EP1110057A1

EP1110057A1 - Method of route calculation and navigation system

Info

Publication number: EP1110057A1
Application number: EP00947801A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Jens Weber; Günther REINHOLD
Original assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
Current assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
Priority date: 1999-06-26
Filing date: 2000-06-14
Publication date: 2001-06-27
Also published as: DE19929440A1; JP2003503688A; AU6148400A; WO2001001078A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a method of calculating a route from a point of departure to a destination. According to the inventive method, the point of departure is stored and the stored point of departure can then be selected as the destination of a new route calculation. The invention also relates to a navigation system for calculating a route from a point of departure to a destination which system comprises a second memory (70) for storing the point of departure (74, 75) and means (47a, 47b, 47c, 47d, 48, 49) for selecting the stored point of departure (74, 75) as the destination for a new route calculation. The inventive method and the inventive navigation system facilitate an especially simple and time-saving input of a navigation destination.

Description

Route calculation method and navigation device

State of the art

The invention is based on a method and a navigation device for calculating a route from a start to a destination according to the type of the independent claims.

There are navigation devices, in particular for operation in motor vehicles, which calculate a route from a start to a destination after entering a destination depending on a current location with the aid of stored map information, and a vehicle driver by means of optically and / or acoustically output driving instructions along this route lead from the current location to the destination.

In the case of a first group of known navigation devices, the navigation destination is entered by entering the town or city name letter by letter, as well as at least one street name of the navigation destination, and possibly additional information such as a district or a house number. In the case of navigation devices which are provided for installation in a 1-DIN installation slot of a motor vehicle, their front cap area is often not sufficient to accommodate All letters of the alphabet must be provided with their own key, so that control elements for entering letters are usually assigned at least twice, often also frequently. The letter-by-letter entry of a navigation destination is comparatively tedious and time-consuming with these devices.

A further form for entering navigation destinations has therefore been implemented, in which, analogously to the procedure described, the place name and street name and, if appropriate, further information are entered letter by letter, but in addition a list is generated which only contains those navigation destinations to which the already entered letter combinations fit, and being the one you want

Navigation target can be selected by selecting from the list. This entry of navigation destinations is already comparatively convenient compared to the former, but is still quite complex due to the required letter entries.

Furthermore, such navigation devices are also known in which a navigation destination is entered by marking the destination point by means of a controllable cursor on a map shown on the display unit of the navigation device. However, this requires relatively detailed knowledge of the exact location of the navigation destination on the map. Furthermore, before marking the actual navigation destination, it is necessary to first select a suitable map section that shows the

Contains navigation target and also choose a suitable map scale that shows the navigation target with a sufficiently high resolution. Advantages of the invention

The method according to the invention and the navigation device according to the invention with the features of the independent claims have the advantage that according to

Determination of a route from a start to a destination a new route calculation to the original starting point can be initiated with particularly little operating effort.

It is also advantageous to save a plurality of starting points of previous route calculations, since this increases the number of navigation destinations that can be entered particularly easily. In terms of simple operation, it is also of particular advantage to display a list of the stored starting locations from which the new navigation destination can be selected when entering the navigation destination when the navigation device is switched on. In addition, the display of the stored starting points for or immediately before entering the navigation destination is also advantageous because the vehicle driver is made aware of the stored starting points, so that complex conventional input may be unnecessary.

A particularly simple form of line selection is made possible by a cursor that can be moved above the list using cursor keys to mark a starting point in conjunction with a confirmation key to select a marked starting point in the list as a new navigation destination.

drawings

Embodiments of the invention are shown in the figures and are explained in more detail below. Show it

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a preferred exemplary embodiment of a navigation device according to the invention,

FIG. 2A schematically shows the second memory 70 with starting points entered therein at a first point in time and

2B shows the second memory 70 at a second later point in time.

Description of the embodiments

The subject matter of the present invention is described below using the example of a vehicle navigation device 10, the block diagram of which is shown in FIG. 1.

Means 30, 35, 40 are connected to a device control 20 of the navigation device 10, which also includes the actual navigation computer, among other things, which provide information about the location, the direction of movement and the state of movement of the vehicle.

In the present exemplary embodiment, this is a rotation rate sensor 30, by means of which the orientation of the vehicle in which the navigation device is installed with respect to the cardinal points is detected by integration via the detected rotation rate changes. Furthermore, it is a distance meter 35 which detects, for example, pulses emitted by wheel sensors of an anti-lock braking system for vehicle brakes and a distance traveled from the number of pulses determined and a known wheel circumference determined. Finally, it is a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver 40 for receiving and evaluating radio signals emitted by GPS satellites, by means of which the position of the vehicle can be determined.

