection 9 → Road r11 (weighted value 1/6) → Intersection 10 → Road r15 (weighted value 1/6) → Intersection 11 → Road r17
(Weighted value 1/1) → target point B ”, reroute Dw is
“Reroute start point R → intersection 6 → road r9 (weighted value １ ／) → intersection 7 → road r12 (weighted value ４) →
Intersection 10 → Road r15 (weighted value 1/6) → Intersection 1
1 → road r17 (weighted value 1/1) → target point B ”.

Then, the calculated total values of the target travel routes are compared with each other, and the travel route having the smallest numerical value, that is, the travel route having the wide road width is selected (ST17).
Reroute C has a longer distance to use a six-lane road than reroute D. Therefore, in the present embodiment, the reroute C is selected because the road width is relatively wide (ST18). After the reroute C is selected, the process returns from the subroutine process to the normal navigation routine process.

In the above (ST5), when the fault information such as traffic congestion is taken into consideration, the traffic congestion information from the fault information detector 11 is written into the map memory 1 and stored as the fault information at the fault point C in the map information. . When a re-route instruction is issued from the re-route instruction unit 4, the re-route instruction is handled as the next priority item under the condition of not reversing. Therefore, even if it is selected that a wider road is preferable even if it is not the shortest distance, if the obstacle information is on the reroute traveling route, it is unconditionally excluded from the selection target and the next A good reroute is selected. In the present embodiment, it is located at the block f3 and is not on the reroute to be selected.

In this embodiment, the external storage device 10
Although the road map information read from the D-ROM includes information necessary for calculating the traveling distance of the vehicle, other embodiments include information necessary for calculating the traveling time. ing.

Then, (ST8) of the flowchart of FIG.
As the selection conditions in, “shortest time” can be set as a condition in addition to “shortest distance” and “road width priority”. When this "shortest time" is selected, the information read from the CD-ROM and necessary for calculating the running time and the fault information detection unit 1
1 selects the shortest running route based on the received running time information.

FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram of a second embodiment of the car navigation system according to the present invention. The external storage device 10 selectively reads a necessary road map file from a storage medium such as a CD-ROM, and stores the map data in a map memory 1a.
To memorize. The configuration of each unit of the initial condition memory 2, the current position value detection unit 3, the reroute instruction unit 4, the weighting unit 6, the route length calculation unit 7, the route selection unit 8, the display control unit 9, and the failure information detection unit 11 is as follows. This is the same as the car navigation device according to the embodiment.

The traveling locus memory 12 is constituted by a ring buffer memory, and the position information of the vehicle detected by the current position detecting unit 3 is sequentially stored, and when the storage capacity is exceeded, the stored contents are updated. . Further, the stored contents are constantly read out and combined with the map information read out from the map memory 1a by the display control unit 9 to be converted into a video signal. The traveling locus avoiding unit 13 adds weighting information indicating that traveling is difficult to the traveling locus stored in the traveling locus memory 12.

Next, the reroute setting according to the present embodiment will be described only for the parts different from the car navigation device according to the first embodiment. First, normal navigation routine processing is performed until a reroute instruction is issued. When the reroute instruction section 4 instructs the start of the reroute setting, an interrupt is generated in the normal routine processing, and the process proceeds to a subroutine of the reroute setting.

When a map of a desired area is designated from the map information of the whole country, the map memory 1 is stored in the external storage device 10.
The map information of the portion including the reroute start point is written in a. This map information includes a weight value indicating the degree of difficulty of traveling on the road. As the weighting value indicating the degree of difficulty in traveling, a large value is given to a road with a traffic obstacle, and an infinite value is given to a dead-end road.

Next, the traveling locus avoiding section 13 reads out traveling locus information from the traveling locus memory 12 and stores it in the map memory 1a.
Is multiplied by 10 times the maximum value of the weighting value indicating the degree of difficulty of traveling on the road stored in. That is, the passed trajectory is treated as the most difficult road to travel.

