JP2000280821A - Drive recorder and drive recording method for mobile body - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reproduce, after an accident as real images, the state of the surroundings obtained before a vehicle causes an accident or a trouble to help in investigating the accident. SOLUTION: This drive recorder for mobile body comprises a camera 12 photographing the state of the surroundings of a vehicle, recording means (16 to 18, 21 to 25) endlessly recording the traveling information including at least those images photographed by the camera in a memory 25 for a specified time, and recording stop means (13 to 15, 21, 26) stopping the traveling information recording operation by the recording means at a specified timing. The specified timing for stopping is, for example, a time when an impact force applied to the vehicle exceeds a specified value or a driver operates manually to stop the vehicle.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a drive recorder and a drive recording method for recording a drive (running) state of a moving body represented by a vehicle, such as an automobile, and more particularly, to a method for driving a moving body caused by a traffic accident. The present invention relates to a drive recorder and a drive recording method which can be suitably used for a drive.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when a vehicle has an accident (traffic accident), it is very important to verify the accident. Usually, the occurrence of an accident is known based on the state of injury, damage to the vehicle body and surrounding objects, traces on the road, testimonies of passengers and witnesses, and the like.

[0003]

However, any of the above-mentioned methods for knowing the situation of occurrence of an accident is nothing less than estimating from the situation after the accident, and reproducing the state of occurrence of the accident as a raw image. could not.

The present invention has been made in view of such a conventional situation, and makes it possible to reproduce the surrounding situation until a moving object such as a vehicle causes an accident or a trouble as a raw image after the accident, and Its purpose is to be able to help with verification.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, a drive recorder for a moving body according to the present invention is a drive recorder attached to a moving body moving in a real space, and includes a drive recorder provided around the moving body. Image capturing means for capturing a situation as a moving image, recording means capable of endlessly recording moving information including at least the moving image captured by the image capturing means on a recording medium for a fixed time, and recording operation of moving information by the storing means Recording stop means for stopping the recording at a predetermined timing.

Preferably, the recording stop means has a sensor for detecting an impact force applied to the moving body at a predetermined value or more, and stops the information recording operation of the recording means when the sensor is activated. It has a configuration to make it. Further, the recording stop means has a switch means manually operated by a driver of the moving body, and a structure in which the information recording operation by the recording means is stopped when the switch means is operated by the driver. You may have.

The moving body is, for example, a vehicle. In this case, it is desirable that at least the recording means is installed inside or near the driver's seat of the vehicle.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a drive recording method for recording the surroundings of a moving object moving in a real space, the method comprising: Capture the surrounding situation as a moving image,
Moving information including at least the moving image is recorded on a recording medium capable of recording endlessly for a fixed time, and the recording operation is stopped at a predetermined timing.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG.
This will be described based on Nos. In this embodiment, a vehicle that moves on a road surface in a real space or the like will be described as an example of a moving object.

A drive recorder for a vehicle according to this embodiment is mounted on one vehicle as shown in FIG. 1, and other vehicles or bicycles around the vehicle accompanying the traveling (including a stationary state) of the vehicle. , Such as a pedestrian, and can be recorded on a recording medium mounted on the own vehicle.

The drive recorder 1 includes a controller 11 removably embedded in the bottom of the driver's seat ST, a camera 12 as image pickup means electrically connected to the controller 11, and various sensors. ,
And a regenerator 13. The various sensors include an airbag sensor 13, an impact sensor 14, a manual on / off switch 15, a brake sensor 16, a vehicle speed sensor 17, and a steering angle sensor 18.

Among the sensors, the essential sensors for the present embodiment are the airbag sensor 13 and / or the shock sensor 14, and the on / off switch. Sensors such as a brake, a vehicle speed, and a steering angle that indicate a driving situation other than the image may be appropriately selected and installed, or only the camera image may be recorded without being installed.

The reason why the controller 11 is installed in the seat is to place the controller 11 in a position where the impact is assumed to be the smallest even in the event of an accident, which will be described later. This is to protect the memory storing the image data as much as possible without damage. Therefore, the controller 11 may be installed at any other vehicle position as long as it is assumed that the impact is small.

The controller 11 is housed in a box (not shown) which is robust and has high heat resistance.
This controller 11 is electrically connected as shown in FIG.
CPU device 21 for managing the operation of the entire recorder, RAM
22, a ROM 23, a timer 24 for generating a date and time signal,
A memory 25 is provided as a recording medium on which the running state is written, and a recording processor 26 dedicated to writing data to the memory 25 is provided. The CPU 21 receives detection signals from the airbag sensor 13, the impact sensor 14, the switch 15, the brake sensor 16, the vehicle speed sensor 17, and the steering angle sensor 18. The detection signals from the brake sensor 16, the vehicle speed sensor 17, and the steering angle sensor 18 are sent to the CPU device 21 via A / D converters 27 to 29, respectively.

