JP2003302232A - Navigation device having wireless lan communication function - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an on-vehicle navigation device that easily obtains information on facilities near a running automobile with the device. <P>SOLUTION: In this on-vehicle navigation device, facilities having a wireless LAN device and facilities without that device are discriminated and displayed on a display screen, a radio reach range of the facilities having the wireless LAN device is displayed, whereby when the own car enters the reach range, the user is given information to that effect to directly performs communication with the facilities to obtain necessary information. <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 vehicle-mounted navigation device, and more particularly to a vehicle-mounted navigation device having a function of communicating with a facility via a wireless LAN.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional navigation device detects the number of rotations of wheels and the traveling direction of a vehicle by a sensor, collects information from a satellite to measure the current position of the vehicle, and also a map around the position of the vehicle. The data is read from a DVD-ROM or the like, and the road on the map and the position of the vehicle are superimposed and displayed on the display. In addition, when the user inputs the destination, waypoints, etc., the route that is judged to be the most appropriate from the current location is searched and displayed on the map, and at the intersection an enlarged view etc. is displayed to guide the driver securely. It also has a function to do. Further, not only the guide information is displayed on the display, but also a function of guiding by voice is provided. As described above, the conventional in-vehicle navigation device emphasizes the enhancement of the function of guiding the route to the destination to the user, but in recent years, the restaurant, the parking lot, the entertainment facility near the destination and the route have been further emphasized. There are many proposals for improving convenience by providing real-time information such as.

[0003] For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-264088 receives service information of restaurants, gas stations, parking lots, events and the like in the vicinity via broadcasting and communication, and displays and displays the service information in a superimposed manner on a map. A method has been proposed in which only desired service information can be easily selected from a plurality of service information that has been created. A service is also available in which you can obtain facility information near a point by connecting a mobile phone to an in-vehicle navigation device and sending point information such as the current location to an information center.
Usually, these services are often received while driving a vehicle, and therefore it is desirable that the operations be as simple as possible for safety reasons.

On the other hand, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-134595, when point information designated by an on-vehicle navigation device is sent to a base station through a wireless line, the information is collected based on the address on the Internet corresponding to the position of this point information.
A system for returning to an in-vehicle navigation device is disclosed. This method is also an effective means for searching, obtaining, and displaying only the necessary information at a specific point from a large amount of information on an information network such as the Internet.
Actually, if the information can be obtained more easily and easily, the convenience will be further improved.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In view of the above-mentioned problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide an in-vehicle navigation device which can obtain information on facilities near a moving vehicle by a very simple operation.

[0006]

In order to solve this problem, the present invention is required to combine an in-vehicle navigation device and a wireless LAN device and to directly communicate with a facility serving as an access point equipped with the wireless LAN device. There is one feature in making information available.

Although various facilities are equipped with a wireless LAN device, many facilities do not yet have such a device.
Therefore, another feature of the present invention is that it is provided with a database having the identification information and is displayed on the screen so that the facility with and without the wireless LAN device can be identified.

[0008] Further, in the case of the standard of IEEE802.11b which is most commonly used at present, the radio wave reach distance of the wireless LAN is about 300 m, so that the car position is within the radio wave reach distance in order to access the facility. It is important that the user is aware of whether or not Therefore, the present invention has another feature in that the facility and its radio wave reaching distance can be displayed on the map screen.

Further features and effects of the present invention will become more apparent from the description of the embodiments below.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows an example of a usage pattern of a vehicle-mounted navigation device of the present invention. A facility serving as an access point, for example, a wireless LAN device installed in a store, a gas station, a restaurant, or the like, and a vehicle-mounted navigation device 12 having a wireless LAN function communicate with each other to obtain facility information.