Furthermore, a first memory 60 is connected to the controller 20, in which information from a country or road map, in particular traffic route information, such as information about motorways, federal, state and

District streets, as well as inner-city streets and at least place and street names, are stored in digital form. In the present exemplary embodiment, the first memory 60 is in the form of a CD-ROM drive with an inserted CD-ROM as a data carrier for the

Map information realized. However, it can also be provided that the first memory 60 is implemented in the form of a ROM or RAM semiconductor memory. In the latter case of a RAM memory, the stored map information can be updated in a simple manner, for example via a radio link between the navigation device 10 and a control center or also by information transmitted by means of receivable radio signals.

Furthermore, an output unit 50 for displaying and / or acoustically outputting driving instructions is connected to the controller 20. Driving instructions for the vehicle driver, for example in the form of a directional arrow for impending turning processes and one, are shown on this during the actual targeting process

Remaining distance display until the turning process is shown. As an alternative or in addition to the visual output of the driving instructions, an acoustic reproduction of driving instructions is provided, for example in the form "turn right after 100 meters". To generate the driving instructions The controller 20 has a corresponding generator, not shown and known per se, in the case of an acoustic output of the driving instructions, for example in the form of a speech synthesizer for converting a driving instruction into intelligible language.

Furthermore, an input unit 45 with control elements, such as pushbuttons 47 or other input means, such as, for example, is connected to the controller 20. B. knobs, for entering a navigation destination and for operating other

Functions of the device connected. In the subject matter of the present invention, the input unit is preferably designed in the form of a cursor control with cursor keys 47a, 47b, 47c, 47d and a confirmation key 48, which in particular enables a particularly simple selection of a target point or another parameter value to be set from a selection list, preferably by marking the corresponding list entry enable by means of a controllable cursor 49 and subsequent confirmation of the marked list entry.

Finally, a second memory 70 is provided to the controller for storing a navigation starting point. In a first exemplary embodiment of the invention, the second memory 70 is designed in such a way that a single starting point 71, that is to say a data set which characterizes a starting point, consists, for example, of information about coordinates of the starting point within the map stored in the first memory 60, or of information The geographical longitude and latitude of the starting point, or consisting of at least a place name and a street name of the starting point and possibly additional information such as a house number or a number sequence that can be clearly assigned to the navigation destination, such as a telephone number, can be stored. For this purpose, the control 20 is designed such that the start point is written into the second memory 70 at the start of a route guidance process, that is to say after the navigation device has been started up and the vehicle in which the navigation device is operated has been put into motion.

In contrast, in a second exemplary embodiment of the navigation device according to the invention, it is provided that a plurality of starting point data sets 71, 72, 73, 74, 75 can be stored in the second memory 70. For this purpose, the second memory 70 is preferably designed in the form of a memory which is usually referred to as LIFO (Last In First Out) memory, so that when the data records stored in the second memory 70 are accessed, the controller 20 initially accesses the data record last stored.

To store a plurality of starting point data records in the second memory 70, the controller 20 is designed such that, at the beginning of the route calculation or, for example, immediately after the location has been determined or at the start of the route guidance process after the route calculation has ended, the corresponding starting point 74, 75 comes first in the second memory 70 is written.

Alternatively, however, it is also possible for the vehicle driver to be asked to confirm the storage of the data record before saving a starting point data record.

The described navigation device works as follows,

When the navigation device is switched on, the sensors 30, 35, 40, namely the rotation rate sensor 30, the odometer 35 and the GPS receiver 40 deliver information about the state of motion, the orientation and the current position of the vehicle in which the navigation device 10 is operated. The navigation computer of the controller 20 calculates the current vehicle position from the signals from the sensors 30 and 35 and the satellite receiver 40. If necessary, this is corrected by a comparison with the card information stored in the first memory 60 in the sense of a plausibility check. This method is generally known under the term "map matching".

Then or immediately after switching on the device, i.e. simultaneously with the position determination, the navigation driver enters the navigation destination, for example in a known manner by entering the location and street name of the navigation destination letter by letter and / or by selecting them from a destination list. Alternatively, the destination entry can also be provided in the form of a marking of the navigation destination on a map shown on the output unit 50 by means of a controllable cursor or by entering a number, for example a telephone number, which is clearly assigned to the navigation destination.

