JP2008262481A - Vehicle control device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a vehicle control device, capable of surely recognizing a stop line, even if the stop line cannot be recognized by an onboard camera, to stop a vehicle at that position. <P>SOLUTION: The vehicle control device wirelessly acquires external information containing information of a temporary stop position where the vehicle should be temporarily stopped from the outside of the vehicle, and forms and outputs temporary stop support information for making a driver temporarily stop the vehicle a temporary stop position specified based on the external information. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a vehicle control apparatus capable of executing a temporary stop safely and reliably.

  “Vehicle speed limit, unlicensed, drunk driving” is said to be the so-called “traffic 3 bad”. A combination of “runaway, signal and ignoring pause (intersection violation)” may be referred to as “traffic 5 bad”. Of these, temporary suspension is obligatory in order to fully confirm the surrounding safety at intersections with poor visibility.

  Therefore, a method of displaying the pause position on the map display screen of the vehicle navigation device has been devised in order to support the reliable pause. Further, a vehicle control device has been devised that can obtain a temporary stop position without providing a dedicated distance measuring means and can execute the temporary stop safely and reliably with a simple configuration (see Patent Document 1).

JP 2005-63398 A

  The configuration of Patent Document 1 extracts an image of a road sign or a stop line from an image taken by an in-vehicle camera, calculates a stop position from the size or position of the image, controls the vehicle based on the information, and stops. It is intended to stop on the line. However, in this configuration, when a clear image cannot be captured with the in-vehicle camera due to reflection of the road surface due to rain, road signs and stop line images cannot be extracted from the captured image, and it is impossible to execute a temporary stop. There's a problem.

  With the above problem as a background, an object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle control device that can recognize a stop line reliably and stop at that position even when the in-vehicle camera cannot recognize the stop line.

Means for Solving the Problems and Effects of the Invention

  A vehicle control apparatus for solving the above-described problems includes an outside information wireless acquisition unit that wirelessly acquires information outside a vehicle including information on a temporary stop position at which the vehicle should be temporarily stopped from outside the vehicle, and information obtained outside the vehicle. A temporary stop position specifying means for specifying a temporary stop position based on the information, and a temporary stop support information creating and outputting means for generating and outputting temporary stop support information for causing the driver to temporarily stop at the specified temporary stop position; It is characterized by providing.

  With the above configuration, even when a clear image cannot be taken by the in-vehicle camera due to reflection of the road surface due to rain or the like, or even when the in-vehicle camera is not mounted, the temporary stop position can be specified.

  Further, the vehicle outside information in the vehicle control device of the present invention includes image information of a road stop line indicating a temporary stop position, and the temporary stop position specifying means specifies the presence or absence of a road stop line from the wirelessly acquired image information. It can also be configured to.

  With the above configuration, for example, if a camera is installed in the vicinity of the pause position at a position where the road pause line can be photographed, the road pause line can be clearly photographed regardless of the weather or other reasons. Therefore, in the vehicle, it is possible to reliably specify the temporary stop position by acquiring the image information.

  Further, the vehicle control device of the present invention is based on a first temporary stop position specifying unit that specifies a temporary stop position based on wirelessly acquired information outside the vehicle, and a temporary image based on an image in front of the vehicle captured by the in-vehicle imaging unit. Second stop position specifying means for specifying the stop position, and the suspension support information creating / outputting means includes a result of specifying the first pause position specifying means and a result of specifying the second pause position specifying means. The suspension support information may be created and output based on at least one of them.

  With the above configuration, the temporary stop position can be specified more accurately by using two pieces of information, that is, information from the outside of the vehicle and information from the inside of the vehicle.

  Moreover, the temporary stop support information creation output means in the vehicle control device of the present invention preferentially uses the specification result of the second temporary stop position specifying means, and the temporary stop position cannot be specified by the second temporary stop position specifying means. In addition, it is possible to create and output temporary stop support information using the specification result of the first temporary stop position specifying means.

