JP2001082975A - On-vehicle navigation device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To accurately grasp the current position of a vehicle and to conduct appropriate voice guidance. SOLUTION: A route searching means 3 calculates a guide route to a destination and displays it on the map screen of a display means 6, and a control means 15 consults the calculated guide route and determines whether or not a traffic lane on which a vehicle travels is appropriate, based on image data obtained when an image pickup means 8 picks up an image of the traffic lane ahead of the vehicle. When the control means 15 determines that the traffic lane on which the vehicle travels is not appropriate, it causes a voice guide means 7 to provide voice guidance to urge the driver to change the traffic lane. Based on the image data obtained, the control means 15 determines the current position of the vehicle, determines whether or not the road is jammed, determines whether or not a destination or passing point is reached, and determines the travel speed of the vehicle to provide highly accurate information based on actual travel data.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vehicle-mounted navigation device mounted on a vehicle for guiding an occupant to a desired destination.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, this kind of in-vehicle navigation device is recorded on a storage medium such as a CD-ROM using current vehicle position information obtained by a current position detecting means such as a GPS receiver. The map data is read by the map data reading means, the read map of the vicinity of the current position of the vehicle is displayed on a display means such as a liquid crystal monitor, and the guidance route from the departure point to the destination is calculated by the route search means. Based on the provided guidance route and the vehicle position information, the guidance means guides the direction in which the driver should proceed by voice or screen when approaching a junction such as an intersection.

[0003] The voice guidance at the junction is, for example, "about 500 meters to the right in XX town" or "about 2 km to the left exit", and the driver follows the voice guidance. Change lanes if necessary.

[0004]

However, in the above-described conventional on-vehicle navigation device, the voice guidance at the branch point is performed based on the current position of the own vehicle.
Due to the limitation of the position detection accuracy in the GPS and the like, on a road having a plurality of driving lanes, it is not possible to accurately match the driving lane on the display map, and an appropriate There is a problem that lane change instruction and change guidance cannot be performed, and as a result, inappropriate voice guidance is performed due to a delay in lane change timing. On the other hand, in order to avoid such inappropriate voice guidance, only ordinary voice guidance is performed, so that there is a problem that the driver cannot obtain truly necessary information.

The present invention solves such a conventional problem, and provides an on-vehicle navigation device capable of correctly grasping the current position of the vehicle and providing appropriate voice guidance. .

[0006]

According to the present invention, there is provided an on-vehicle navigation device comprising: a route searching means for calculating a travel route to a destination; an image capturing means for capturing an image in front of the vehicle while traveling; Means for determining whether or not the traveling lane of the own vehicle is appropriate based on the obtained image data based on the traveling route; and, as a result of the determination, when the traveling lane of the own vehicle is not appropriate, the traveling lane And voice guidance means for performing voice guidance so as to change.
With this configuration, it is possible to extract the traveling lane based on the image data captured by the imaging unit, determine whether the current position of the vehicle is appropriate in light of the traveling route, and perform appropriate voice guidance. You can do it.

Further, the on-vehicle navigation device according to the present invention includes means for monitoring the lighting state of the turn signal lamp of the vehicle, and after performing voice guidance to change the lane, the turn signal lamp is appropriately turned on. If it is not lit, voice guidance is provided to turn on the turn signal lamp on the side that changes the traveling lane, and it is possible to prevent forgetting to turn on the turn signal lamp when changing lanes .

Further, the on-vehicle navigation device according to the present invention includes a current position determining means for determining a current position of the own vehicle by obtaining a running locus of the own vehicle based on the image data obtained by the image pickup means. Since the correct current position of the vehicle can be obtained from the time-series data of the image data obtained by the imaging means, if the current position is different from the displayed current position, it can be corrected to the correct current position.

The vehicle-mounted navigation device according to the present invention further includes a traffic jam determining unit for determining a traffic jam on the road based on the image data obtained by the image capturing unit. Since the vehicle ahead of the own vehicle is reflected in the image data, the traffic jam situation can be determined from the relationship between the position and the speed of the vehicle and the own vehicle. The route can be changed to another travel route.