The camera 12 is, for example, a CCD camera, and is produced as a so-called fish-eye camera capable of simultaneously capturing images in all directions. The camera 12 is mounted on the roof of the vehicle body 2 as schematically shown in FIG.

The airbag sensor 13 outputs a detection signal that is turned on when the airbag operates. As an example, the impact sensor 14 is installed at one or several places at the front, side, and rear of the vehicle, detects an impact force that is greater than or equal to a predetermined value externally applied, and turns on at the time of the detection. Is output. As an example, the switch 15 is attached to the front of the dashboard, and outputs an on / off switch signal in response to an on / off operation by a driver or the like.

The brake sensor 16 outputs a detection signal of an analog amount corresponding to the amount of depression of the brake per unit time. The vehicle speed sensor 17 outputs a detection signal of an analog amount according to the vehicle speed. Further, the steering angle sensor 18
Outputs a handle operation amount per unit time for each handle operation direction as an analog detection signal.

Therefore, the CPU device 21 has a CPU, an interface circuit, and the like, and executes a recording process schematically shown in FIG. 3 described later when the CPU device 21 is started (for example, when the engine is turned on).

The recording processor 26 has a CPU and an interface circuit and is dedicated to writing and reading of image data. Necessary data such as date and time data, brake depression amount, vehicle speed, steering angle and the like are overwritten on the image data written in the memory 25.

As shown in FIG. 3, the memory 25 for recording is
A memory having a ring buffer structure, in which image data (and overwritten character and graphic data) can be written endlessly every predetermined time, for example, every 30 minutes. In other words, no matter what time you stop recording,
Image data for a predetermined time in the past can be read from the memory 25.

Next, the operation of the present embodiment will be described focusing on the CPU device 21.

First, at the time of startup, a manual on / off switch 1
It is determined whether the switch signal of No. 5 is on or off (step S1). When the switch is off, the driver or the like is forcibly stopping the operation of the drive recorder 1. Therefore, if the determination is off (NO), the process waits while making this determination at regular time intervals until it is turned on. It should be noted that the determination processing in step S1 is omitted, and the step S2 is started immediately after the drive recorder 1 is started.
The following process may be started.

When the determination in step S1 is turned on (YES), the CPU 21 instructs the recording processor 26 to start recording (step S2). In response to this, the recording processor 26 reads the image data from the camera 12 for each frame, and starts preparing for creating the recording data.

Next, the CPU device 21 reads the detection signals of the brake sensor 16, the vehicle speed sensor 17, and the steering angle sensor 18 and also reads the date and time signal from the timer 24 (step S3). Next, the read value is passed to the recording processor 26 (step S4).

For this reason, the recording processor 26 overwrites the prepared image data with the detected values of the sensors 16 to 18 and the date and time data from the timer 24, and writes the data in the memory 25. Thereby, the memory 25 (ring buffer)
Is superimposed with data necessary for image data and stored for each frame.

Next, the CPU device 21 reads the detection signals of the airbag sensor 13 and / or the impact sensor 14 and judges the signal value (step S5). When either of the detection signals of the sensors 13 and 14 is turned on, that is, when an accident has occurred or a situation of high possibility is detected, CP
The U device 21 instructs the recording processor 26 to stop writing the image in the memory 25 (step S6). As a result, the recording processor 26 stops such writing.

If the determination in step S5 is NO, it is determined whether or not the switch signal of the manual ON / OFF switch 15 is ON (whether or not to continue recording) (step S5).
7). If the determination is YES, that is, if the driver or the like has not instructed to forcibly stop recording, step S
Returning to the process of step 3, the image writing is continued as it is. However, when the determination in step S7 is NO, that is, when the stop of the image writing is manually forcibly instructed, the process proceeds to step S6, and the stop of the image writing is instructed.

As described above, when a vehicle accident or trouble has occurred or the possibility thereof has been detected, the recording of the surrounding images continuously taken for a predetermined period of time is automatically stopped. Further, if necessary, a driver or the like can manually stop image recording. This is convenient in the case of a contact accident or the like in which the impact force becomes a predetermined value or less.