  With the above configuration, it is possible to identify the temporary stop position using information from inside the vehicle that does not normally depend on the equipment outside the vehicle, and to use information from outside the vehicle only when the information from the inside of the vehicle cannot identify the temporary stop position. The two temporary stop position specifying means can be effectively used according to the situation.

  In addition, the vehicle control device of the present invention includes a distance calculation unit that calculates a distance from the vehicle to the specified temporary stop position, and the temporary stop support information creation output unit is a temporary stop that notifies the distance to the temporary stop position. The distance notification information may be created and output as temporary suspension support information.

  With the configuration described above, the driver can be surely and specifically notified of the presence of the temporary stop position, and can be guided to temporarily stop the vehicle.

  Hereinafter, a vehicle control device according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings, taking as an example a configuration of a vehicle navigation device. Of course, you may comprise a vehicle control apparatus as an independent vehicle-mounted apparatus.

  FIG. 1 shows a configuration of a vehicle navigation device (hereinafter abbreviated as a navigation device) 100. The navigation device 100 includes a position detector 1, a map data input device 6, an operation switch group 7, a remote control (hereinafter referred to as remote control) sensor 11, a voice synthesis circuit 24 for performing voice guidance, a speaker 15, a memory 9, and a display. 10, a transceiver 13, a hard disk device (HDD) 21, a LAN I / F (interface) 26, a control circuit 8 connected thereto, a remote control terminal 12, and the like.

  The position detector 1 includes a known geomagnetic sensor 2, a gyroscope 3 for detecting the rotational angular velocity of the vehicle 101 (see FIGS. 2 and 3), a distance sensor 4 for detecting the travel distance of the vehicle 101, and radio waves from satellites. It has a GPS receiver 5 that detects the position of the vehicle 101 based on it. Since these sensors 2, 3, 4, and 5 have errors of different properties, they are configured to be used while being complemented by a plurality of sensors. Depending on the accuracy, some of the sensors described above may be used, and further, a rotation sensor 36 (see FIG. 3) of the steering 35 or a wheel sensor of each rolling wheel, such as the vehicle speed sensor 23, may be used. .

  As the operation switch group 7, for example, a touch panel 22 integrated with the display device 10 or a mechanical switch is used. The touch panel 22 is pressed when an electric circuit is wired on the screen of the display 10 in the X-axis direction and the Y-axis direction through a gap called a spacer on a glass substrate and a transparent film, and the user touches the film. Since the voltage value changes due to short-circuiting of a part of the wiring, a so-called resistance film method for detecting this as a two-dimensional coordinate value (X, Y) is widely used. In addition, a known so-called capacitance method may be used. In addition to the mechanical switch, a pointing device such as a mouse or a cursor may be used.

  It is also possible to input various instructions using the microphone 31 and the voice recognition unit 30. In this method, a voice signal input from the microphone 31 is processed by a voice recognition technique such as a well-known hidden Markov model in the voice recognition unit 30, and converted into an operation command corresponding to the result. Various instructions can be input through the operation switch group 7, the remote control terminal 12, the touch panel 22, and the microphone 31.

  The control circuit 8 includes a well-known CPU 81, ROM 82, RAM 83, I / O 84 which is an input / output circuit, A / D conversion unit 86, drawing unit 87, clock IC 88, image processing unit 89, prediction / judgment processing unit 90, and these A bus line 85 is provided for connecting the above configurations. The CPU 81 controls the navigation program 21p and data stored in the HDD 21. The CPU 81 controls the reading / writing of data to / from the HDD 21. In addition, a program for performing a minimum necessary operation as the navigation device 100 may be stored in the ROM 82 in a case where the data read / write control from the CPU 81 to the HDD 21 becomes impossible. The control circuit 8 corresponds to the temporary stop position specifying means, the temporary stop support information creating / outputting means, the first temporary stop position specifying means, the second temporary stop position specifying means, and the distance calculating means of the present invention.

