JP2002365084A - System and method for navigation and navigation server device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable a vehicle to arrive surely at a destination even when a terminal such as a portable telephone whose capacity of a display screen is limited is used. SOLUTION: The navigation system comprises a reception step S01 (S06) which receives the starting position, the goal position and the present position of a route from the terminal, calculation steps S02, S03 in which map data is retrieved by a database storing the map data containing a plurality of contents used to visually confirm a point as a target and in which a guidance route is calculated, and transmission steps S04 to S07 in which the contents of the point corresponding to the calculated guidance route are transmitted sequentially so as to correspond to the present position from the terminal.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a navigation system, a navigation server device, and a navigation method capable of receiving navigation information using, for example, a portable telephone as a terminal.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, GPS (Global Po
2. Description of the Related Art Navigation devices for automobiles, which mainly use a positioning system (global positioning system), are widely and widely used.

[0003] Apart from this, map information search services are also actively implemented on personal computers and the Internet, which is very useful when searching for an arbitrary store in a land to be visited for the first time.

[0004]

However, the above-described map information search services used on personal computers and the Internet all provide map information around a destination, and provide information on a flat map. Therefore, it may be difficult to grasp the contents of the shop in an environment such as a person with a dyslexia or at night, for example.

[0005] In other words, this point is "information that can be easily understood by people with the advantage of the ground, but difficult to understand the meaning for first-time users." In this case, the tendency becomes remarkable because the display capacity of the display unit is small.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-described circumstances, and has as its object the purpose of using a terminal having a limited display screen capacity such as a mobile phone. An object of the present invention is to provide a navigation system, a navigation server device, and a navigation method that can reliably reach a destination.

[0007]

According to the first aspect of the present invention,
A terminal having output means for outputting the received content, transmitting means for transmitting the departure position and destination position, and the current position of the route, and map data including a plurality of contents for visually recognizing a target point. Calculating means for searching the map data of the database based on the stored database and the departure position and destination position of the route from the terminal to calculate a guidance route; and contents of points corresponding to the guidance route calculated by the calculation means And a transmission device for sequentially transmitting the data from the terminal according to the current position.

With such a system configuration, contents for visually recognizing a target point are continuously transmitted from the server device to the user of the terminal until the user arrives at the destination. Moves along with the content while visually recognizing the points that are the target,
Since it is possible to finally reach the destination easily, even when using a terminal having a limited display screen capacity such as a mobile phone, it is necessary to surely reach the destination. Becomes possible.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the terminal further includes a positioning means for measuring a current position, and the transmission is performed using the current position obtained by the positioning means as a starting position. It is characterized by sending by means.

With such a system configuration, in addition to the operation of the first aspect of the invention, the input of the guidance route can be simplified.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the invention, the server device selects a content corresponding to the time from a plurality of contents corresponding to a plurality of time zones at the same point. It is characterized by transmitting.

With such a system configuration, in addition to the operation of the first aspect of the present invention, it is possible to cope with a point-of-sight situation that changes depending on time zones, for example, at night, so that each point can be visually recognized with certainty. Become.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a database storing map data including a plurality of contents for visually recognizing a point serving as a target, and receiving a start position, a destination position, and a current position of a route from a terminal. Means, calculating means for searching the map data in the database based on the departure position and destination position received by the receiving means to calculate a guidance route, and transmitting the content of a point corresponding to the guidance route calculated by the calculation means to the terminal. Transmitting means for sequentially transmitting the data in accordance with the current position from the device.

With such a configuration, the content for visually recognizing a target point is continuously transmitted to the user of the terminal until the user arrives at the destination, and the user of the terminal follows the content in accordance with the content. Using a terminal with a limited display screen capacity, such as a mobile phone, allows you to easily reach your destination by sequentially moving while visually recognizing target points. Even if it does, it is possible to reliably reach the destination.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a receiving step of receiving a starting position, a destination position, and a current position of a route from a terminal, and a point serving as a target is determined by the starting position and the destination position received in the receiving step. A calculating step of searching for the map data in a database storing map data including a plurality of contents for viewing and calculating a guidance route; and transmitting the content of a point corresponding to the guidance route calculated in the calculation step from the terminal. And a transmitting step for sequentially transmitting in accordance with the current position.