As shown in FIG.
A storage device for storing distribution data, as shown in
For example, HDD 31, computer 32, wireless LAN
Facilities such as the device 33 and the wireless antenna 34 are provided. The distribution database may be owned by each facility, or may be shared by a plurality of facilities as shown in FIG. FIG. 2 shows a system in which a plurality of facilities 21, 22, 23, 24 are connected to a network 26 and share a database 25. Next, the configuration of an embodiment of the navigation device according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. This device is roughly divided into a car navigation body 4
1 and the communication device section 42. The in-vehicle navigation body 41 includes an arithmetic processing unit 101 and an external storage device 10.
4, sensor unit 106, display unit 110, GPS receiver 1
05, the audio output device 108 and the like. The arithmetic processing unit 101 is used for executing various programs as well as executing a program described later. For example, the sensor unit 10
6 and the current position of the mobile body equipped with this navigation device is calculated based on the information from GPS (Global Positioning System) 105. Then, based on the calculated current position information, map information necessary for display is stored in the database unit 104.
It is read from the display and is displayed on the display unit 110 together with the current position. In addition, the point specified by the user from the input device 111,
For example, an optimum road connecting the current position and the destination is calculated, output to the voice output device 108 or the display unit 110, and shown to the user to guide the route. The ROM 102 is an EPROM for storing programs and data described later.
And so on. The RAM 103 is used to temporarily store map information and calculation data. The external storage device 104 is a read-only D that stores map data.
It has a DVD-ROM drive for reading necessary data from a VD-ROM disc. Of course, the external storage device 104 may be a large-capacity storage medium, and may be a storage device such as a magnetic disk storage device or an IC card.
Although not shown, the sensor unit 106 generally includes a direction sensor, a gyro, and a wheel speed sensor. The wheel speed sensor
The traveling distance of the moving body is detected by counting the pulse signals output with the rotation of the wheels. The direction sensor is
The magnetic field held by the earth is detected, and the direction in which the moving body is facing is detected. There are various types of gyros, such as an optical fiber gyro and a vibration gyro, and detects the angle at which the moving body rotates. These detection signals are analog-to-digital converted and then sent to the arithmetic processing unit 101. On the other hand, GPS
The receiver 105 receives a signal from a GPS satellite and measures the distance between the mobile body and the satellite and the rate of change of the distance to measure the current position, traveling direction, and heading of the mobile body. The display data sent from the arithmetic processing unit 101 is processed by the drawing processing device 109 and then displayed on the liquid crystal panel or the CRT of the display unit 110. The audio signal is output from the audio output unit 108 via the audio processing unit 107. On the other hand, the communication device unit 42 includes a wireless LAN transceiver 202 and a wireless LAN antenna 201. Next, an example of facility data stored in the database of the vehicle-mounted navigation device of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 5A shows information items of conventional facility data used for displaying icons on a map. Usually, it is composed of coordinates indicating the position of the facility, type code indicating the type of facility, and data of the name of the facility. The type code may be divided according to job types such as a facility type such as a restaurant or a gas station, or may be divided into specific restaurant company names, for example. On the other hand, FIG.
Is an example of facility data used by the present invention. In addition to the conventional items, data on the wireless LAN ID and wireless reach is added. What is a wireless LAN ID?
This is a unique ID of the wireless LAN device assigned to the target facility and is used when connecting for communication.
The wireless reach distance is a communicable distance of the wireless LAN device installed in the facility, and is used when the wireless reach distance is displayed on the map. Since the data shown in FIG. 5 is required for each facility, the database has a structure as shown in FIG. 6 when there are n facilities.

Next, the facility data display processing will be described with reference to FIG. In step S101, the arithmetic processing unit 10
1 converts the coordinates of the facility data stored in the database 104 into the display coordinate system. Then, in step S102, the facility data is displayed as a normal icon. FIG. 8 is an example of a screen showing facility data with normal icons.
Furthermore, in step S103, it is determined whether or not the facility data includes wireless reach distance data. If it is included, the radio range is converted to the display coordinate system (S1
04), wireless reachable distance is displayed with a dotted line or the like centering on the facility data position. FIG. 9 exemplifies how facilities with and without a wireless LAN device are displayed on the screen. In addition to this, for example, an icon of a facility equipped with a wireless LAN device can be highlighted around a normal icon by surrounding it in red or changing its shape, or by blinking the icon itself. When the wireless LAN device reach distance is displayed by a dotted line, it is possible to turn off the display while the vehicle is far away from the facility and turn on the display when the vehicle approaches a certain distance.