In addition, it is provided according to the invention that the entry of the navigation destination also by selecting, in the case of the first exemplary embodiment, the starting point stored in the second memory 70, in the case of the second exemplary embodiment, one of the starting points 71, 72, 73, 74 stored in the second memory 70 , can be done.

In the second exemplary embodiment, a list of the stored starting points 71 to 74 is displayed on the display 50 of the navigation device, for example when the navigation device is started up, the starting point 74 that was last stored preferably being noted in the first place in the list if necessary, further starting points 71 to 73 are displayed, for example, in the reverse order of their storage or according to another criterion, such as sorted alphabetically by city name. To select a stored starting point as the new target point, a cursor 49 is provided which can be moved over the displayed list by means of cursor keys 47a to 47d and which, when the list is first displayed when the navigation device 10 is started up, preferably first marks the last stored starting point 74. This is easy

Confirmation can be selected using a confirmation button. If an older starting point 71 to 73 is to be selected instead of the last stored starting point, the cursor 49 is moved to the corresponding list entry using the cursor keys 47a to 47d and the starting point marked in this way is selected using the confirmation key 48 (FIG. 2A).

After the navigation destination has been entered and the current vehicle location has been determined, a route calculation from the current vehicle location to the user-defined destination, that is to say the navigation destination, with the aid of the map information stored in the first memory 60 is carried out in the navigation computer of the controller 20 automatically or on the explicit request of the vehicle driver.

At the same time, ie when the route calculation begins, the current vehicle location is automatically written into the second memory 70 as the starting point 75 (FIG. 2B). Alternatively, the starting point can be written into the second memory 70 automatically after the vehicle has been put into motion, that is to say with the start of the guidance process, or immediately after the location has been determined after the navigation device 10 has been started up, or also to one of the at the instigation of the user.

If the second memory 70 according to the first exemplary embodiment is a memory with storage space for only one starting point, a starting point that may already have been stored is overwritten.

If the second memory 70 according to the second exemplary embodiment is a memory for holding a plurality of starting point data records, the entries 71 to 74 which have already been stored are preferably shifted backward by one place in their ranking and the current starting point 75 in first place the second memory 70 is written. The current one is correct

If the vehicle location and thus the starting point coincide with a starting location already stored in the second memory 70, this is preferably not rewritten into the second memory 70, but the memory content is re-sorted, if necessary, in such a way that the current location is again in the first position in the second memory 70 , If the capacity of the second memory 70 is exhausted by the amount of entries, it is provided in the present embodiment that the oldest entry 71 is deleted when a new starting point 75 is registered.

In another embodiment, it can also be provided that all entries except the most current, or also all entries in predetermined or user-definable time intervals of, for example, one or more days or even one or more weeks when the navigation device is started up or even before it Switch off to be deleted. After calculating the route from the current starting point 75 to the selected destination, the actual destination guidance process begins when the journey begins, in the course of which the navigation device 10 guides the vehicle driver along the calculated route to the entered navigation destination by means of visual and / or acoustic driving instructions. If the vehicle driver deviates from the predefined route, provision is made for a new route calculation to take place after the current vehicle location has been determined, the further driving instructions being based on the newly calculated route.

Claims

Claims:

1. A method for calculating a route from a start to a destination, characterized in that the start point is stored and that the stored start point can be selected as the destination for a new route calculation.

2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the starting point is stored in a list, and that a starting point can be selected from the list as the destination for a new route calculation.

3. The method according to claim 2, characterized in that the list of starting points for the navigation destination input is displayed.

4. The method according to claim 3, characterized in that the navigation destination can be selected by marking a starting point within the list, preferably by means of a cursor (48) controllable with cursor keys (47a, 47b, 47c, 47d) and subsequent confirmation of the marked starting point.

5. The method according to any one of claims 2 to 4, characterized in that the stored in the list Starting points are deleted after a specified period of time.

6. Navigation device for calculating a route from a start point to a destination point, characterized by a second memory (70) for storing the start point (74, 75) and

Means (47a, 47b, 47c, 47d, 48, 49) for selecting the stored starting point (74, 75) as the destination for a new route calculation.

7. Navigation device according to claim 4, characterized in that the second memory 70 is in the form of a list for storing a plurality of destination points (71, 72, 73, 74, 75), and that a starting point can be selected from the list as a new destination is.