Further, the vehicle-mounted navigation device according to the present invention includes a point-of-arrival determining means for determining whether or not the vehicle has reached a destination or a passing point based on the image data obtained by the imaging means. By comparing the image data of the target which is a mark stored in advance in the recording medium with the image data of the target obtained by the imaging means,
It can be determined that the vehicle has reached the destination or the passing point.

The vehicle-mounted navigation device according to the present invention further includes a traveling speed determining means for determining a traveling speed of the own vehicle based on the image data obtained by the imaging means. The vehicle speed can be calculated from the data flow speed and the image scan speed.

[0012]

FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration of a vehicle-mounted navigation device according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Operation input means 1 for inputting various commands, current position calculation means 2 for calculating the current position of the vehicle, route search means 3 for calculating a travel route to a destination, and VICS receiving means for receiving VICS information 4, map data storage means 5 for reading and storing map data from a storage medium, display means 6 for displaying the map data together with the current position of the vehicle, and voice guidance means 7 for providing voice guidance on operation procedures and traveling routes. When,
An image pickup means 8 having a video camera for picking up an image in front of the vehicle while traveling; an image data storage means 9 for storing image data obtained by the image pickup means 8; and a lighting device for monitoring a lighting state of a turn signal lamp of the vehicle. Monitoring means 10;
Current position determining means 11 for determining the current position of the own vehicle by obtaining the traveling locus of the own vehicle based on the image data obtained by the image capturing means 8 and congestion on the road based on the image data obtained by the image capturing means 8 The traffic congestion state determining means 12 for determining the situation, the point arrival determining means 13 for determining whether or not a destination or a passing point has been reached based on the image data obtained by the image capturing means 8, and the information obtained by the image capturing means 8. The vehicle includes a traveling speed determination unit 14 that determines the traveling speed of the host vehicle based on image data, and a control unit 15 including a CPU that controls the entire apparatus. Current position determining means 11, congestion state determining means 1
2. Point arrival determination means 13 and traveling speed determination means 14
Is realized as a program controlled by the control unit 15.

Next, the operation of the on-vehicle navigation device configured as described above will be described. When the apparatus is started up by a predetermined operation of the operation input means 1, the control means 1 calculates the current position of the vehicle based on the current position calculated by the current position calculation means 2 from data such as GPS information and a speed sensor and a direction sensor.
5 reads the corresponding map data from the map data storage means 5 and displays it on the screen of the display means 6. When a destination is set from the operation input unit 1, the route search unit 3 calculates a guide route from the current position to the destination while referring to the traffic regulation information and the traffic congestion information received by the VICS receiving unit 4, and calculates the guide route. The control means 15 displays the guidance route thus superimposed on the map on the screen of the display means 6. When the driver advances the vehicle along the guidance route displayed on the display unit 6, the control unit 15 determines the current position information calculated by the current position calculation unit 2 and the road network data on the map data.
The vehicle position mark on the display means 6 is sequentially updated. When the vehicle approaches a branch point in the guidance route, audio data on the map data is output from the audio guidance means 7 as audio.

On the other hand, while the vehicle is traveling along the guide route,
The video camera of the imaging means 8 captures a scene centered on the road ahead of the vehicle, and the image data is compressed and stored in the image data storage means 9. In this image data, a white line that separates the lane of the driving road is reflected,
The control unit 15 determines whether the lane in which the vehicle is traveling is on the right side, the left side, or the center by detecting the number and order of the white lines from the image data, and the traveling lane is determined at the branch point of the guidance route. It is determined whether it is appropriate in light of the traveling direction. For example, when making a right turn, the vehicle must travel in the right lane, so it is determined whether the vehicle is traveling in the right lane. If you are not in the right lane,
The control means 15 instructs the voice guidance means 7 to "turn right,
Please drive in the right lane. " Thereafter, the control means 15 receives a signal from the lighting monitoring means 10 as to whether or not the right turn signal lamp is turned on. Please turn on the light ". The voice guidance data for these is stored in the voice guidance means 7.
Is stored in the memory.