Next, the mechanism of wireless LAN connection will be described. The wireless LAN standard is specified in IEEE 802.11. This is a wireless LAN standard that is being standardized by the 802.11 committee of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). Currently, the wireless LAN standards are 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11a.
Etc. have been established, and products that comply with this have already been put on the market. These have different frequencies and communication speeds used for communication, but have the same basic access control mechanism.

The details of the communication control are defined in the above standards, but the mechanism will be briefly described. When exchanging data, CSMA / CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Acce
ss / Collision Avoidance: Carrier sensing multiple access / collision avoidance) is used. Both the in-vehicle wireless LAN device and the wireless LAN device installed in the facility have a unique identifier called MAC address. This is the same for home network cards and the like, and normally, a 3-byte vendor code managed by IEEE and a 6-byte number managed by a 3-byte code managed by each vendor are set. At the time of communication, the MAC address of the destination and the MAC address of the transmission source are set in a packet and transmitted.

The receiving side constantly monitors the received signal for data having its own address set,
If so, the packet is received. And ACK (A
CKnowledge: Acknowledge) Returns a packet and reports to the sender that it was properly received.

[0016] Even after waiting for a while after the packet is transmitted, the transmitting side judges that it has not been transmitted to the receiving side if there is no response from the receiving side by the ACK packet, and retransmits the same packet. In the wireless LAN, information is transmitted as described above.

Next, the flow of data transmission processing from the vehicle-mounted wireless LAN device will be described with reference to FIG. 10, and the flow of data reception processing with the wireless LAN communication device on the facility side will be described with reference to FIG. In step S1001, it is determined whether there is transmission request data from the arithmetic processing unit 101 of the vehicle-mounted navigation device. If there is, the vehicle-mounted MAC address and transmission data are set in the packet in step S1002. Further, the packet is transmitted from the wireless LAN transceiver 202 of the vehicle-mounted navigation device (S1003).

In step S1004, it is determined whether or not the ACK packet is received by the vehicle-mounted navigation device. If it is not received, the same data is retransmitted after a certain period of time (S1005). When the ACK packet is received, it means that the data has been properly transmitted, and the process returns to the start to prepare for the transmission of the next data.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 11, on the facility side, the MAC of the facility concerned is added to the packet received in step S1101.
It is judged whether or not the address is set, and if so, an ACK packet is transmitted to the MAC address of the transmitting side which was controlled in the received packet in step S1102. Further, in step S1103, the data portion in the received packet is loaded into the facility computer. When the transmission / reception relationship between the vehicle-mounted LAN device and the wireless LAN device on the facility side is reversed, the process of FIG. 10 is performed on the facility side, and the process of FIG. 11 is performed on the vehicle-mounted navigation device side. .

FIG. 12 shows the flow of processing when acquiring various data from the facility. In the figure, step S12
In 01, the user selects the facility for which information is to be downloaded while looking at the display screen. Then, the arithmetic processing unit 101 of the vehicle-mounted navigation device calculates the distance from the vehicle position and the coordinates of the facility to the facility (S1202). If it is determined that the distance is greater than the wireless LAN reach distance (S1203), communication is not possible yet, and the process proceeds to step S1204, and the information of the facility registered in the database 104 of the vehicle-mounted navigation device is displayed on the screen. FIG. 13 shows an example of the screen at this time.