According to this method, contents for visually recognizing a target point are continuously transmitted to the user of the terminal until reaching the destination, and the user of the terminal follows the contents in accordance with the contents. Using a terminal with a limited display screen capacity, such as a mobile phone, allows you to easily reach your destination by sequentially moving while visually recognizing target points. Even if it does, it is possible to reliably reach the destination.

[0017]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The present invention will now be described in which
DMA (Code Division Multipl)
An embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a navigation system using a communication terminal (e.g., code division multiple access) system (hereinafter, referred to as a "CDMA terminal") will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration of the entire system. Reference numeral 1 denotes a network including a public line network (PSTN, ISDN, various wireless communication networks, etc.) and the Internet.

A server 2 for performing a navigation service is connected to the network 1, while a CDMA terminal 4 is wirelessly connected via base stations (BS) 3, 3,... Constituting a wireless communication network. It will be.

The server device 2 has a database (DB) 5 storing map data, and based on the map data stored in the database 5, the CDMA terminal 4
Execute the navigation service in response to the request from.

Next, the circuit configuration of the CDMA terminal 4 will be described with reference to FIG.

In the figure, reference numeral 11 denotes the nearest base station 3 and the CDM.
This is an antenna for performing A-system communication, and an RF unit 12 is connected to this antenna 11.

The RF unit 12 is connected to the antenna 1 during reception.
The signal input from 1 is separated from the frequency axis by a duplexer, mixed with a local oscillation signal of a predetermined frequency output from a PLL synthesizer, frequency-converted into an IF signal, and only a reception frequency channel is extracted by a wideband BPF. Then, the signal level of the desired reception wave is made constant by the AGC amplifier, and then output to the modulation / demodulation unit 13 at the next stage.

On the other hand, at the time of transmission, the RF unit 12
OQPSK (Offset Qua)
The modulation signal of dri-Phase Shift Keying is converted to A based on the control from the control unit 20 described later.
After the transmission power is controlled by the GC amplifier, the signal is mixed with a local oscillation signal of a predetermined frequency output from the PLL synthesizer, and R
Frequency conversion to F band, PA (Power Amplif)
aer) to amplify the power to a large power, and radiate and transmit from the antenna 11 via the duplexer.

The modulation / demodulation unit 13 converts the IF signal from the RF unit 12 into a baseband IQ (In-
The signal is separated into phase and quadrature-phase signals, digitized at a sample rate of about 10 [MHz], and output to the CDMA unit 14.

On the other hand, when transmitting and receiving,
The digital value IQ signal sent from the unit 14 is approximately 5
After analogization at a sample rate of [MHz], the signal is OQPSK-modulated by a quadrature modulator and transmitted to the RF unit 12.

The CDMA unit 14 receives the data from the modem unit 13 during reception.
Digital signal from PN (Pseudo Nois
e: pseudo noise) input to a code timing extraction circuit and a plurality of demodulation circuits for performing despreading / demodulation in accordance with the instructions of the timing circuit, and synchronize the plurality of demodulated symbols output therefrom with a combiner to synthesize And outputs it to the audio processing unit 15.

On the other hand, at the time of transmission, the CDMA unit 14 spreads the output symbols from the audio processing unit 15, limits the band with a digital filter, converts the symbols into IQ signals, and sends them to the modem unit 13.

The audio processing unit 15 receives the CDMA unit 1 at the time of reception.
4 after deinterleaving the output symbols from S.4 and then performing error correction processing with a Viterbi demodulator.
P (Digital Signal Process)
or) from the compressed digital signal to a normal digital audio signal, convert this to an analog signal, and convert it to a speaker (S
P) The loudspeaker 16 is driven.

On the other hand, at the time of transmission, the audio processing unit 15 digitizes an analog audio signal input from the microphone (MIC) 17, compresses the digitized analog audio signal to 1/8 or less by the audio processing DSP, and then applies an error to the convolutional encoder. After correction coding and interleaving, the output symbol is
Send to

Reference numeral 18 denotes a GPS antenna,
The GPS receiver 19 is connected to the antenna 18.

The GPS receiver 19 receives a center frequency of 1.57 from four or more GPS satellites received by the antenna 18.
For the 542 [GHz] GPS radio wave, the content of each spread spectrum is referred to as a C / A code PN.
The signal is demodulated by despreading with a (pseudo noise) code, and the current position and the current time in a three-dimensional space are calculated from those signals. The calculated result is sent to the control unit 20.

