JP2002092787A - Information output device for vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an on-vehicle navigation device not displaying the VISC information on a display in receiving an electric wave from an electric wave beacon during traveling on a road excluding a toll road. SOLUTION: This information output device comprises a discriminating means 19 for discriminating the traveling of the vehicle on the toll road on the basis of a state of passing through an automatic toll gate of the toll road installed at an outlet and an inlet of the toll road, and an informing means 35 informing the VISC information transmitted from the electric wave beacon installed on the toll road only when the traveling of the vehicle on the toll road is discriminated by the discriminating means.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information output device for a vehicle, and more particularly to a vehicle information output device (VICS) from a radio beacon only when traveling on a toll road such as an expressway.
The present invention relates to a vehicle information output device for displaying information on a display.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For a driver traveling on a highway,
The radio wave beacon is the medium that provides congestion information on expressways, congestion information on service areas and parking areas, but radio waves (quasi-microwaves) are used for information transmission, so radio waves leak outside the expressway. There is. Therefore, when a general road exists under the radio wave beacon, a car traveling on the road may receive the signal.

Therefore, it is only necessary to accept information from a radio beacon while traveling on a highway using map matching of a navigation device. There is a possibility that map matching may be performed on a general road parallel to the highway, even though the vehicle is traveling.

There is also a method of judging entry to an expressway by using a vehicle speed or stopping a car near a tollgate (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 3-154818 and 5-1).
No. 73481), it cannot be said that it is a reliable judgment considering the case where the general road is congested.

[0005]

Therefore, according to the conventional method, VICS information transmitted from a radio beacon is received by a car traveling on a general road other than an expressway and displayed on a display. As a result, there has been a problem that extra information is displayed on a display of a navigation device of a car traveling on a general road other than the expressway, thereby reducing navigation efficiency.

An object of the present invention is to provide an automatic toll collection system (ETC),
Focusing on the fact that entry into and exit from a toll road can be determined with certainty, and a vehicle information output device that does not notify VICS information when a signal related to a toll road is received while traveling on a road other than a toll road is provided. It is in.

[0007]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an automatic toll collection system (ETC) installed at an exit or entrance of a toll road. According to the state, the determination means for determining when the vehicle is traveling on the toll road and the VICS information transmitted from the radio beacon installed on the toll road determine that the vehicle is traveling on the toll road. And a notifying means for notifying only while the operation is being performed.

[0008] Since the VICS information transmitted from the radio wave beacon is notified only while the determination means determines that the vehicle is traveling on the toll road, navigation efficiency is improved. According to the second aspect of the present invention, a determination means for detecting the passage of a vehicle of an automatic toll collection system (ETC) installed at an exit or an entrance of a toll road to determine a traveling state of the toll road, and a received VICS The VIC related to the toll road in a state where it is determined that the vehicle is traveling on the toll road by the notification unit that notifies the information and the determination unit.
When the S information is received, the notifying means notifies the notifying means of the VICS information, and the notifying means does not receive and notify the VICS information on the toll road in a state where it is not determined that the vehicle is traveling on the toll road. An information output device for a vehicle is provided.

In a state where it is not determined that the vehicle is traveling on a toll road, the notifying means does not notify the VICS information on the toll road, so that the navigation efficiency is improved.
In the second aspect, the VICS information is transmitted from a radio wave beacon installed on a toll road. In the first or second aspect, the notification means is a display device, and the received VICS information is displayed on the display means.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. Throughout the figures, the same reference numbers refer to the same. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an on-vehicle navigation device (information output device, VICS information output device) according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, C
The PU (notification control means, control means) 1 includes an operation unit 2, a direction sensor 3, a mileage sensor 4, a GPS receiver 5, a VI
The CS receiver 15 and the ETC transceiver 16 are connected via I / F circuits 6 to 9 and I / F circuits 17 and 18, respectively. CPU1 also has a CD-RO
An M or DVD 10, a buffer memory 11, a display controller 12 and a VRAM 13 are connected, and a display device (display means, notification means) 14 is connected to an output of the display controller (display control means, notification control means) 12. These components are the same as those of the conventional in-vehicle navigation device except for the operation of the CPU 1.

An ETC information determining unit 19 is provided for determining whether the vehicle is traveling on a toll road such as a highway based on a signal output from the ETC transceiver 16. The output of the determination unit (determination means) 19 is input to the CPU 1 via the I / F circuit 20. The CPU 1 controls navigation, and stores the map data on a CD-ROM or D-ROM.
The necessary data is transferred from the VD 10 to the buffer memory 11, and the contents of the buffer memory 11 are displayed on the display device 14 via the CPU 1 and the display controller 12.
The CPU 1 also calculates the position of the vehicle based on information obtained from the direction sensor 3, the mileage sensor 4, and the GPS receiver 5, performs map matching with map data, writes drawing data into the VRAM 13, and displays the drawing data. 1
2 is combined with the own vehicle position and the map data to be displayed on the display device 14. Operation information input from the operation unit 2 including a remote controller, a touch switch, and the like.
(Map enlargement, reduction, etc.) are also displayed.

The VICS receiver 15 receives real-time traffic information (such as the location of congested traffic and the length of congested traffic) from three media, FM, optical beacon, and radio beacon, and performs error correction and the like. The output of the VICS receiver 15 is I /
The image data is displayed on the display device 14 through the F circuit 17, the CPU 1, and the display controller 12 so as to overlap the image data. The VICS receiver 15 can also determine, for example, that information in the direction opposite to its own traveling direction should not be displayed, for example, regarding traffic congestion information on an expressway.