The image data stored in the image data storage means 9 is time-series data.
However, the current position of the own vehicle can be determined by calculating a running vector from the time-series data to obtain a running locus. Therefore, when the current position determined by the current position determination unit 11 and the own vehicle position calculated by the current position calculation unit 2 and displayed on the display unit 6 are different,
The control means 15 corrects the own vehicle position to the current position determined by the current position determination means 11, so that an accurate current position display can be performed using the image data of the site.

The image data captured by the image capturing means 8 includes vehicles in front of the own vehicle. Therefore, the traffic congestion state determining means 12 determines the own vehicle and the vehicle in front thereof from the image data. The traffic congestion state of the road is determined from the distance to the vehicle, the relative speed between the own vehicle and the preceding vehicle, the elapsed time, and the like.
5 allows the route searching means 3 to search for a different route from the guidance route searched by the route searching means 3, so that appropriate route guidance using the image data of the site can be performed.

In the image data picked up by the image pick-up means 8, a target, that is, a landmark as a destination or a passing point is reflected. The features of the landmark are extracted and collated with the feature data of the landmark recorded in the map data in advance, and if they match, it is determined that the destination or the passing point has been reached, and the control is performed. The means 15 allows the voice guidance means 6 to perform voice guidance to that effect, so that appropriate voice guidance using the image data of the site can be performed.

The traveling speed determining means 14 calculates the traveling speed of the vehicle from the flow speed of the image data stored in the image storing means 9 and the scanning speed of the image.
The vehicle speed sensor used in the conventional in-vehicle navigation device can be eliminated.

[0019]

As described above, the in-vehicle navigation device according to the present invention calculates the guidance route to the destination, displays it on the map on the display screen, and images the traveling lane ahead of the vehicle. Based on the obtained image data, it is determined whether or not the traveling lane of the own vehicle is appropriate in light of the calculated guide route. If the result of the determination is that the traveling lane of the own vehicle is not appropriate, the traveling of the own vehicle is determined. Since the voice guidance is performed so as to change the lane, there is an effect that the voice guidance can be performed with higher accuracy and suitable for the actual traffic situation.

Further, the on-vehicle navigation device of the present invention determines the current position of the own vehicle or determines the traffic congestion state of the road on the basis of image data obtained by imaging the traveling lane ahead of the own vehicle. By judging whether the vehicle has reached a destination or a passing point, or by judging the traveling speed of the own vehicle, there is an effect that highly accurate information based on actual traveling data can be obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a vehicle-mounted navigation device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Operation input means 2 Current position calculation means 3 Route search means 4 VICS receiving means 5 Map data storage means 6 Display means 7 Voice guidance means 8 Imaging means 9 Image data storage means 10 Lighting monitoring means 11 Current position determination means 12 Traffic jam determination Means 13 Point arrival determination means 14 Running speed determination means 15 Control means

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A route search means for calculating a travel route to a destination, an image capture means for capturing an image in front of a vehicle while traveling, and an image data obtained by the image capture means, wherein the travel route is determined based on image data. Means for determining whether the traveling lane of the vehicle is appropriate in light of the vehicle, and voice guidance means for providing voice guidance to change the traveling lane if the traveling lane of the vehicle is inappropriate as a result of the determination. In-vehicle navigation device equipped with And means for monitoring a lighting state of a turn signal lamp of the vehicle. If the turn signal lamp is not properly turned on after voice guidance for changing the lane is made, the traveling lane is provided. 2. The in-vehicle navigation device according to claim 1, wherein voice guidance is provided so as to turn on a turn signal lamp on a side for changing the navigation signal. 3. The on-vehicle vehicle according to claim 1, further comprising a current position determining unit that determines a current position of the own vehicle by obtaining a traveling locus of the own vehicle based on the image data obtained by the imaging unit. Navigation device. 4. The on-vehicle navigation device according to claim 1, further comprising a traffic jam determining unit that determines a traffic jam on a road based on the image data obtained by the image capturing unit. 5. The on-vehicle vehicle according to claim 1, further comprising a point arrival determination unit that determines whether a destination or a passing point has been reached based on image data obtained by the imaging unit. Navigation device. 6. The in-vehicle navigation device according to claim 1, further comprising a traveling speed determination unit that determines a traveling speed of the own vehicle based on image data obtained by the imaging unit.