The RF unit 12, the modem unit 1
3, a control unit 20 is connected to the CDMA unit 14, the voice processing unit 15, and the GPS receiving unit 19, and the control unit 20 has a display unit 21, a key input unit 22, a ROM 23, and a RAM.
24 are connected.

The control unit 20 is constituted by a CPU or the like, and controls the entire terminal based on a predetermined operation program stored in the ROM 23. The ROM 23 controls communication at the time of communication, transmits and receives communication data, Display on the display unit 21, navigation operation to be described later,
Control unit 2 including various controls for operating A terminal 4
The operation program at 0 is fixedly stored.

The RAM 24 has a work area for temporarily storing various data handled under the control of the control unit 20, a telephone directory area for registering a set of a destination name and a telephone number in combination, and a RAM 24 for a navigation operation. Server device 2
Has an image area for storing the navigation image received from the CDMA terminal 4, especially the telephone directory area is held irrespective of the power state of the CDMA terminal 4.

The display section 21 is composed of, for example, a color liquid crystal display panel with a backlight and its driving circuit.

The key input unit 22 has a dial key also serving as a character input key, a "call" key, an "off" key, a redial key, a mode selection key, a cursor key, and the like. 20.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be described.

FIG. 3A illustrates a part of the contents of the point information of the map data stored in the database 5. That is, the database 5 stores, as map data, 2 data corresponding to each position coordinate of latitude and longitude.
Map information indicating roads, various buildings, intersections, and the like on a three-dimensional plane, point information for specifying a navigation image at a point serving as a target corresponding to the map information, and point information specified by the point information. And image information having many images.

In the map information, VICS
(Vehicle Information and
Information of each intersection is coded according to the Communication System (road traffic information communication system). As shown in FIG. 3A, information of a point serving as a target also corresponds to the code of this intersection. Has become.

That is, the point information is constituted by information of points that can be a target such as a building, a convenience store, an intersection, a fast food store, a family restaurant, a gas station, etc. One piece of information is the above-mentioned intersection. Code number corresponding to the code of
It is assumed that each information of the point name, the attribute, the position coordinates, the direction, the time zone, and the corresponding image number is composed of a plurality of sets of information as one set of information.

As the code number, if the attribute of the point is an intersection, the code of the intersection itself is set. If the attribute is other than that, codes of a plurality of intersections corresponding to the location are set.

The point name is the name of the point when it is specifically attached and displayed on the navigation image, and the attribute indicates the distinction between the building, the convenience store, the intersection, the fast food store, and the like.

The position coordinates are information on the latitude and longitude obtained by GPS, and the direction indicates from which direction the point P is viewed as an image as shown in FIG. 3 (2). .

The time zone is for determining an image to be provided at the time of performing the navigation service.
Here, for the sake of simplicity, only "day" and "night" are set.

The corresponding image number indicates the number of the image selected by each of the above information, and a navigation image of a corresponding point can be obtained by searching the above image information using the corresponding image number. It becomes.

In the figure, for example, "Nack Burger" which is a "fast food restaurant" facing a road between two intersections of code numbers "005" and "007" is "North latitude (N) xx ° xx"'Xx"xx""East longitude (E) yy ° y
When the point is viewed from the direction “7” to the time of “day” on the navigation guidance route, the number of the navigation image is “5E31−
3 ".

The navigation image of this number is CDMA
When displayed on the terminal 4, for example, a guide message such as “There is a fast food restaurant knack burger 300 m (from the point immediately before)” using the above-mentioned point information together with the navigation image. May be displayed together with characters on the display unit 21 or sound output from the speaker 16.

Next, the specific contents of the operation will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 4 shows the contents of processing performed by the control unit 20 mainly in the CDMA terminal 4, and FIG. 5 shows the contents of processing performed in the server device 2.

First, on the CDMA terminal 4 side, after specifying the navigation mode by changing the mode (step T01), the latitude and longitude are input as the position information of the destination according to the guide message displayed on the display unit 21. (Step T02).

In this case, it is assumed that the position information of the departure place is automatically inputted by the GPS receiving section 19 and the input operation by the user of the CDMA terminal 4 is simplified.

When the input of the position information of the destination is completed, a start request of the navigation operation is transmitted to the server device 2 together with the position information of the departure place and the destination (step T03). Wait for the designated point to be sent (step T04).

The server device 2 always waits for a navigation operation start request from the CDMA terminal 4 to be sent. When it is determined that there is a request (step S01), the server device 2 sends the request together with the request. The calculation is performed by searching the map information in the database 5 based on the obtained position information of the departure place and the destination, and selecting and determining the shortest guidance route (step S02).

