JP2003279373A - System and method for navigation and program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an interface that can prevent user of a navigation system from deviating from navigation due to perplexity, an error, or an uncertain factor so as to smoothly attain a previously inputted purpose. <P>SOLUTION: The audio signal processing section 103 of the navigation system synthesizes an audio signal that cause the user to unconsciously avoid the signal so that the audio signal may be heard by the user from a direction to be avoided against natural sounds usually heard by the user. Consequently, possibility of the user following navigation is increased while consciousness of the user that its action is controlled by electronic equipment is suppressed to a low level. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a navigation device, a navigation method, and a program that act on human hearing and present information that suggests behavior.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A system for navigating (suggesting / advising / guidance) a human action in order to achieve a certain purpose has been widely used in various forms. For example, GPS (Global
In car navigation using the Positioning System), the route from the starting point (or the current position) to the destination is navigated on the screen by specifying the destination in advance. A similar system can be serviced to pedestrians.

[0003] Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-3 by the applicant of the present application
A life management system, such as 44352, which advises actions and eating habits in accordance with human health has also been invented. These navigations are intended to make the user reach the destination faster or more comfortably, and to recover or maintain the user's health.

[0004]

However, it is undeniable that the navigation provided by the electronic device is a kind of "heterogeneous" with respect to the conventional daily life of human beings as described above. Even if the electronic device advises the action using the screen or electronic sound, it is the user's "property" and "subordinate".
Human beings do not always follow suggestions as they are doing.

When the user intentionally or unintentionally deviates from the route presented by the car navigation, the time to reach the destination is naturally delayed, or the user has to set a new course and restart the navigation. . This is contrary to the user's original purpose of "getting to the destination quickly", but in reality this can happen. Especially, in a personal navigation system that applies car navigation to pedestrians, the possibility of "fluctuation" or "change of mind" increases due to the amount of information that pedestrians see while walking compared to automobiles. .

[0006] For example, a confectionery store or bookstore on the side of the road suddenly caught my eye if I had to go straight without touching my side eyes, and because I entered the store because of temptation, I arrived at the station late and planned. A situation such as missing a train can occur.

[0007] Further, in the life management system, it is not possible to exclude the fact that the person enters the izakaya even though he is trying to lose weight by 3 kilograms in three months, in view of his humanity.

[0008] In any case, there is no known adverse effect that the detour here has on the user's original purpose (for example, according to the bookstore, the train waits 20 minutes),
Even if I knew it, I lost the temptation (drinking at a tavern). In any way, it is extremely difficult to completely prevent such non-navigation behavior, but if the navigation system itself has a mechanism for directing the user to follow the navigation naturally, such non-navigation is not possible. It can be expected to reduce the possibility of action.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is a navigation device having a presenting means for acting on human hearing and presenting information suggesting behavior, and a situation recognizing means for recognizing a situation of a user. The live voice input means for inputting a voice that should reach the user's ear, and the situation of the user recognized by the situation recognition means may be contrary to or contrary to the behavior suggested by the presenting means. Navigation judging means for judging whether or not the situation is high, and an effect output means for selecting and outputting a live voice processing rule for processing live voice based on the result of the determination by the navigation judging means, and Based on the live voice processing rule output by the effect output means, the live voice input by the live voice input means is processed, and It is characterized in further comprising an audio signal processing means for performing a process of presenting the audio signal act on the hearing of the user in presenting means.

According to the above means, the following effects can be obtained. By creating and presenting a virtual world in which the user is “difficult to take actions outside the navigation” or “easy to follow” the navigation using audio, the user is aware that the electronic device controls them. Create a situation that naturally follows navigation without doing so. As a result, it is possible to eliminate the trouble of regenerating the navigation due to the user taking actions outside the navigation at the "best time", and to reduce the disadvantage of the user due to being out of the navigation.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT An embodiment of a navigation device according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a navigation device according to an embodiment of the present invention. Note that FIG. 3 shows a flowchart showing the processing procedure of the navigation device of the present invention. The operation of the navigation device will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 and 3.

The voice heard by the user is input from the right audio input terminal 101 and the left audio input terminal 102. In the normal state, the audio signal processing unit 103 does not process the audio signal, or simply increases or decreases the volume and removes noise, and the input signals are input to the right audio output terminal 104 and the left audio output terminal 105, respectively. Is output as is.

Devices connected to these audio terminals are, for example, a microphone and earphones or headphones. As an example, a structure for this navigation device can be constructed by attaching a small microphone to the outside of the earphones (the side opposite to the ear canal).

