JP2007066167A - Parking state detector - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a parking state detection system, capable of detecting the parking position of each vehicle in each parking space and preventing a situation such that a vehicle cannot be parked or is difficult to park. <P>SOLUTION: A vehicle presence detector 11, a parking position detector 12, a speaker 13, and a light 14 are set in each parking space. A control part 15 operates the parking position detector 12 when the vehicle presence detector 11 detects a parked vehicle. The detector 12 detects the position of the vehicle within the parking space. The control part 15 gives an alarm sound through the speaker 13 when the detector 12 detects abnormality of the vehicle position. According to this, a situation such that a vehicle cannot be parked or is difficult to be parked in a parking space adjacent thereto can be prevented. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a parking state detection device that detects whether or not a vehicle is parked at a correct position in an unmanned parking lot.

  2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a parking lot system that detects a full or empty parking space (with an empty space) in an unmanned parking lot has been adopted. In order to display whether the vehicle is full or empty, it is determined whether the vehicle is full or empty by detecting the presence or absence of a vehicle parked in each parking space. By transmitting this information to the central control unit or the like, the parking state can be managed remotely.

  In order to detect a vehicle for each parking space, a vehicle confirmation sensor or the like is generally used (see, for example, Patent Document 1). In the apparatus of Patent Document 1, an ultrasonic sensor or the like is installed at a parking stop in a parking space to detect the presence or absence of a vehicle.

Moreover, in the system of patent document 2, the parking vehicle is detected by providing one ultrasonic sensor for each parking space on the ceiling of the parking lot.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-63998 JP-A-6-150194

  According to Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2, it is possible to detect a full or empty parking state even in an unmanned parking lot, and perform display, remote management, and the like. However, even if the vehicle confirmation sensor and the parking state detection system disclosed in Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2 are used, the following problems occur. That is, in each parking space, if the vehicle is parked in a state that affects the adjacent parking space (for example, a state that protrudes from the frame line), even if the vehicle is in an empty state in the state detection by the sensor, an attempt is made to park later. There was a situation where the vehicle to be parked could not be parked or was difficult to park. In Patent Literature 1 and Patent Literature 2, the presence or absence of a vehicle can be detected, but the parking position of the vehicle cannot be accurately detected, and the parked vehicle is parked out of one parking space. Could not be detected.

  This invention detects the parking position of the vehicle in each parking space, and issues a warning when the vehicle is parked in a state that affects the adjacent parking space, so that parking is difficult or difficult to park. It aims at providing the parking state detection apparatus which can prevent generation | occurrence | production of such a condition.

  The parking state detection device according to the present invention is provided in a substantially central portion of the parking section, and is provided in a vehicle detection sensor that detects the presence or absence of a vehicle in the parking section, and in a peripheral portion of the parking section, and the parking section in the parking section A plurality of vehicle position sensors for detecting the position of the vehicle, a warning means for issuing a warning, and the parking position of the vehicle according to the detection contents of the plurality of vehicle position sensors in a state where the vehicle detection sensor detects the vehicle. And a control means for driving the warning means when it is determined that there is a deviation.

  In the present invention, the sensor detects that the vehicle is parked in the parking space, and further detects the position of the vehicle in the parking space. If it is determined that the vehicle position is abnormal, a warning sound is emitted. The vehicle position is abnormal when, for example, the vehicle is parked outside the line drawn in the parking space.

  In the present invention, the vehicle position sensor is provided at a position within a range where the vehicle exists when the vehicle is parked at a correct position in the parking section, and the control means includes any one of the vehicle position sensors. When the vehicle is not detected, it is determined that the parking position of the vehicle is shifted.

  In this invention, the sensor is embedded in the ground around the normal parking position (for example, near the center in the parking space). If any one of these sensors cannot detect the presence of the vehicle, a warning sound is emitted.

  In the present invention, the vehicle position sensor is provided at a position outside the range where the vehicle exists when the vehicle is parked at a correct position in the parking section, and the control means includes any one of the vehicle position sensors. When the vehicle is detected, it is determined that the parking position of the vehicle is shifted.

  In this invention, the sensor is embedded in the ground outside the normal parking position (for example, on the boundary line of the parking space). If any one of these sensors detects the presence of a vehicle, a warning sound is emitted.

  According to the present invention, it is detected that the vehicle is parked in the parking space, further detects the vehicle position, and issues a warning when the vehicle position of the parked vehicle is abnormal. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the situation that parking is difficult or parking is difficult.

  Hereinafter, a parking state detection device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described. FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a parking state detection device. In the unmanned parking lot, a plurality of parking state detection devices 1 shown in the figure are installed for each parking space.

