JP2005297883A - Car-mounted indication system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To use indicator commonly and enhance its versatility regardless of the sorts of electronic control units (ECU) mounted on a car. <P>SOLUTION: Image data is stored in external electronic control units 5a-5e while an indication control device 3 does not possess any image data concerning the indicator, and the data is transmitted to the indication control device 3 through communications. The sorts of the electronic control units 5a-5e mounted on the car should not necessarily be conscious of on the indication control device 3 side, and the system can work however the sorts of the electronic control units 5a-5e are changed or added. Accordingly the indication control device 3 can be established with common elements and its versatility can be secured. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an in-vehicle display system and a technology related thereto.

  Along with the intelligentization of automobiles, electronic control functions (ABS, airbags, cruise control, etc.) installed in vehicles are steadily increasing. An indicator using predetermined lamps such as LEDs is provided in the meter and the center cluster so that the driver can know whether these functions are operating normally. The driver can grasp the situation such as whether the function is functioning normally or whether an abnormality has occurred, based on the display state such as the lighting state of the indicator.

  Conventionally, there has been one in which a plurality of indicators are provided on one display to display various states in an automobile (for example, Patent Document 1).

JP 11-2117030 A

  In recent years, the number of electronic control units (ECUs) mounted on vehicles has increased, and accordingly, the number of indicators tends to increase.

  Here, when lamps are used as indicators, it has become difficult to arrange all the lamps in a limited space such as a meter panel or a center cluster.

  In addition, since the electronic control unit (ECU) to be installed differs depending on the vehicle grade (grade) and vehicle type, the type of indicator to be arranged also varies depending on the vehicle grade (grade) and vehicle type, and parts for the meter panel and center cluster can be shared. There is also a problem that becomes difficult.

  Therefore, for example, a dot matrix display capable of arbitrarily forming a display image is used as a display, and warning data such as bitmap data prepared in advance is displayed on the dot matrix display as necessary. It is also possible.

  When such a dot matrix display is used, an indicator of an arbitrary design can be displayed by controlling each dot on / off.

  However, display data such as bitmap data used for the indicator is assumed to be performed using data stored in a ROM mounted on the display side. As described above, various types of data are used. With the increasing number of electronic control units (ECUs), it is becoming difficult to deal with only items that are easy in advance with a ROM mounted on the display side, and increasing the versatility while sharing indicators Was desired.

  Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to make an indicator common and enhance its versatility regardless of the type of electronic control unit (ECU) mounted on the vehicle.

  In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the invention according to claim 1 acquires the image data of the indicator included in the communication data given by the in-vehicle communication from the on-vehicle unit and the indicator display means using the dot matrix type display. And display control means for displaying the image data on the indicator display means.

  Invention of Claim 2 is the vehicle-mounted display system of Claim 1, Comprising: The data which show a display priority are contained in the said data for communication, The said display control means is the said given from the outside A layout in the indicator display means is controlled in accordance with the display priority data in the communication data.

  The in-vehicle display system according to the first aspect of the present invention uses image data in communication data given by communication from the outside (electronic control unit) without having image data related to the indicator in the display control means. Therefore, it is not necessary to be aware of the type of the electronic control unit mounted on the vehicle on the display control device side, and it is not affected by the change or addition of the type of the electronic control unit. Therefore, it is possible to realize common display control means and maintain its versatility.

  Since the in-vehicle display system of the invention according to claim 2 performs indicator display based on the display priority data, only the high priority indicator is displayed when the display area is insufficient, It is possible to highlight the high indicator and make it stand out, which is convenient.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an in-vehicle display system according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, this in-vehicle display system includes a display (indicator display means) 1 using a dot matrix type display, and a display control device (display control means) 3 that performs display control of the display 1. The indicator displayed by acquiring the bitmap data from the external electronic control units (ECUs) 5a to 5e by communication without having the bitmap data of the image figure of the item displayed on the display 1 inside. As a result, the image shape is given versatility.

  The display 1 is a small indicator display using a device such as liquid crystal or organic EL, and a dot matrix display is used as described above. Thereby, each dot is controlled to be turned on / off by the display control device 3, so that a plurality of arbitrarily designed indicators (image shapes) can be freely laid out and displayed in the display frame. This indicator 1 is installed in a place that is easy for the driver to see, such as in a meter panel of an instrument panel.

  The display control device 3 includes a CPU (Central Processing Control Unit) 11, a memory 13 for storing a software program for defining the arithmetic operation of the CPU 11, and an electronic circuit via an in-vehicle network (in-vehicle LAN) 14 according to the arithmetic operation of the CPU 11. A communication interface (communication I / F) 15 that controls communication with the control units 5a to 5e is provided. When the communication interface 15 receives various data from the in-vehicle network 14, the CPU 11 performs predetermined data processing. Data processing in the CPU 11 will be described later.