On the other hand, the situation recognition section 111 inputs the current situation of the user from the situation recognition terminal 110. As the sensor connected to the situation recognition terminal, in addition to GPS, a direction sensor using a gyro, an image recognition system using a camera,
Gesture / posture sensor using acceleration sensor, GSR
There is a perspiration / tension sensor using (skin electric reflection). The situation obtained by such situational recognition is
Where you are, which way you are facing, walking, running, sitting, tense.

The navigation device first starts navigation according to a user's instruction (S30).
1). Next, the navigation is continued until the user gives an instruction to stop the navigation (S302). If it is during navigation, the navigation determination unit 108 determines from the situation recognized by the situation recognition unit 111 whether or not the user is following the navigation, and determines whether or not there is a risk of deviating from the navigation even if the user is following the navigation ( S303).

As a result, when it is determined that the user has begun to deviate from the navigation or there is a high risk of deviating from the navigation (S304), audio processing is performed by the following method. .

An example of navigation deviation will be described with reference to FIG. The user is about to leave the gate 201 and go to the dinner shop. 202 is a Chinese restaurant, 203 is a bento restaurant, 204
Is a soba shop. If the user wants to keep the calorie intake for dinner at 800 kCal or less while improving or losing weight in his eating habits, the Chinese restaurant 202 or the bento restaurant 20
It is known that there are few menus that meet the conditions in 3.

The navigation determination unit 108 refers to the navigation database 109 and uses such information to determine that it is preferable not to enter the Chinese restaurant 202 or the bento restaurant 203. As an example of the information registered in the navigation database 109, “the number of menus of 800 kCal or less = 7%” and “7
The number of menus of 00 kCal or less = 2% ”. Alternatively, as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-344352, the calorie intake when the user previously visited these stores is recorded, and from this tendency, "risk level" is recorded.
May be determined.

As described above, the navigation determination unit 10
No. 8 did not want to enter the Chinese restaurant 202 and the bento restaurant 203, and the determination result was obtained. At this time, the navigation device of the present invention performs the following audio processing (S305).

For example, it is assumed that the effect output unit 106 selects the processing pattern "wall". The processing pattern may be selected at random, or the one with a high probability that the user has followed the negative navigation suggested by this system in the past (it is better not to go there) is automatically selected as follows. Good. Moreover, you may select at random among several things with a high probability of following.

Description will be made using an example of a processing pattern called "wall". When "Wall" is selected, the effect output unit 10
6 is a risk factor from the user (in this case, the Chinese restaurant 20
2) Receive the previous direction from the navigation determination unit 108. In this example, the Chinese restaurant 202 is located in the left-hand direction of the user, since the point A in FIG. 2 faces the right direction in the figure.

Next, the virtual wall distance (L2) is set to 1 meter or 50 cm, and the sound from the right direction input from the right audio input terminal 101 is (L1 + L).
2) Delayed by the length of the left audio output terminal 105
Output to. For the right audio output terminal 104,
The signal from the right audio input terminal 101 is output as it is. At this time, the audio data to be output to the left audio output terminal 105 is not simply delayed, but is also attenuated at an attenuation rate according to the distance to the virtual wall in consideration of reflection due to reflection on the wall and then output. Good.

When the sound velocity is v, the delay td between the left audio and the right audio is equal to (L1 + L2) / v. FIG. 5 shows an example of the audio waveform delayed and output in this way. The audio signal processing unit 103 performs such audio signal processing.

In this example, the audio signal to be output is processed by using only the voice input from the right audio input terminal 101 and the left audio input terminal 102. In addition to this, there is also a method of making it difficult to take an action outside the navigation by causing a virtual object to appear in the sound field by using an audio signal stored in the effect database 107. This will be explained below.

The effect output unit 106 is a "dump truck"
Is selected. At this time, the effect output unit 106 outputs to the audio signal processing unit 103, from the effect database 107, the audio waveform data passing through the dump truck and an instruction to combine it with the left side. The audio signal processing unit 103 superimposes the voice waveform as if the dump truck was approaching to the left hand side of the user.

This superimposing method is, for example, a method in which 80% of the audio waveform data of the dump truck is added to the left audio signal and 20% thereof is added to the right audio signal. In this way, examples of audio in which humans try to avoid danger at once include the sound of a motorcycle approaching, screaming "dangerous!", And the noise of fighting.

As described above, the navigation device of the present invention outputs a voice not pointing to the left at points A (Chinese restaurant) and B (bento store) in FIG. Do not do this at point C. This increases the possibility of entering a soba shop.

It is also possible to realize the processing in the embodiment of the present invention by a computer-executable program and realize the program as a computer-readable storage medium.