  The A / D conversion unit 86 includes a well-known A / D (analog / digital) conversion circuit, and converts analog data input from the position detector 1 or the like to the control circuit 8 into digital data that can be calculated by the CPU 81, for example. It is.

  The drawing unit 87 generates display screen data to be displayed on the display 10 from road map data 21m (described later), display data, and display color data stored in the HDD 21 or the like.

  The clock IC 88 is also called a real-time clock IC, and sends or sets clock / calendar data in response to a request from the CPU 81. The CPU 81 acquires date / time information from the clock IC 88. Further, date and time information included in the GPS signal received by the GPS receiver 5 may be used. The date information may be generated based on a real-time counter included in the CPU 81. The date / time information is used, for example, for running history management.

  The image processing unit 89 includes an image processing circuit (not shown) that analyzes an image captured by the in-vehicle camera 28 by a known technique such as pattern recognition. In the image processing unit 89, for example, a general binarization process is performed on the video signal photographed by the vehicle-mounted camera 28, thereby converting the digital multi-value image data for each pixel. Then, a desired image portion is extracted from the obtained multi-value image data using a general image processing method. As shown in FIG. 2, the image processing unit 89 includes, for example, a temporary stop recognition unit 89a and a stop position calculation unit 89b. These are included in the navigation program 21p or the image processing circuit. The image processing unit 89 corresponds to the temporary stop position specifying means, the first temporary stop position specifying means, and the second temporary stop position specifying means of the present invention.

  Returning to FIG. 1, the prediction / judgment processing unit 90 determines the necessity of pause and the operation content necessary to stop at the position based on the information of the pause position specified by the image processing unit 89. . Then, as shown in FIG. 2, the vehicle control notification unit 90a controls the throttle 71 and the brake 72, and the user notification unit 90b controls the speaker 15, the vibrator 75, and the like as needed. The vehicle control notification unit 90a and the user notification unit 90b are included in the navigation program 21p or the I / O 84. The prediction / judgment processing unit 90 corresponds to the temporary suspension support information creation / output unit of the present invention.

  Returning to FIG. 1, the memory 9 is configured by a rewritable device such as an EEPROM (Electrically Erasable & Programmable Read Only Memory) or a flash memory, and is necessary for the operation of the navigation apparatus 100. Information and data are stored. The memory 9 holds the stored contents even when the navigation device 100 is turned off. Further, instead of the memory 9, information and data necessary for the operation of the navigation device 100 may be stored in the HDD 21. Further, information and data necessary for the operation of the navigation device 100 may be stored separately in the memory 9 and the HDD 21.

  The display 10 is composed of a known color liquid crystal display, and includes a dot matrix LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) and a driver circuit (not shown) for performing LCD display control. The driver circuit uses, for example, an active matrix driving method in which a transistor is attached to each pixel so that the target pixel can be reliably turned on and off, and a display command sent from the control circuit 8 (drawing unit 87) and Display is performed based on the display screen data. Further, an organic EL (ElectroLuminescence) display or a plasma display may be used as the display 10. The display device 10 corresponds to the temporary suspension support information creation / output means of the present invention.

  The transceiver 13 is, for example, a VICS (Vehicle Information and Communication System: registered trademark) center 14 by an optical beacon or a radio beacon output from a transmitter (not shown) provided along the road. It is a device for receiving road traffic information from or receiving FM multiplex broadcasting. Moreover, it is good also as a structure which can be connected to external networks, such as the internet, using the transmitter / receiver 13. FIG.

  The speaker 15 is connected to a well-known voice synthesis circuit 24, and the digital voice data stored in the memory 9 or the HDD 21 in accordance with a command from the navigation program 21p is converted into analog voice by the voice synthesis circuit 24 and sent out. Note that speech synthesis methods include a recording / editing method in which speech waveforms are stored as they are or after being encoded and connected as necessary, and a text synthesis method in which corresponding speech is synthesized from character input information.