On the other hand, when the distance between the vehicle and the facility is smaller than the wireless LAN reach distance in step S1203, the process proceeds to step S1205, and the facility information registered in the database of the vehicle-mounted navigation device and the "connect button". Is displayed. At this time, it is possible not only to display the connection button but also to inform the user by voice that the own vehicle is within the reach. When the user selects this button (S1206), the facility is connected and the screen of the display device is changed to a screen as shown in FIG. 14, for example. Then, various information data of the facility is acquired (S1208). While the facility information is being acquired, display the screen as shown in Fig. 15 to notify that effect using characters, or change the design of the facility icon to notify that the receiving operation is being performed reliably. You can also Voice notification is also effective for the user. Instead of displaying the connection button as described above, an icon representing the facility name may be selected with a cursor to instruct connection. Further, if it is troublesome for the user to instruct the connection one by one, when the distance between the facility and the vehicle reaches the wireless LAN reachable distance, the facility may be automatically connected and the information may be downloaded. . In addition, if the vehicle is a wireless LAN
The information may be downloaded by automatically connecting when the vehicle speed is within the reachable distance and the vehicle speed becomes equal to or lower than a predetermined value.
In this way, the driving of the vehicle is less affected and safe driving is not hindered. When displaying as shown in FIG.
It is possible to display a small message so that it will not hinder the guidance while the vehicle is running, and to display the received contents in large size while the vehicle is stopped. Further, as shown in FIG. 16, in addition to the connect button, a button for referring to the saved data may be prepared so that when the button is selected, the information previously connected and saved can be displayed. When there are a plurality of facilities whose distances to the own vehicle are within the wireless LAN reachable range, it is possible to display them as shown in FIG. In this example, data access points (facility) that can be connected from the vehicle position are displayed in a list in the order of increasing distance, and the user can select a facility to connect from the list. Wireless LA
In N, the data communication speed decreases as the communication distance increases. Since the vehicle-mounted navigation device has the vehicle position and the positional information of the facility, it can calculate the communication distance and predict the data communication speed. Therefore, when there are a plurality of facilities to which data can be accessed, a list can be displayed in the order of the expected data communication speed as shown in FIG. In addition, FIG.
As described above, when the cursor is placed on the icon of the facility equipped with the wireless LAN device, the item of downloadable information can be displayed by the blowout display. The above explanation is
The explanation has been made on the assumption that there is a facility having a wireless LAN device in the vicinity of the own vehicle, but a method for obtaining information about where the facility having the wireless LAN device is, in other words, data access point information will be described. .
For example, when it is desired to obtain information on tourist spots in the vicinity from the inside of the vehicle, at this time, the user connects to a home page that delivers tourist spot information via the Internet using a communication means such as a mobile phone. Therefore, the acquisition of tourist spot information near the vehicle position is selected. At this time, what is downloaded from the homepage is not the tourist spot information itself, but a list of data access point information that can be downloaded around the vehicle. That is, wireless LAN
A list of facilities equipped with devices is obtained, and based on this information, information is obtained by going within the wireless LAN reachable range of the facility. The merit of this method is that it is difficult to send large data such as an image because the transfer speed is slow in a mobile phone, whereas in a wireless LAN it is possible to transfer data at high speed. Information such as voice can also be sent. By the way, the mobile phone is 800MHz
/1.5GHz frequency band is used, and the communication method is time division. The communication speed is 9600bps, while the wireless LAN 2.4GHz frequency is used and the direct spread method is used. The communication speed is 11 Mbps. Therefore, the communication speed is much faster than that of mobile phones. Further, in the wireless LAN, since each device has an ID, charging is easy. Also,
Since the user goes to a facility or a store equipped with a wireless LAN device, there is also an advantage that if the place is a store, it can attract customers. In connection with billing, a sponsor may be attached to the information obtained from the facility, and the sponsor may bear a part of the information fee and the equipment cost. That is, as shown in FIG. 20, after the information is acquired,
The sponsor's advertisement is displayed on a part of the display screen. Alternatively, the sponsor store icon may be highlighted on the map to advertise. When I approach the sponsor's store again,
It is easy to display the guide of the store on the screen.
The above description has mainly described a method of downloading data from a facility equipped with a wireless LAN device, but since the wireless LAN is a two-way communication, browsing is possible as long as it is connected to the facility. For example,
The URL is stored in the data access point station information and a screen as shown in FIG. 21 is displayed when connecting to the facility. Then, by displaying the corresponding homepage on the browser and following the links, it is possible to obtain various information provided by the data access point station. It is also possible to request an order, etc., as in the case of the ordinary Internet. For example, a method of ordering a hamburger while looking at an image in a parking lot of a hamburger shop can be considered.