ETC (Electronic Toll Collection Sys)
tem) The transceiver 16 is mounted on a navigation device compatible with an automatic toll collection system (ETC) for a highway, communicates with a transceiver installed at a highway entrance gate, and charges for the highway. Do it automatically.
Information such as tolls received by the ETC transceiver 16 is I
The image is displayed on the display device 14 through the / F circuit 18, the CPU 1, and the display controller 12.

The ETC is also called an "automatic toll road toll collection system" or the like, and is an ETC card (IC card for ETC) in which contract information is recorded in an on-vehicle device mounted on a vehicle.
Is inserted into the ETC transceiver 16 for use. By wireless communication between the roadside antenna installed at the tollgate on the toll road and the ETC transceiver 16, information such as tolls is recorded on both the computer system of the toll road and the ETC card. You can pass without stopping for payment.

When the power of the ETC transceiver 16 is turned on, the ETC transceiver 16 waits for an ETC card to be inserted.
When the card is inserted, it becomes ready. When a radio wave from a roadside machine installed near a tollgate on a toll road is detected, an initialization procedure is performed, communication is established, and an active state is established. In the active state, communication such as entrance information (passing time, tollgate number, etc.) and toll information is performed, and usage fees are written to the ETC card. After the communication is completed, the communication device becomes ready again, and waits for communication with the on-road device. As described above, since the information of the entrance and exit of the expressway is coded and input to the ETC receiver 16,
The CPU 1 can retrieve the actual high-speed lamp name from the code and display the fee information on the display device 14.

In this embodiment, the ETC receiver 16
The ETC information determination unit 19 receives the entrance information and the exit information of the highway obtained from the ETC, and determines whether to display (notify) the VICS information based on the determination whether the vehicle is on the highway. I did it. FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the ETC information determination unit 19 according to the present embodiment.

Referring to FIG. 1, at step 101, a highway flag is set to "0" at the start of traveling. Next, when it is detected in step 102 that the ETC transceiver 16 has passed the entrance gate of the highway, the ETC transceiver 16
, An entrance gate detection signal is input to the ETC information determination unit 19, and the highway flag in the ETC determination unit 19 is set to “1” in step 103. Next, step 104
Detects that the ETC transceiver 16 has passed the exit gate of the highway,
The exit gate detection signal is input to the information judging section 19, and the highway flag in the ETC judging section 19 is set to "0" in step 105, and the process returns to step 102, where the own vehicle again enters the entrance gate of the highway. Wait to pass.

FIG. 3 shows a CPU for displaying VICS information on the screen only while the vehicle is traveling on the highway using the highway flag.
FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram for explaining the operation of FIG. As shown in the figure, the current position calculating unit 31 outputs a G signal from the GPS receiver 5.
The current position information is calculated based on the PS information, and the traveling distance and traveling direction are calculated by the traveling distance and traveling direction calculation unit 32 based on the vehicle speed and the gyro output. In FIG. 1, a travel distance sensor 4 and a direction sensor 3 are used instead of the vehicle speed and the gyro output. In the map matching unit 33, the map data from the buffer memory 11
The map is matched with the current position, the traveling distance, and the traveling direction, and the combined screen is input to the display drawing unit 37.

On the other hand, the traffic congestion point and length calculation unit 34 calculates V
Based on the VICS information from the ICS receiver 15, a congestion point and a congestion length are calculated and input to the display drawing unit 37. Further, the determination information from the ETC information determination unit 19 is input to the display control unit 35 and the entrance / exit information search unit 36. The display control unit 35 controls the display drawing unit 37 to display the VICS information only when the highway flag is “1”.

The output of the display drawing unit 37 is a VRAM
13 and is used to control the display controller 12. As described above, according to the present embodiment,
When a signal related to a toll road such as VICS information is received while traveling on a road other than a toll road such as an expressway, VIC
Since the S information is not notified, unnecessary unnecessary information can be deleted, and thus the navigation efficiency can be improved.

In the embodiment described above, the highway flag is realized by the ETC determination unit 19 provided outside the CPU 1, but the present invention is not limited to this. For example, if an expressway flag is provided inside the CPU 1, the ETC
The output of the transceiver 16 may be received by the CPU 1 and the CPU 1 may control an internal highway flag. In addition, as an output form of the received VICS information, a notification may be made by sound other than the display.

[Brief description of the drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is an ETC information determination unit 1 according to the embodiment of the present invention.
9 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram illustrating an operation of a CPU according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 19: ETC information determination unit 35: Display control unit

Claims (4)

[Claims] An automatic toll collection system (ETC) installed at an exit or entrance of a toll road determines whether or not the vehicle is traveling on the toll road, and a determination means installed on the toll road. VICS transmitted from radio beacon
An information output device for a vehicle, comprising: a notification unit that notifies information only when the determination unit determines that the vehicle is traveling on a toll road. 2. Detecting the passage of a vehicle of an automatic toll collection system (ETC) installed at an exit or an entrance of a toll road,
Determining means for determining a traveling state of the toll road; notifying means for notifying received VICS information; and VICS information relating to the toll road in a state where the determining means determines that the vehicle is traveling on the toll road. Notification control means for notifying the notifying means of notifying the VICS information to the notifying means when receiving the VICS information relating to the toll road in a state where it is not determined that the vehicle is traveling on the toll road; An information output device for a vehicle, comprising: 3. The information output device according to claim 2, wherein the VICS information is transmitted from a radio beacon installed on the toll road. 4. The information output device according to claim 1, wherein the notification unit is a display device, and the received VICS information is displayed on the display unit.