  Further, by communicating with the ETC on-vehicle device 17, it is possible to capture the fee information received from the roadside device (not shown) installed in the toll gate by the ETC on-vehicle device 17 into the navigation device 100. Further, the ETC on-vehicle device 17 may be connected to an external network and communicate with the VICS center 14 or the like.

  In addition to the navigation program 21p, the HDD 21 stores so-called map matching data for improving the accuracy of position detection and road map data 21m, which is a map database including road data representing road connections. The road map data 21m stores predetermined map image information for display and road network information including link information and node information. The link information is predetermined section information constituting each road, and includes position coordinates, distance, required time, road width, number of lanes, speed limit, and the like. The node information is information defining an intersection (branch road) or the like, and is composed of position coordinates, the number of right / left turn lanes, a connection destination road link, and the like. In addition, data indicating whether or not traffic is possible is set in the inter-link connection information. Further, the road map data 21m also stores temporary stop information including a temporary stop point, direction, and the like.

  In addition, in the HDD 21, auxiliary information for route guidance, entertainment information, and other data can be written independently by the user and stored as user data 21u. Data and various information necessary for the operation of the navigation device 100 are also stored as the database 21d.

  The navigation program 21p, road map data 21m, user data 21u, and database 21d can be added / updated from the storage medium 20 via the map data input device 6. The storage medium 20 is generally a CD-ROM or DVD based on the amount of data, but may be another medium such as a memory card. Moreover, you may use the structure which downloads data via an external network.

  The vehicle speed sensor 23 includes a rotation detection unit such as a known rotary encoder. For example, the vehicle speed sensor 23 is installed in the vicinity of the wheel mounting unit to detect the rotation of the wheel and send it to the control circuit 8 as a pulse signal. In the control circuit 8, the number of rotations of the wheel is converted into the speed of the vehicle 101 to calculate an expected arrival time from the current position of the vehicle 101 to a predetermined place, or an average vehicle speed for each travel section of the vehicle 101. To do.

  The communication unit 25 is configured as a well-known wireless communication device, and is used for wirelessly acquiring information outside the vehicle from the road device 35 (see FIG. 2). The communication unit 25 corresponds to the vehicle information wireless acquisition means of the present invention.

  The LAN I / F 26 is an interface circuit for exchanging data with other in-vehicle devices and sensors via the in-vehicle LAN 27. Further, data may be taken from the vehicle speed sensor 23 or connected to the ETC on-vehicle device 17 via the LAN I / F 26.

  With this configuration, the navigation device 100 allows the user to operate the operation switch group 7, the touch panel 22, the remote control terminal 12, or from the microphone 31 when the navigation program 21 p is activated by the CPU 81 of the control circuit 8. When a route guidance process for displaying a destination route on the display 10 is selected from a menu (not shown) displayed on the display 10 by voice input, the following process is performed.

  That is, first, the user searches for a destination. The destination search method is, for example, a method of specifying an arbitrary point on the map, a method of searching from the area where the destination is located, a method of searching from the telephone number of the destination, or a name of the destination from the Japanese syllabary table There are a method of searching by inputting the number of characters stored in the memory 9 as a facility frequently used by the user. When the destination is set, the current position of the vehicle 101 is obtained by the position detector 1, and a process for obtaining an optimum guide route to the destination from the current position is performed. Then, the guidance route is superimposed on the road map on the screen of the display 10 to display an appropriate route for the user. As a method for automatically setting an optimum guide route, a method such as the Dijkstra method is known. In addition, at least one of the display 10 and the speaker 15 performs notification of a message according to an operation guidance or an operation state.