[0022]

As described above, since the vehicle-mounted navigation device according to the present invention directly communicates with the facility serving as an access point equipped with the wireless LAN device to obtain information, it is extremely simple to operate. There is an effect that information on the facility can be obtained at high speed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a usage pattern of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram when a facility has a network.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of a wireless LAN device on the facility side.

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment of a wireless LAN device of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a facility data structure used in the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a process of displaying a wireless LAN service range according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a process of displaying a wireless LAN service of the present invention on a map.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram of a screen when there is no facility equipped with a wireless LAN device.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram of a screen when there is a facility equipped with a wireless LAN device.

FIG. 10 is a wireless LAN of the navigation device according to the present invention.
It is a flowchart which shows the transmission process in an apparatus.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing a receiving process in the facility side wireless LAN communication device of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart of a process of acquiring information from a facility by wireless LAN.

FIG. 13 is an explanatory diagram of a screen illustrating a wireless LAN connection process.

FIG. 14 is an explanatory diagram of a screen illustrating a wireless LAN connection process.

FIG. 15 is an explanatory diagram showing a screen when information is received from a facility.

FIG. 16 is an explanatory diagram showing a screen when displaying saved data.

FIG. 17 is an explanatory diagram showing a screen displaying a list of a plurality of facilities equipped with a wireless LAN device.

FIG. 18 is an explanatory diagram showing a screen displaying a list of a plurality of facilities equipped with a wireless LAN device.

FIG. 19 is an explanatory diagram of a screen showing an example of a facility display method.

FIG. 20 is an explanatory diagram showing a screen when displaying sponsor information.

FIG. 21 is an explanatory diagram showing a screen when connecting to a URL.

[Explanation of symbols]

11: Facility to be an access point 12: In-vehicle navigation device with wireless LAN function 21-24: Facilities that will be access points 25: Distribution database 26: Network 31: Device for storing distribution data such as HDD 32: Computer 33: Wireless LAN communication device 34: Wireless LAN antenna 101: arithmetic processing unit 102: ROM 103: RAM 104: External storage device 105: GPS device 106: sensor section 107: voice processing unit 108: speaker 109: Drawing processing unit 110: Display 111: Input interface 201: Wireless LAN antenna 202: Wireless LAN transceiver

Front page continuation (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ identification code FI theme code (reference) G09B 29/10 G09B 29/10 A H04B 7/26 H04B 7/26 H H04Q 7/20 106A 7/34 H04Q 7/04 Z F-term (reference) 2C032 HB02 HB05 HB22 HB25 HC08 HC13 HC27 HD03 HD17 2F029 AA02 AB01 AB07 AB13 AC02 AC13 AC14 AC18 5H180 AA01 BB05 BB13 CC12 FF05 FF13 FF22 FF24 FF25 FF27 FF33 FF35 5K067 AA34 BB21 DD17 DD51 EE02 EE16 FF02 FF03 FF23 JJ52

Claims (15)