  The parking state detection device 1 includes a vehicle presence / absence detector 11, a parking position detector 12, a speaker 13, a light 14, a control unit 15, a memory 16, a sound reproduction unit 17, and a communication unit 18. The vehicle presence / absence detector 11, the parking position detector 12, the speaker 13, the light 14, the memory 16, the sound reproduction unit 17, and the communication unit 18 are each connected to the control unit 15. In addition, the audio reproduction unit 17 is connected to the speaker 13.

  The vehicle presence / absence detector 11 is a sensor that detects the presence / absence of a vehicle in each parking space, and includes, for example, an ultrasonic sensor embedded in the ground. The parking position detector 12 is a sensor or the like that detects the position of the vehicle in each parking space, and is composed of an ultrasonic sensor embedded in the ground in the same manner as the vehicle presence / absence detector 11, and a plurality of these are embedded in the parking space. By doing so, the position is detected. The speaker 13 and the light 14 are also embedded in the ground in the parking space. The memory 16 is a storage unit that stores various information, and stores an operation program for the control unit 15. It also stores the time since parking. The sound reproducing unit 17 emits sound from the speaker 13 in accordance with an instruction from the control unit 15. The communication unit 18 is connected to a parking lot management device or the like, and transmits and receives information such as parking of a parking space and an empty vehicle. The management device manages unmanned parking lots based on these pieces of information.

  The vehicle presence / absence detector 11 is embedded in the substantially central ground in the parking space. A plurality of parking position detectors 12 are embedded in six locations near the front and rear left and right corners and near the left and right ends of the center in the parking space. The speaker 13 is embedded in the ground near the front (or rear) in the parking space. The light 14 is embedded in the ground near the front outside (or behind) the parking space. These are exposed and buried on the ground.

  The vehicle presence detector 11 and the parking position detector 12 are sensors that detect the presence or absence of a vehicle by emitting ultrasonic waves upward from the ground and receiving the reflected waves. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a detection state by each detector of a correctly parked vehicle. The vehicle presence / absence detector 11 and the parking position detector 12 each have an ultrasonic transmission unit and an ultrasonic reception unit (not shown), and the ultrasonic transmission unit faces upward from the ground (to the ceiling). Emits ultrasound. When a vehicle is present on the sensor, the ultrasonic wave is reflected on the lower part of the vehicle, and the reflected wave is received by the ultrasonic wave receiving unit. The control unit 15 can measure the distance from the ground by measuring the time from transmission to reception.

  When there is no vehicle on the sensor, the ultrasonic wave is not reflected and is not received by the ultrasonic wave receiving unit. On the other hand, when the vehicle is not present, the ceiling is low, and when the ultrasonic wave is reflected and received by the ultrasonic wave receiver, the distance from the ground is measured as described above, and this distance is determined in advance. It may be determined that the vehicle does not exist when the value is larger than the value, and the vehicle exists when the value is smaller. Even if an obstacle other than the vehicle temporarily exists and the distance from the ground is smaller than a predetermined value, it is determined that there is no vehicle if the same distance is not measured for a certain period of time. When the same distance is measured for a certain time or more, it is determined that the vehicle exists and is parked. The vehicle presence / absence detector 11 and the parking position detector 12 only need to have an ultrasonic output capable of receiving a reflected wave from the lower part of the vehicle, and the output need not be further increased. By suppressing the output to the minimum necessary, it is possible to prevent the ultrasonic waves of other adjacent parking spaces from interfering with each other.

  In FIG. 1, the control unit 15 starts a counter after emitting a sound wave to the vehicle presence / absence detector 11. When the vehicle presence / absence detector 11 receives the reflected wave before this counter times out, it is determined that the vehicle is present. When there is a vehicle, the plurality of parking position detectors 12 are caused to sequentially detect the vehicle using sound waves. The position of the parked vehicle can be detected based on whether or not each parking position detector 12 detects the vehicle.

  The detection of the position of the parked vehicle will be described in detail. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating parking position detection. As shown in FIG. 2A, parking position detectors 12 are embedded in six locations near the front and rear left and right corners and near the center left and right ends in the parking space. Each parking position detector 12 emits ultrasonic waves and receives reflected waves to detect the presence or absence of a vehicle. As shown in FIG. 5B, when the vehicle is parked at the correct parking position (the vehicle is parked in the parking space), the vehicle is present on all the parking position detectors 12. Thus, the reflected wave is received by all the parking position detectors 12. When the presence of the vehicle is detected by all the parking position detectors 12, the control unit 15 turns off the light 14 assuming that the vehicle is parked at the correct parking position. When the vehicle is empty, the light 14 can be constantly turned on to guide the empty space.