Subsequent processing is the same as that of the first embodiment. According to the input rerouting condition, the route length calculating unit 7 uses this weighted road information to
The total distance is calculated by integrating the distance of the road between the intersections to the target point B. Then, the route selector 8 compares the weighted distances of the reroutes and selects the reroute having the smallest value.

As described above, the car navigation system according to the present invention provides a
Taking into account actual road conditions, such as U-turn prohibition, right-turn, and left-turn prohibition, which are often restricted, the system does not return to a main road or a main intersection that has already passed, so that a practical system can be provided.

[0048]

As described above, the car navigation device according to the first aspect of the present invention can be used to reset an initially set traveling route to a new traveling route during traveling.
Since a new travel route is searched by extracting only a small area in the direction of the destination from the current position, a new travel route can be reset without reverting to a travel route that has been passed so far. As a result, it is possible to provide a car navigation device that meets the needs of the actual user.

In the car navigation device according to the second aspect of the present invention, when the initially set traveling route is reset to a new traveling route during traveling, weighting information indicating that traveling is difficult in the traveling locus. Is added to search for a new traveling route, so that a new traveling route can be reset without reverting to a traveling route that has been passed so far. As a result, it is possible to provide a car navigation device that meets the needs of the actual user.

In the car navigation system according to the third aspect of the present invention, when setting a reroute, it is possible to select a condition of difficulty of travel or ease of travel such as a general road or an expressway, or a road width. The best reroute setting becomes possible.

The car navigation device according to the fourth aspect of the present invention can receive trouble information such as traffic congestion at the time of rerouting, so that rerouting can be performed while avoiding a trouble.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a first embodiment of a car navigation device according to the present invention.

2A is a diagram showing a road map, and FIG. 2B is a diagram showing road map information stored for each block.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating setting of a reroute.

FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram of a second embodiment of the car navigation device of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Map memory 2 Initial condition memory 3 Current position detection part 4 Reroute instruction part 5 Small area extraction part 6 Weighting part 7 Route length calculation part 8 Route selection part 9 Display control part 10 External storage device 11 Fault information detection part 1a Map memory 12 Travel locus memory 13 Travel locus avoidance unit

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A block map memory that stores road map information divided into small areas, an initial condition memory that stores destinations in the road map information, and a current that detects a current position of a vehicle and outputs position information. Position detecting means; reroute instructing means for instructing re-setting of a traveling route to the destination; receiving an instruction from the reroute instructing means, based on position information from the current position detecting means, A small area extracting means for extracting only a small area in the direction of the destination from the area; and traveling from the current position detected by the current position detecting means to the destination in the small area extracted from the small area extracting means. Route length calculating means for calculating the distance of the route, and a route for selecting the shortest distance or the shortest running route from the running routes calculated by the route length calculating means A car navigation device comprising: a selection unit. 2. A map memory storing road map information, an initial condition memory storing a destination in the road map information, a current position detecting means for detecting a current position of the vehicle and outputting position information, Based on the position information from the current position detecting means, a running locus memory for storing a running locus of the vehicle up to the present, a reroute instructing means for instructing resetting of a running route to a destination, Receiving the output of the traveling locus avoiding means, and adding the weighting information indicating that traveling is difficult to the traveling locus; receiving the output of the traveling locus avoiding means, the distance of the traveling route from the current position to the destination is calculated. A route length calculating means for calculating, and a route selecting means for selecting a shortest distance or a shortest time running route from the running routes calculated by the route length calculating means. A car navigation apparatus characterized by comprising and. 3. The road map information in the map memory is added with weighting information indicating the degree of difficulty or ease of travel of the road and stored, and the route selecting means determines the length of a travel route to a destination and the length of the road. 3. The car navigation device according to claim 1, wherein a traveling route is selected from the extracted small areas based on the weighting information. 4. A fault information detecting means for receiving fault information of a road which hinders the running of the vehicle, and weighting the road map information with the fault information from the fault information detecting means and outputting the weighted road map information to the route length calculating means. The car navigation device according to claim 1, further comprising a weighting unit.