Next, based on the calculated guidance route, the point information shown in FIG. 3A is searched for, and a predetermined distance interval range, for example, an interval of 300 [m] to 500 [m] is used. The valid point information is read all at once (step S03).

As point information to be read at this time, information corresponding to a plurality of time zones with respect to the same point and the same direction is read together.

Thus, of the plurality of pieces of read-out point information, the first point in the guide route is selected by taking the time into consideration at that time, and the navigation image of the number designated by the selected point information is selected. The information is read from the image information and transmitted to the CDMA terminal 4 together with the position information of the point (step S04).

Thereafter, the server device 2 determines whether or not the CDMA terminal 4 has received a notification to end the navigation (step S05), or whether or not a notification to newly update the navigation operation to the next point has been received. By repeatedly determining (Step S06), these notices become C
It waits for the arrival from the DMA terminal 4.

In the CDMA terminal 4, when a navigation image relating to the first point is sent from the server device 2, it is determined in step T04, and the received navigation image is displayed on the display unit 21 (step T04).
05), it is determined whether or not the information of the current position obtained by the GPS receiving unit 19 matches the position information of the point transmitted together with the navigation image including a preset error (step T06). By repeatedly executing the processing, the user of the CDMA terminal 4 visually recognizes the designated point and waits until the user arrives there.

Then, when it is determined that the designated point has been reached, it is confirmed that the arrived point is not the destination (step T07), and the server is operated to receive the designation of the next point. A process of transmitting a point update notification to the device 2 is executed (step T0).
8) Return to the process from step T04 again and wait for reception of the navigation image of the next point.

In this case, the CDMA terminal 4 may notify the server device 2 of the arrival at the designated point by transmitting the position information of the point, or may transmit the position information. In place of the above, the transmission for notifying the update to the next point may be performed simply as described above.

When the server device 2 receives a new notification from the CDMA terminal 4 to update the navigation operation to the next point, the server device 2 determines this in step S06 and performs CDM.
After the content of the point to be instructed to the A terminal 4 is updated and set, the navigation image of the updated point is provided to the CDMA terminal 4 again in step S04.
The process from is repeatedly executed.

In this manner, the server apparatus 2 transmits a navigation image of a new point to the CDMA terminal 4 every time the CDMA terminal 4 receives a point update notification from the CDMA terminal 4, and the CDMA terminal 4 receives the navigation image. When the user visually recognizes the image and moves to that point, a process of automatically transmitting a point update notification is repeatedly executed.

When the CDMA terminal 4 finally arrives at the point of the designated navigation image, the CDMA terminal 4 sends a notification to the server device 2 indicating that the point is the destination and to end the navigation. (Step T09), and the night process is ended in FIG.

Upon receiving this notification, the server device 2 determines this in step S05, executes processing including erasure of all point information read out above (step S08), and then executes the next navigation operation again. The process returns to step S01 to wait for a start request.

As described above, the server device 2 continuously transmits the navigation image together with the guide message as the content for visually recognizing the target point until reaching the destination with respect to the CDMA terminal 4. The user of the CDMA terminal 4 can easily reach the final destination by sequentially moving while visually recognizing the target points according to the contents.

Therefore, even when a terminal having a limited display screen capacity is used, such as various portable telephones including the CDMA terminal 4, it is possible to reliably reach the destination. .

In particular, in the server device 2, even at the same point, the navigation images are different for “day” and “night”, and the actual images obtained at the time corresponding to a plurality of time zones are obtained. Since the image similar to the scenery is provided, it is possible to reliably recognize each point in response to the point-of-view changing situation depending on the time zone.

In the above embodiment, the antenna 18 and the GPS receiver 19 are incorporated as means for measuring the current position in the CDMA terminal 4. However, the means for measuring the current position is not limited to this. not,
For example, in the case of a macro cell type mobile telephone system in which the area handled by each base station is very small, such as PHS (PHS: second generation cordless telephone system), either the terminal side or the server apparatus side Also, at that time, the location where the terminal is located can be automatically specified from the identification information of the base station to which the terminal is wirelessly connected. It can be realized.

Further, at the departure point of the route guidance, as described above, an example in which the processing is simplified assuming that the current position at that time is automatically input is used, but a point which is not the current position is designated. Of course, a guidance route starting from that point may be obtained.