  Here, when the vehicle is parked obliquely and a part of the vehicle protrudes from the parking space as shown in FIG. 5C, any parking position detector 12 (or a plurality of parking position detectors 12). , No reflected wave is received. When the vehicle protrudes forward (or rearward) as shown in FIG. 4D, the reflected wave is not received by the parking position detector 12 embedded in the front (or rearward) ground. Thus, when the reflected wave is not received by any (or a plurality of) parking position detectors 12, it can be determined that the vehicle is parked out of the parking space.

  When the reflected wave is not received by any of the parking position detectors 12 and the control unit 15 determines that the vehicle protrudes from the parking space and is parked, the control unit 15 instructs the sound reproduction unit 17 to emit a warning sound. The sound reproducing unit 17 emits a warning sound from the speaker 13. The warning sound may be a voice such as “please park at the correct position” or simply a beep sound. Moreover, you may make it change audio | voice content according to the position of the parking position detector 12 which could not detect presence of a vehicle. For example, as shown in FIG. 3C, when the parking position detector 12 on the left front cannot detect the presence of the vehicle, a sound such as “tilt left” is generated. In addition, when the presence of the vehicle cannot be detected by the two parking position detectors 12 as shown in FIG. 4D, a voice such as “Proceed a little further forward” is issued. In this manner, the parking state detection device 1 of the present embodiment can prevent the vehicle from being parked out of the parking space, or can prevent the vehicle from being parked diagonally within the parking space.

  After instructing the sound reproduction unit 17 to emit a warning sound, the control unit 15 instructs the stop of the warning sound when all the parking position detectors 12 detect the presence of the vehicle, and turns off the light 14. To do. In addition, even if all the parking position detectors 12 do not detect the presence of the vehicle, when a certain time has elapsed after instructing the sound reproduction unit 17 to emit a warning sound, the warning sound is instructed to stop. . If all of the parking position detectors 12 cannot detect the presence of a vehicle even after a certain period of time has elapsed, the warning sound is stopped and the use of a warning sound is not generated as the parked person ignores the warning and parks. To.

  In addition, the parking condition detection apparatus of this invention is realizable also by comprising the parking position detector 12 as follows. FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating parking detection when the arrangement of the parking position detector 12 is changed. As shown in FIG. 2A, a plurality of parking position detectors 12 in this example are embedded in six locations near the front and rear left and right corners and near the center left and right ends on the boundary line of the parking space. As shown in FIG. 5B, when the vehicle is parked at the correct parking position (the vehicle is parked in the parking space), the vehicle is present on all the parking position detectors 12. Therefore, the reflected wave is not received by all the parking position detectors 12.

  When the vehicle presence / absence detector 11 detects the presence of the vehicle and no reflected wave is detected by all the parking position detectors 12, the control unit 15 turns off the light 14 assuming that the vehicle is parked at the correct parking position. To do. When the vehicle is empty, the light 14 can be constantly turned on to guide the empty space. On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 5C, when the presence of the vehicle is detected by the vehicle presence detector 11 and the presence of the vehicle is detected by any one of the parking position detectors 12, the vehicle is removed from the parking space. It is determined that the vehicle is protruding and parked, and the sound reproduction unit 17 is instructed to emit a warning sound. The sound reproducing unit 17 emits a warning sound from the speaker 13. As described above, the warning sound may be a sound such as “please park at the correct position”, or may simply be a beep sound or the like.

  As shown in FIG. 4, the parking position detector 12 is embedded at the boundary of the parking space, and the parking position detector 12 is embedded at a predetermined position in the parking space as shown in FIG. Also good. A vehicle protruding from the parking space can be detected by the parking position detector 12 embedded in the boundary line of the parking space, and a vehicle parked obliquely can be detected by the parking position detector 12 embedded in the parking space.

  Moreover, the number which embeds the parking position detector 12 is not restricted to the said example. By increasing the number of embedded parking position detectors 12, the position of the vehicle can be detected more accurately.

Next, the operation of the parking state detection device 1 will be described in detail. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a parking detection sequence. First, the control unit 15 instructs the vehicle presence / absence detector 11 to transmit an ultrasonic wave, and starts a counter (s11). afterwards,
It is determined whether or not a predetermined time has elapsed (time up) (s12). The predetermined time is set to a time (for example, about 5 ms) necessary for a sound wave to travel the distance assuming a general distance to the lower part of the vehicle (for example, 20 cm). If the time is up, the process is repeated from the counter start (s12 → s11). If the time is not up, it is determined whether or not a reflected wave is received (s13). If no reflected wave is received, the process is repeated from the determination of the passage of time (s13 → s12). If it is determined that the reflected wave has been received, the counter is stopped and the time from transmission to reception is measured (s14).

