JP2004198368A - Navigation system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To eliminate route guide in a road impossible to pass therethrough. <P>SOLUTION: This navigation system is provided with a vehicle information acquiring means for acquiring vehicular dimension information including a width, a height and a weight of a vehicle, a traffic limitation information acquiring means for acquiring traffic limitation information about traffic limitation portions where the width, the height or the weight of the passing vehicle is limited, a passing incapable portion determining means for determining a passing incapable portion allowing no vehicle to pass therethrough out of the traffic limitation portions, based on the vehicular dimension information and the traffic limitation information, and a guide route calculating means for calculating a guide route from the present position of the vehicle to a destination, excepting the passing incapable portion. The vehicular dimension information is acquired from an electronic number plate in the vehicle information acquiring means. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO&NCIPI

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a navigation device having a route guidance function.
[0002]
[Prior art]
2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a navigation device has a route guidance function for guiding a route from a vehicle position to a destination.
[0003]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, with the route guidance function, there is a possibility that route guidance will be provided even if there are restrictions on vehicle traffic (restrictions on road width, bridge weight, vehicle height under bridges and tunnels, etc.) on the route being guided. There is. In this case, there is a problem that when the vehicle arrives at the route actually guided, it is determined that the vehicle cannot pass due to traffic restrictions, and the vehicle must be detoured.
[0004]
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and has as its object to provide a navigation device that does not provide route guidance on a road that cannot be passed.
[0005]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve the above object, according to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a navigation device mounted on a vehicle and providing route guidance from a current position of the vehicle to a destination, the vehicle including a width, a height, and a weight of the vehicle. A vehicle information acquisition unit (S11) for acquiring specification information; a traffic restriction information acquisition unit (S20) for acquiring traffic restriction information on a traffic restricted location where the width, height, or weight of a transitable vehicle is restricted; A traffic-impossible location determining means (S21) for determining a traffic-impossible traffic-impossible location of the traffic-impossible traffic based on the vehicle specification information and the traffic restrictions information; And a guidance route calculation means (S30 to S37) for calculating a guidance route to the destination.
[0006]
In this way, by comparing the traffic restriction information with the vehicle specification information, and excluding a road on which the navigation device-equipped vehicle cannot pass as a target of the guidance route, it is possible to prevent route guidance to a road on which traffic cannot be passed. As a result, it is possible to avoid a situation in which it is determined that the vehicle cannot pass due to traffic restrictions when the vehicle reaches the route actually guided, and the vehicle must be detoured.
[0007]
Further, in the invention according to claim 2, the vehicle includes an electronic license plate (13) having at least an IC chip on which vehicle specification information is recorded, and the vehicle information acquisition means (S11) includes an electronic license plate. It is characterized in that vehicle specification information is obtained from (13). This eliminates the need to manually input vehicle specification information to the navigation device.
[0008]
In addition, the code | symbol in the parenthesis of each said means shows the correspondence with the concrete means described in embodiment mentioned later.
[0009]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, embodiments to which the present invention is applied will be described with reference to FIGS.
[0010]
FIG. 1 shows an overall configuration of a vehicle navigation device according to the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 1, a navigation device includes a position detector 1 for detecting a current position of a vehicle, a map data input device 6 for reading map data from a map storage medium, and an operation for performing various operations required for navigation. A switch group 7, a control circuit 8 for executing various processes required for navigation, an external memory 9 such as a hard disk, a display device 10 for displaying a map or the like, and a remote control sensor 11 for receiving signals from a remote control 12 And
[0011]
The position detector 1 includes a well-known geomagnetic sensor 2, a gyroscope 3, a distance sensor (vehicle speed sensor) 4, and a GPS (Global Positioning System) for detecting the position of a vehicle based on radio waves from satellites. It comprises a receiver 5. Each of these sensors 2, 3, 4, and 5 has an error having a different property, and is configured to be used while being complemented by a plurality of sensors. Depending on the accuracy, a part of the above-described sensors may be used. Further, a rotation sensor of the steering wheel, a wheel sensor of each rolling wheel, or the like may be used.
[0012]
The map data input device 6 is a device for inputting various data including so-called map matching data, map data and landmark data for improving the accuracy of position detection. As a data storage medium, a CD-ROM is generally used because of its data amount, but a medium such as a memory card may be used. The map data includes traffic restriction information such as road width restrictions, bridge weight restrictions, and vehicle height restrictions under bridges and tunnels. The traffic restriction information includes the position of the traffic restriction point and the details of the restriction (such as the width, height, and weight of vehicles that can pass).
[0013]
As the operation switch group 7, for example, a touch switch or a mechanical switch integrated with the display device 10 can be used. The control circuit 8 is configured as a normal computer, and includes a well-known CPU, ROM, RAM, I / O, and a bus line connecting these components.
[0014]
The display device 10 is a color display device. The screen of the display device 10 displays the current vehicle position mark input from the position detector 1, the map data input from the map data input device 6, and additional data such as a guidance route to be displayed on the map. They can be displayed in layers.
[0015]
The navigation device of the present embodiment has a so-called route guidance function. When a destination is input from the remote control sensor 11 through the remote control 12 or from the operation switch group 7, the control circuit 8 changes the destination from the current position. An optimal route to the ground is automatically selected to form a guidance route and displayed on the display device 10. As a technique for automatically setting the optimum route, a technique such as the Dijkstra method is known.
[0016]