In addition, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, but can be variously modified and implemented without departing from the gist thereof.

Furthermore, the above embodiments include inventions at various stages, and various inventions can be extracted by appropriately combining a plurality of disclosed constituent elements. For example, even if some components are deleted from all the components shown in the embodiments, at least one of the problems described in the column of the problem to be solved by the invention can be solved and the effects described in the column of the effect of the invention can be solved. In a case where at least one of the effects described above is obtained, a configuration in which this component is deleted can be extracted as an invention.

[0073]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, contents for visually recognizing a target point are continuously transmitted from the server device to the user of the terminal until the terminal reaches the destination. The user can easily reach the destination finally by visually recognizing the target points in accordance with the contents, so that the capacity of the display screen can be reduced like a mobile phone. Even when a restricted terminal is used, it is possible to reliably reach the destination.

According to the second aspect of the invention, in addition to the effect of the first aspect of the invention, the input of the guidance route can be simplified.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, in addition to the effect of the first aspect of the present invention, it is possible to reliably recognize each point in response to a point-of-view situation that changes depending on the time zone, for example, at night. become.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, the content for visually recognizing the target point is continuously transmitted to the user of the terminal until the user arrives at the destination. A terminal having a limited display screen capacity, such as a mobile phone, because it is possible to easily reach a destination by sequentially moving while visually recognizing a target point in accordance with the content. It is possible to surely reach the destination even when using.

According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, the content for visually recognizing the target point is continuously transmitted to the user of the terminal until the user arrives at the destination. A terminal having a limited display screen capacity, such as a mobile phone, because it is possible to easily reach a destination by sequentially moving while visually recognizing a target point in accordance with the content. It is possible to surely reach the destination even when using.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of an entire system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of the CDMA terminal according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram partially exemplifying the content of point information stored in the database according to the embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing processing contents at the time of a navigation operation on the CDMA terminal side according to the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing processing contents at the time of a navigation operation on the server device side according to the embodiment;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Network 2 ... Server apparatus 3 ... Base station (BS) 4 ... CDMA terminal 5 ... Database (DB) 11 ... (for CDMA) antenna 12 ... RF section 13 ... Modulation / demodulation section 14 ... CDMA section 15 ... Voice processing section 16 ... speaker (SP) 17 ... microphone (MIC) 18 ... (for GPS) antenna 19 ... GPS receiving unit 20 ... control unit 21 ... display unit 22 ... key input unit 23 ... ROM 24 ... RAM

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page F term (reference) 2C032 HB22 HB25 HC31 HD21 2F029 AA07 AB07 AB13 AC02 AC06 AC08 AC14 AC18 5H180 AA21 BB05 BB15 FF05 FF25 FF27 FF33 5K067 AA34 BB04 BB36 EE02 EE10 FF21 JJ23 HJ23 HJ23 HJ23

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A terminal having output means for outputting received content, transmitting means for transmitting a departure position, a destination position, and a current position of a route, and a content for visually recognizing a target point. A database storing a plurality of map data, a calculating unit for searching the map data of the database based on the departure position and the destination position of the route from the terminal to calculate a guidance route, and a guidance route calculated by the calculation unit. A server device having transmission means for sequentially transmitting the content at the corresponding point according to the current position from the terminal. 2. The navigation system according to claim 1, wherein said terminal further comprises positioning means for measuring a current position, and said terminal transmits the current position obtained by said positioning means as a starting position. system. 3. The navigation system according to claim 1, wherein the server device selects and transmits, at the same point, a plurality of contents corresponding to a plurality of time zones corresponding to the time zone. 4. A database storing map data including a plurality of contents for visually recognizing a point serving as a target, receiving means for receiving a departure position, a destination position, and a current position of a route from a terminal; Calculating means for searching the map data of the database based on the departure position and the destination position received in the above, and calculating the guidance route; and the content of the point corresponding to the guidance route calculated by the calculation means is stored in the current position from the terminal. A navigation server device, comprising: transmission means for sequentially transmitting correspondingly. 5. Departure position and destination position of a route from a terminal,
Based on the receiving step of receiving the current position, and the departure position and the destination position received in the receiving step, the map data is searched in a database storing map data including a plurality of contents for visually recognizing a target point. Navigation, comprising: a calculation step of calculating a guidance route; and a transmission step of sequentially transmitting content at a point corresponding to the guidance route calculated in the calculation step, in accordance with a current position from the terminal. Method.