  By measuring the time from transmission to reception, the parking state detection device 1 can measure the distance from the ground to the detected object. The above processing s11 to s14 is a sensing routine, and these processing are performed by the vehicle presence detector 11 and the parking position detector 12. When the vehicle presence / absence detector 11 finishes the sensing routine, the control unit 15 operates the parking position detector 12 (starts the sensing routine) (s15), and proceeds to the position detection sequence.

  FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of the position detection sequence. First, a sensing routine is performed by each parking position detector 12 (s21). All the parking position detectors 12 may perform sensing at the same time, or may be sequentially performed by a single parking position detector 12.

  It is determined whether or not all the parking position detectors 12 have detected a vehicle (s22), and when there is an undetected parking position detector 12, the detected parking position detector 12 and the undetected parking position The direction of the vehicle is determined from the position of the detector 12 (s23). For example, as shown in FIG. 3C, if the parking position detector 12 on the left front cannot detect the presence of the vehicle, it is determined that the vehicle is leaning to the left. Thereafter, a warning sound is output (s24). If it is determined that the vehicle is leaning to the left as described above, the warning sound may be emitted as “tilting left” or the like. Moreover, you may make it only emit a beep sound.

  Thereafter, it is determined whether or not a certain time has passed since the warning sound was emitted (s25). If it has not elapsed, the process is repeated from the vehicle detection determination of the parking position detector 12 (s25 → s22). When a certain time has elapsed since the warning sound was emitted, or when all the parking position detectors 12 have detected vehicles in the processing of s22, the control unit 15 instructs the sound reproduction unit 17 to stop the warning sound (s26). . Thereafter, the parking position detector 12 is stopped (the ultrasonic wave is stopped), and the light 14 is turned off (s27).

  FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the operation of the exit detection sequence. First, the control unit 15 determines whether or not the parked vehicle has left (s31). When the vehicle presence / absence detector 11 no longer detects the vehicle, it is determined that the parked vehicle has left. If it is determined that the parked vehicle has left, it is determined whether the parking position detector 12 is stopped (s32). If the parking position detector 12 is not stopped, it is stopped (s33). Thereafter, the light is turned on (s34).

  In the present embodiment, the vehicle presence / absence detector 11 and the parking position detector 12 have been described with respect to an example in which the presence of a vehicle is detected by an ultrasonic sensor. However, the present invention is not limited to this example. A photoelectric sensor or the like may be used. Moreover, although the audio | voice reproduction | regeneration part 17 emitted a warning sound from the speaker 13 embed | buried in the ground, you may make it emit a warning sound from a car stereo (FM radio) by transmitting FM radio waves. In the present embodiment, an example in which a warning sound is emitted from the speaker 13 has been shown. However, a warning may be displayed by an indicator lamp or the like.

Block diagram showing the configuration of the parking state detection device Diagram explaining vehicle detection Diagram explaining parking position detection The figure explaining parking detection at the time of changing arrangement of a parking position detector Flow chart showing parking detection sequence Flow chart showing parking position detection sequence Flow chart showing the delivery detection sequence

Explanation of symbols

1-parking state detection device 11-vehicle presence detector 12-parking position detector 13-speaker 14-light 15-control unit 16-memory 17-audio reproduction unit 18-communication unit

Claims (3)

A vehicle detection sensor that is provided at a substantially central portion of the parking section and detects the presence or absence of a vehicle in the parking section;
A plurality of vehicle position sensors provided in the periphery of the parking section and detecting the position of the vehicle in the parking section;
A warning means for issuing a warning;
Control means for driving the warning means when it is determined that the parking position of the vehicle is shifted according to the detection contents of the plurality of vehicle position sensors in a state where the vehicle detection sensor is detecting the vehicle;
A parking state detection device.   The vehicle position sensor is provided at a position within a range where the vehicle exists when the vehicle is parked at a correct position in the parking section, and the control means does not detect any of the vehicle position sensors. The parking state detection device according to claim 1, wherein the parking position of the vehicle is determined to be shifted.   The vehicle position sensor is provided at a position outside the range where the vehicle exists when the vehicle is parked at a correct position in the parking section, and the control means detects when the vehicle position sensor detects the vehicle, The parking state detection device according to claim 1, wherein the parking position of the vehicle is determined to be shifted.

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