Therefore, by reproducing the image recorded in the memory 25, a raw image at the time of occurrence of an accident or trouble can be obtained after the accident. In particular, image recording can be automatically stopped (or manually stopped) at an appropriate timing by detecting occurrence of an accident or the like or a state in which the possibility of the accident is high. For this reason, it is possible to almost certainly eliminate a situation in which an accident or the like is forgotten to stop image recording by accident and a once-acquired accident image is overwritten and erased.

To reproduce the image recorded in the memory 25,
The display of the car navigation device can be used as the regenerator 30 if necessary. This may, in some cases,
At the accident site, a live image of the accident situation can be reproduced.
In this way, by obtaining a raw image at the time of occurrence of an accident or the like, it is possible to provide powerful information in subsequent accident verification, which greatly contributes to accurate accident verification.

The present invention is not limited to the configuration of the embodiment described above, and various modifications are possible. For example, the camera is not limited to a configuration capable of capturing images in all directions, but may be configured to capture images only in a specific direction, for example, in front of or behind the vehicle body. Depending on the direction in which the camera captures images, the camera may be attached to the front of the vehicle, a door mirror, and further to the rear of the vehicle, a bumper, or the like. on the other hand,
The number of cameras is not limited to one. For example, a plurality of cameras may be provided and arranged so that each camera covers a predetermined field of view.

Although an airbag sensor and an impact sensor are provided here as means for detecting the occurrence or possibility of a vehicle accident or trouble, only one of these sensors may be used. Further, another sensor, for example, a steering wheel angular velocity sensor, an acceleration / deceleration sensor, a skid sensor (or an arithmetic circuit thereof) may be provided to estimate the possibility of a vehicle accident or trouble.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, the recording of an image is immediately stopped when the occurrence of an accident or a trouble or the possibility thereof is detected. The software time is set in steps S5 and S5 so that recording is continued as it is for a predetermined time that does not exceed the longest recording time per time, for example, about several minutes.
6 and S7. By providing a delay time for stopping the image recording in this way, it is possible depending on the situation to capture a scene of the treatment after the accident.

Further, in this embodiment, a memory is used as a recording medium, but a magnetic tape, a magnetic disk, a magneto-optical disk or the like may be used instead.

Further, although a vehicle is exemplified in the above embodiment as a moving body, the present invention can be similarly applied to a ship or an aircraft. Note that the controller is not limited to a configuration using a computer, and may be configured by combining digital circuits and logic circuits.

[0036]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The surroundings of the moving object are imaged, and information including at least the image is endlessly recorded on the recording medium for a certain period of time, and the recording is stopped at a predetermined timing such as when an accident occurs. The situation around the body until an accident or trouble occurs can be reproduced as a live image after the accident, which can be useful for accident verification and the like.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing how a drive recorder of a vehicle according to the present invention is attached to a vehicle body.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an electrical schematic configuration of the drive recorder.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing a ring buffer structure forming a memory for image recording.

FIG. 4 is a schematic flowchart illustrating a flow of image recording and recording stop according to the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Drive recorder 11 Controller 12 Camera 13 Airbag sensor 14 Impact sensor 15 Manual on / off switch 16 Brake sensor 17 Vehicle speed sensor 18 Steering angle sensor 21 CPU device 24 Timer 25 Memory 26 Recording processor

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A drive recorder attached to a moving body that moves in a real space, comprising: an imaging unit that captures a situation around the moving body as a moving image; and at least a moving image captured by the imaging unit. Recording means for endlessly recording the moving information including the moving information on the recording medium for a predetermined time, and recording stopping means for stopping the recording operation of the moving information by the storing means at a predetermined timing. Drive recorder. 2. The drive recorder according to claim 1, wherein the recording stop means has a sensor for detecting an impact force applied to the moving body at a predetermined value or more, and the recording means is activated when the sensor is activated. A drive recorder for a mobile object, characterized by having a configuration for stopping an information recording operation by a mobile device. 3. The drive recorder according to claim 1, wherein the recording stop unit includes a switch unit manually operated by a driver of the moving body, and the switch unit operates when the switch unit is operated by the driver. A drive recorder for a moving object, comprising a configuration for stopping a recording operation of information by a recording unit. 4. The drive recorder according to claim 1, wherein the moving body is a vehicle. 4. The drive recorder according to claim 1, wherein the moving body is a vehicle. 5. The drive recorder for a mobile object according to claim 4, wherein at least the recording means is installed inside or near a seat of the vehicle. 6. A drive recording method for recording a situation around a moving object moving in a real space, comprising: recording a situation around the moving object as a moving image; A drive recording method for a moving object, comprising recording movement information including at least the moving image and stopping the recording operation at a predetermined timing.