The storage medium in the present invention is a magnetic disk, a flexible disk, a hard disk, an optical disk (CD-ROM, CD-R, DVD).
Etc.), a magneto-optical disk (MO etc.), a semiconductor memory, etc., as long as it is a storage medium which can store a program and can be read by a computer, the storage format may be any form.

Further, the operating system (OS) operating on the computer, the database management software, the MW (middleware) such as the network, and the like, which are operating on the computer based on the instructions of the program installed in the computer from the storage medium, realize this embodiment. You may perform a part of each process for doing.

Further, the storage medium in the present invention is not limited to a medium independent of a computer, but includes a storage medium in which a program transmitted via a LAN, the Internet or the like is downloaded and stored or temporarily stored.

Further, the number of storage media is not limited to one, and when the processing in the present embodiment is executed from a plurality of media, it is included in the storage media in the present invention, and the structure of the medium is not limited. Good.

The computer according to the present invention is
Each processing is executed in the present embodiment based on a program stored in a storage medium, which has any configuration such as a device such as a personal computer or a system in which a plurality of devices are network-connected. Good.

Further, the computer in the present invention is not limited to a personal computer, but also includes an arithmetic processing unit, a microcomputer, etc. included in information processing equipment, and is a generic term for equipment and devices capable of realizing the functions of the present invention by a program. is doing.

[0035]

As described above, according to the present invention,
It is possible to increase the possibility that the user will follow the navigation instruction while minimizing the awareness that the user is subordinate to the instruction of the electronic device and regulates the action. By doing this, it is possible to reduce the risk that the user will not be able to fulfill his or her original purpose or take time to reach the original purpose because of taking actions outside of the navigation due to "change of heart" or "nice story". It can exert an excellent effect.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a media recording device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an image diagram showing a navigation example of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an image diagram for explaining an example of audio processing according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an image diagram for explaining an example of audio processing according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

101 ... Right audio input terminal 102 ... Left audio input terminal 103 ... Audio signal processing unit 104 ... Right audio output terminal 105 ... Left audio output terminal 106 ... Effect output section 107 ... Effect database 108 ... Navigation determination unit 109 ... Navigation database 110 ... situation recognition terminal 111 ... situation recognition unit

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    (72) Inventor Takuji Suzuki             1st Komukai Toshiba-cho, Sachi-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa             Inside the Toshiba Research and Development Center (72) Inventor Isao Mihara             1st Komukai Toshiba-cho, Sachi-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa             Inside the Toshiba Research and Development Center F term (reference) 2C032 HB03 HB05 HB22 HC08 HC31                       HD07 HD16                 2F029 AA07 AB07 AB09 AB13 AC02                       AC04 AC08 AC09 AC18                 5H180 AA21 BB13 FF05 FF22 FF25                       FF27 FF32

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A navigation device having a presenting means for acting on human hearing and presenting information suggesting behavior, the situation recognizing means for recognizing a user's situation, and a user's ear. A live voice input means for inputting a desired voice, and the situation of the user recognized by the situation recognition means,
A navigation judging means for judging whether or not the behavior suggested by the presenting means is or is likely to be against, and for processing the live voice based on the judgment result by the navigation judging means. Effect output means for selecting and outputting the live voice processing rule of, and the live voice input by the live voice input means, based on the live voice processing rule output by the effect output means, to the presenting means. And an audio signal processing means for performing processing for presenting an audio signal that affects the hearing of the user. 2. The audio signal processing means processes the live voice when the navigation judging means judges that the situation is against the behavior suggested by the user, or highly likely to be against the behavior. The navigation device according to claim 1. 3. The navigation device according to claim 1, wherein the presenting means makes a suggestion regarding a user's travel route. 4. A navigation method which acts on human hearing and presents information suggesting behavior, which recognizes a user's situation, receives a voice input that should reach a user's ear, and is recognized. Determine whether the user's situation is against or highly likely to violate the suggested behavior, and based on the result of this determination, a live voice processing rule for processing live voice is set. A navigation method comprising: selecting and outputting, and based on the output live voice processing rule, processing the input live voice, and presenting an audio signal that affects the hearing of the user. 5. A program that causes a computer to execute as a navigation device that acts on human hearing and presents information that suggests behavior, and that recognizes the user's situation and inputs a voice that should reach the user's ear. To determine whether the recognized user's situation is against or highly likely to violate the suggested behavior, and based on the result of this decision, process the live voice. A live voice processing rule is selected and output, and based on the output live voice processing rule, the input live voice is processed, and a process of presenting an audio signal that affects the hearing of the user is executed. Computer program for.