  The in-vehicle camera 28 is composed of a known CCD video camera or the like, and the captured image data is sent to the control circuit 8 (image processing unit 89). FIG. 3 shows an example of mounting. The in-vehicle camera 28 is attached to, for example, the front center portion of the ceiling in the vehicle compartment so that the front of the vehicle 101 can be photographed. It is desirable that the photographing range is wider than at least the visual field range of the driver. Moreover, you may attach on a dash panel (position of 28a). The in-vehicle camera 28 corresponds to the in-vehicle photographing means of the present invention.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the road unit 35 includes a camera 35a similar to the in-vehicle camera 28, and a communication unit 35b for transmitting information outside the vehicle to the navigation device 100 (communication unit 25). The road device 35 transmits to the vehicle 101 information outside the vehicle including an image of a road stop line photographed by the camera 35a. Further, as the configuration in which the road device 35 does not include the camera 35a, the position and size of the road stop line are stored in advance in the storage unit 35c as information outside the vehicle, and when the inquiry signal from the vehicle 101 is received, the information outside the vehicle May be transmitted to the vehicle 101.

  The suspension support information creation / output process will be described with reference to FIG. This process is included in the navigation program 21p and is repeatedly executed together with other processes of the navigation program 21p. First, image data in front of the vehicle 101 photographed by the in-vehicle camera 28 is acquired (S11). Next, image data is analyzed in the image processing unit 89 (temporary stop recognition unit 89a), and an image of a stop sign or a stop line (on-road stop line) is extracted (S12).

  When the image of the stop sign can be extracted (S13: Yes), the distance to the stop position is calculated based on the size of the stop sign image (S14). The range occupied by the image of the stop sign in the photographing range by the in-vehicle camera 28 is smaller as the distance between the stop sign and the vehicle 101 is longer, and is larger as the distance between the stop sign and the vehicle 101 is closer. Since the shape and size of the stop sign are defined, the distance to the road sign can be estimated based on the size of the stop sign image and the actual size of the road sign (Patent Document 1). FIG. 3). Then, the process proceeds to step S19 (described later).

  If the stop sign image could not be extracted but the stop line image could be extracted (S13: No → S15: Yes), the distance to the pause position is calculated based on the stop line image (S16). The angle at which the stop line is viewed from the in-vehicle camera 28 (the depression angle) decreases as the distance between the stop line and the vehicle 101 increases, and increases as the distance between the stop line and the vehicle 101 decreases. Therefore, the distance from the display position of the stop line image to the stop line can be calculated (see FIG. 3 of Patent Document 1). Then, the process proceeds to step S19 (described later).

  When neither the stop sign image nor the stop line image can be extracted (S13: No → S15: No), the vehicle outside information including the information on the stop position where the vehicle 101 should be temporarily stopped is acquired from the road device 35 (S17). ). Then, a temporary stop position is specified from the image information of the stop line included in the outside information and the image data ahead of the vehicle 101 taken by the in-vehicle camera 28 (S18). Then, the process proceeds to step S19 (described later).

  A method for specifying the temporary stop position will be described with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6. FIG. 5 shows image data in front of the vehicle 101 taken by the in-vehicle camera 28, and FIG. 6 shows stop line image information included in the outside information. First, the distance L1 from the vehicle 101 to the intersecting road R1 ahead is calculated using the image data of FIG. The road R1 can be recognized by a known image processing method such as pattern matching. Further, the distance L1 to the road R1 can be calculated by the same method as in step S16 in FIG.

  Next, a distance L2 between the road R1 and the near side of the stop line S is calculated from the image information of the stop line S included in the outside information. Since the shape and size of the stop line S are defined, the distance L2 can be calculated based on the size of the image of the stop line S and the actual size of the stop line S. If the image information of the outside information includes a center line or a lane boundary line (P or the like), the distance L2 may be calculated using these widths. Then, L1-L2 is calculated as the temporary stop distance.

  In step S19, the current position information of the vehicle 101 is acquired from the position detector 1. Then, referring to the temporary stop information included in the road map data 21m, based on the stop line specified above and the current position, it is checked whether or not a temporary stop is necessary on the stop line (S20).

  When a temporary stop is necessary (S21: Yes), the temporary stop information support information is output, and driving intervention is performed as necessary (S22). Details of the driving intervention are described in FIG. 6 and FIG. 12 of Patent Document 1, and the description thereof is omitted here. The vibrator 75 (see FIG. 2) is attached to the steering 35 (see FIG. 3) or the driver's seat. When the driving intervention condition that must be stopped at the temporary stop position is satisfied, the vibrator 75 is activated to alert the driver. FIG. 7 shows an output example of the temporary stop information support information on the display 10. The distance to the temporary stop line need not be included. A similar voice message may be output from the speaker 15.