A vehicle equipped with the navigation device of the present embodiment is provided with an electronic license plate 13. The electronic license plate 13 is a license plate including an IC chip on which vehicle specification information, a vehicle number (number), and the like are recorded. The vehicle specification information recorded on the electronic license plate 13 is information described in an automobile inspection certificate, and includes at least the dimensions (height, width) of the vehicle and the weight of the vehicle. The control circuit 8 of the present embodiment is configured to be able to communicate with the electronic license plate 13 via an in-vehicle LAN as communication means.
[0017]
Next, the vehicle specification information registration processing will be described based on the flowchart of FIG. Registration of vehicle specification information is usually performed once when the navigation device is mounted on the vehicle. First, it is determined whether or not the vehicle specification information is registered in the navigation device (S10). If the vehicle specification information has already been registered, the process ends without doing anything. If the vehicle specification information has not been registered, the vehicle specification information is fetched from the electronic license plate 13 via the in-vehicle LAN and registered in the external memory 9 (S11).
[0018]
Next, the passage permission / inhibition determination processing will be described based on the flowchart of FIG. In the present embodiment, after the registration of the vehicle specification information and before performing the guidance route calculation process of calculating the guidance route, it is determined whether or not the navigation device-equipped vehicle can pass through all the restricted traffic locations in the map data. Make a decision.
[0019]
First, traffic restriction information is acquired from map data (S20). Next, it is determined whether or not the vehicle equipped with the navigation device is passable by comparing the regulation contents included in the traffic restriction information with the vehicle specification information (S21). As a result, a restricted passage where the vehicle cannot pass is set as a non-passable point (S22) and registered in the external memory 9 (S23). The above-described processing of S21 to S23 is performed for all the traffic restriction locations included in the traffic restriction information (S24).
[0020]
Next, the guidance route calculation processing will be described based on the flowchart of FIG. First, a current position and a destination are acquired (S30), and reading of map data is started (S31). If there is a traffic-restricted location in the map data, it is determined whether the location is a traffic-impossible location (S32, S33). As a result, if the location is an impassable location, the location is excluded from the route calculation (S34); otherwise, the location is targeted for the route calculation (S35). The above processing of S32 to S35 is performed until the reading of the map data is completed (S36). Then, an optimal guidance route from the current position to the destination is calculated with the impassable portion excluded from the target (S37). When calculating the guidance route in this way, traffic-restricted locations where vehicles cannot pass are excluded from the guidance route calculation, and thus the calculated guidance route includes only roads through which vehicles can pass.
[0021]
As described above, by comparing the traffic restriction information with the vehicle specification information, and excluding the road on which the navigation device-equipped vehicle cannot pass as a target of the guidance route, it is possible to prevent the route from being guided to the impassable road. As a result, it is possible to avoid a situation in which it is determined that the vehicle cannot pass due to traffic restrictions when the vehicle reaches the route actually guided, and the vehicle must be detoured.
[0022]
Further, by registering the vehicle specification information on the electronic license plate 13 in the navigation device, it is not necessary to manually input the vehicle specification information into the navigation device.
[0023]
In addition, as in the present embodiment, by determining in advance whether or not a traffic-restricted point is allowed to pass before the guidance-route calculation processing, it is determined whether or not the traffic-restricted point is allowed to pass each time the guidance-route calculation processing is performed. No need.
[0024]
In the above embodiment, step S11 corresponds to a vehicle information acquiring unit, step S20 corresponds to a traffic restriction information acquiring unit, step S21 corresponds to a non-passable portion determining unit, and steps S30 to S37 correspond to a guidance route calculation. Corresponds to the means.
[0025]
(Other embodiments)
In the above-described embodiment, the in-vehicle LAN is used as a communication unit for performing communication between the control circuit 8 and the electronic license plate 13. However, the communication method is not limited to this. For example, a communication method such as infrared communication or Bluetooth (Bluetooth) is used. May be used.
[0026]
In the above embodiment, the vehicle specification information is obtained from the electronic license plate 13. However, the invention is not limited to this. For example, the vehicle specification information is input from the operation switches 7 when the navigation device is mounted on the vehicle. It can also be configured to do so.
[0027]
Further, in the above-described embodiment, the configuration is such that it is determined whether or not the passage of the restricted passage is possible prior to the guidance route calculation process. You may.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an overall configuration of a navigation device according to the embodiment.
FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a flow of vehicle specification information registration processing of the embodiment.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a flow of a passage permission / inhibition determination process of the embodiment.
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a flow of a guidance route calculation process of the embodiment.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Position detector, 2 ... Geomagnetic sensor, 3 ... Gyroscope, 4 ... Distance sensor, 5 ... GPS receiver, 6 ... Map data input device, 7 ... Operation switch group, 8 ... Control circuit, 9 ... External memory, 10 display device, 11 remote control sensor, 12 remote control, 13 electronic license plate.

Claims (2)

A navigation device mounted on a vehicle and providing route guidance from a current position of the vehicle to a destination,
Vehicle information acquisition means (S11) for acquiring vehicle specification information including the width, height and weight of the vehicle;
Traffic restriction information acquiring means (S20) for acquiring traffic restriction information on traffic restricted places where the width, height or weight of the traffic vehicle is restricted;
An impassable location determining means (S21) for determining an impassable location in which the vehicle cannot pass among the restricted access locations based on the vehicle specification information and the access restriction information;
A navigation device comprising: guidance route calculation means (S30 to S37) for calculating a guidance route from the current location of the vehicle to the destination, excluding the impassable location. The vehicle includes an electronic license plate (13) having at least an IC chip on which the vehicle specification information is recorded,
2. The navigation device according to claim 1, wherein the vehicle information obtaining means (S11) obtains the vehicle specification information from the electronic license plate (13).

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