[Claims] 1. A vehicle-mounted navigation device equipped with a wireless LAN device, wherein the vehicle-mounted navigation device can communicate with an access point facility equipped with the wireless LAN device to obtain necessary information. In the facility information in the device, the above facility is wireless LA
Prepare first information indicating whether or not the N device is provided,
A vehicle-mounted navigation device, which is displayed on a screen of the display device of the vehicle-mounted navigation device so as to be distinguishable from a facility not equipped with a wireless LAN device. 2. The vehicle-mounted navigation device according to claim 1, wherein the first information is unique identification information (ID) of a wireless LAN device of a facility. 3. A vehicle-mounted navigation device equipped with a wireless LAN device, wherein the necessary information can be obtained by communicating with a facility serving as an access point equipped with the wireless LAN device. In the facility information in the device, the wireless LA of the above facility
Preparing the second information indicating the radio wave reach distance of N, and displaying the reach of the radio wave from the facility on the map information screen of the display device using the second information in the in-vehicle navigation device. In-vehicle navigation device characterized by: 4. A navigation system for communicating required information from a facility by communicating between a vehicle-mounted navigation device equipped with a wireless LAN device and a facility serving as an access point also equipped with a wireless LAN device. In the facility information in the navigation device, first information indicating the identifier (ID) of the wireless LAN device of the facility and second information indicating the reaching distance of the radio wave of the wireless LAN are prepared.
The on-vehicle navigation device displays the facility on the screen of the map information of the display device by using at least one of the first information and the second information so that the facility can be distinguished from the facility having no wireless LAN device. And navigation system. 5. A navigation system according to claim 4, wherein the wireless LAN reachable distance is displayed centering on the position of the facility in a manner distinguishable from other displays such as dotted lines. 6. The facility according to claim 4, wherein the facility is another wireless L.
A navigation system characterized in that the facility is highlighted or displayed in a different shape or color to distinguish it from a facility that does not have an AN device. 7. A vehicle-mounted navigation device equipped with a wireless LAN device, wherein the necessary information can be obtained by communicating with a facility serving as an access point equipped with the wireless LAN device. In the facility information in the device, the wireless LA of the above facility
The second information indicating the radio wave reaching distance of N is prepared, and the in-vehicle navigation device uses the second information to display the reach of the radio wave from the facility on the map information screen of the display device, and An in-vehicle navigation device characterized in that an icon indicating the position of the own vehicle is displayed in an overlapping manner so that it can be determined whether or not the own vehicle is within the radio wave range. 8. The in-vehicle navigation device according to claim 7, wherein a connection button for connecting to the facility is displayed on the screen of the display device when the own vehicle is within the radio wave reach range of the facility. 9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the icon of the facility on the display screen is displayed in a mode different from the normal mode while communicating with the facility by the connection button to notify that the communication is being conducted. In-vehicle navigation device characterized by: 10. The wireless LA of a vehicle-mounted navigation device according to claim 7, when the own vehicle enters the radio wave reach range of the facility.
An in-vehicle navigation device characterized in that the N device and the facility are automatically connected. 11. When there are a plurality of facilities whose distance to the vehicle is within the wireless LAN reachable range according to claim 7, the user can select a desired facility from among the plurality of facilities. Is displayed on the display screen, the vehicle-mounted navigation device. 12. In claim 11, when there are a plurality of facilities whose distance to the own vehicle is within the wireless LAN reachable range,
An in-vehicle navigation device, which displays those facility names and the distance between the vehicle and each facility on a display screen. 13. A vehicle-mounted navigation device equipped with a wireless LAN device, wherein the necessary information is obtained by communicating with a facility serving as an access point equipped with the wireless LAN device. In the facility information in the device, the above facility is wireless L
First information indicating whether or not an AN device is provided is prepared so that the vehicle-mounted navigation device can use the first information to identify a facility that does not have a wireless LAN device on the screen of the display device. In addition to displaying, the above wireless LAN
An in-vehicle navigation device characterized in that an item of information that can be downloaded is displayed when the cursor is placed on an icon of a facility equipped with the device. 14. A facility to be prepared in the vehicle-mounted navigation device according to claim 1, 3 or 4 or 7 or 13, by connecting to a homepage for delivering desired information via the Internet using the communication means of the vehicle-mounted navigation device. An in-vehicle navigation device characterized in that information is obtained. 15. A navigation device equipped with a wireless LAN device, wherein the necessary information is obtained by communicating with a facility serving as an access point equipped with the wireless LAN device. When a vehicle enters the radio wave coverage of the wireless LAN, it will connect to the facility to obtain information and display a button on the display screen to select whether to connect to the homepage of the facility. An in-vehicle navigation device characterized in that