  On the other hand, when there is no need for temporary stop (S21: No), temporary stop information support information is output (S23). FIG. 8 shows an output example of the temporary stop information support information on the display 10. Similar to FIG. 7, the distance to the stop line may not be included. A similar voice message may be output from the speaker 15.

  In the configuration of FIG. 4, step S19 and step S20 may not be executed. At this time, it is determined whether or not a pause is necessary, for example, based on whether or not a stop sign has been recognized. Further, information on whether or not there is a stop sign, that is, whether or not it is necessary to stop, may be included in the information outside the vehicle from the road unit 35.

  Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described above, these are merely examples, and the present invention is not limited to these embodiments, and the knowledge of those skilled in the art can be used without departing from the spirit of the claims. Various modifications based on this are possible.

The block diagram which shows the structure of the navigation apparatus for vehicles. The figure which shows the detail of an image process part and a prediction / judgment process part. The figure which shows the example of mounting of a vehicle-mounted camera. The flowchart explaining temporary stop assistance information creation output processing. The figure explaining the identification method of a temporary stop position. The figure explaining the identification method of the temporary stop position following FIG. The figure explaining the output example of temporary stop information assistance information (at the time of driving intervention). The figure explaining the example of output of temporary stop information assistance information.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Position detector 7 Operation switch group 8 Control circuit (temporary stop position specific means, temporary stop support information creation output means, 1st temporary stop position specific means, 2nd temporary stop position specific means, distance calculation means)
10 Display (Temporary stop support information creation / output means)
12 Remote control terminal 15 Speaker 21 Hard disk drive (HDD)
21m Road map data 22 Touch panel 25 Communication unit (outside vehicle information wireless acquisition means)
28 In-vehicle camera (in-vehicle imaging means)
35 Road unit 35a Camera 89 Image processing unit (temporary stop position specifying means, first temporary stop position specifying means, second temporary stop position specifying means)
90 Prediction / judgment processing unit (temporary stop support information creation / output means)
100 Vehicle navigation device

Claims (5)

Vehicle outside information wireless acquisition means for wirelessly acquiring vehicle outside information including information on a temporary stop position at which the vehicle is to be temporarily stopped from outside the vehicle;
A temporary stop position specifying means for specifying the temporary stop position based on the information obtained outside the vehicle by radio;
At the specified pause position, a pause support information creation output means for creating and outputting pause support information for causing the driver to pause, and
A vehicle control device comprising: The outside information includes image information of a road stop line indicating the pause position,
The vehicle control device according to claim 1, wherein the temporary stop position specifying unit specifies the presence or absence of the on-road stop line from the image information acquired wirelessly. First temporary stop position specifying means for specifying the temporary stop position based on the outside information acquired wirelessly;
A second temporary stop position specifying means for specifying the temporary stop position based on an image in front of the vehicle imaged by the vehicle-mounted image pickup means;
With
The temporary stop support information creation / output unit is configured to output the temporary stop support information based on at least one of a specification result of the first temporary stop position specification unit and a specification result of the second temporary stop position specification unit. The vehicle control device according to claim 1, wherein the vehicle control device generates and outputs the output.   The temporary stop support information creating / outputting unit preferentially uses the result of specifying the second temporary stop position specifying unit, and the first temporary stop when the second temporary stop position specifying unit cannot specify the temporary stop position. The vehicle control device according to claim 3, wherein the temporary stop support information is created and output using a specific result of the stop position specifying means. A distance calculating means for calculating a distance from the vehicle to the specified pause position;
5. The temporary stop support information creation output unit creates and outputs temporary stop distance notification information for notifying a distance to the temporary stop position as the temporary stop support information. Vehicle control device.

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