  Each of the electronic control units 5a to 5e is connected to an in-vehicle network (in-vehicle LAN) 14 as an individual node, and a communication interface for communicating with the display control device 3 through the in-vehicle network 14 (communication I / F: not shown). The image data (bitmap data: for example, FIG. 3) of the indicator (image figure) displayed on the display 1 is held in advance. As described above, the bitmap data can be transmitted to the display control device 3 by communication through the in-vehicle network 14. For the communication in the in-vehicle network 14, for example, CAN (Control Area Network) communication as serial data communication which is being adopted by ISO standardized as a body-based in-vehicle LAN protocol is applied.

  Each electronic control unit 5a to 5e is connected with various sensors (not shown) for detecting its own operation state. Based on the results detected by these various sensors, for example, as shown in FIG. Such communication data 20 is created and transmitted to the display control device 3 through the in-vehicle network 14. Here, the communication data 20 is data of a fixed length (64 bits). In particular, when transmitting bitmap data as an indicator as the communication data 20, each electronic control unit 5a connected to the in-vehicle network 14 is used. 8d node ID 21 for identification uniquely assigned to each of .about.5e, frame number 22 of 8 bit length required for communication in a plurality of frames in CAN communication, and information urgency 8 includes a priority (display priority) 23 having a length of 8 bits representing the priority, and entity data 24 of bitmap data as shown in FIG.

  Here, for example, when displaying a 16 × 16 dot, mono-color indicator, in the above-described CAN communication, communication is performed using a plurality of frames as shown in FIG. Therefore, the frame number 22 is included in the communication data 20 as described above.

  The priority 23 can be omitted. In this case, the communication data 20 from which the priority 23 is omitted means that the priority 23 is the lowest, for example.

  The operation of the in-vehicle display system will be described.

  First, in each of the electronic control units 5a to 5e, various sensors detect their operation states, and the communication data 20 shown in FIG. 2 is generated according to the detection results. The communication data 20 includes, in addition to entity data 24 as bitmap data, a node ID 21 for identifying the electronic control units 5a to 5e themselves on the in-vehicle network 14, and a priority 23 indicating display priority. including. Such communication data 20 is transmitted from each of the electronic control units 5 a to 5 e to the communication interface 15 of the display control device 3 through the in-vehicle network 14.

  In the display control device 3, the communication data 15 received from the electronic control units 5a to 5e is received by the communication interface 15 through the in-vehicle network 14, and after the communication data 20 is temporarily stored in the memory 13, the priority 23 While controlling the layout in the screen of the display device 1 according to the node ID 21, the bitmap data image given as the entity data 24 is used as an indicator showing the operation state of each of the electronic control units 5 a to 5 e. Displayed on the display 1.

  At this time, the display control device 3 determines the source electronic control units 5a to 5e based on the node ID 21, and controls the display layout on the screen of the display 1.

  Further, the display control device 3 determines the display priority and the display position based on the priority 23 data and performs indicator display. In particular, when a lot of communication data 20 related to the indicator is transmitted at the same time or the like, when the display area is insufficient, it is possible to display only the indicator with high priority. Also, indicators with high urgency are highlighted and highlighted.

  A display example on the screen of the display 1 at this time is shown in FIG.

  As described above, the indicator information including the bitmap data is prepared on the electronic control units 5a to 5e side, and the display 1 side performs display using the received bitmap data. In addition, the display 1 side does not have to hold all the bitmap data. Therefore, it is not necessary to be aware of the type of the electronic control units 5a to 5e mounted on the vehicle on the display control device 3 side, and it is not affected by the change or addition of the types of the electronic control units 5a to 5e mounted on the vehicle. The display control device 3 for displaying an indicator can be shared, and versatility can be maintained.

  Further, since the display priority and the display position are determined based on the priority 23 data and the indicator is displayed, only the indicator with a high priority is displayed when the display area is insufficient, or the indicator with a high urgency is displayed. It is possible to highlight the image and make it stand out, which is convenient.

It is a block diagram which shows the vehicle-mounted display system which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the data for communication transmitted to the vehicle-mounted display system which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the bitmap data of an indicator. It is a figure which shows the example of a display of the vehicle-mounted display system which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Display device 3 Display control apparatus 5a-5e Electronic control unit 11 CPU
13 Memory 14 In-vehicle network 15 Communication interface 20 Data for communication 22 Frame number 23 Priority 24 Entity data

Claims (2)

Indicator display means using a dot matrix type display;
An in-vehicle display system comprising display control means for acquiring image data about an indicator included in communication data given by in-vehicle communication from each in-vehicle unit and displaying the image data on the indicator display means. The in-vehicle display system according to claim 1,
The communication data includes data indicating display priority,
The in-vehicle display system, wherein the display control unit controls a layout in the indicator display unit in accordance with the display priority data in the communication data given from the outside.

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