JP2009257763A - System, method and program for position estimation for vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a system and or the like for estimating the position of a driver's own vehicle which enables the specification of the position of the driver's own vehicle with the accuracy of a prescribed error or smaller in a situation that a conventional type means for specifying the position of the driver's own vehicle, such as GPS, an autonomous sensor and map matching, does not function effectively. <P>SOLUTION: A vehicle-to-vehicle communication means 101 acquires current position information from a neighboring vehicle of which the current position is specified, and a driver's own vehicle position correcting means 102 stores this current position information as the position of the driver's own vehicle. By this, the position of the driver's own vehicle can be specified with the accuracy of a maximum range or smaller of a vehicle-to-vehicle communication radio wave even in a situation that a conventional type means for specifying the position of the driver's own vehicle does not function effectively. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a vehicle position estimation device or the like in a car navigation system, and more particularly to a vehicle position estimation device, a vehicle position estimation method, and a vehicle that function effectively when it is difficult to estimate the vehicle position by positioning means mounted on the own vehicle. The present invention relates to a position estimation program.

Conventionally, as a vehicle position estimation device in a traffic communication control system, the following methods are known.
(A) Based on information obtained by the Global Positioning System (GPS) (Patent Document 1).
(B) By map matching (Patent Document 2).
(C) An autonomous sensor such as a 3D gyro (Patent Document 3).

  Among these, in the known technique (Patent Document 1) for determining the position of the own vehicle based on the information by the global positioning system (GPS) of (A), the error for DGPS which performs positioning by GPS and is FM multiplexed. An apparatus for receiving a signal and correcting a current position is disclosed. In this case, the DGPS (High Accuracy Global Positioning System) is configured to be able to calculate the vehicle position with high accuracy when signals are received from a certain number of satellites.

Also, in the known technique (Patent Document 2) for determining the position of the vehicle by map matching, the vehicle position calculated by GPS is compared with the road map, and if the vehicle position calculated by GPS does not correspond to the road. A method of searching for a road existing within an assumed range and correcting the vehicle position on the searched road is disclosed.
Furthermore, in the known technique (Patent Document 3) that determines the position of the vehicle by an autonomous sensor such as a 3D gyro, positioning by GPS and positioning by an autonomous sensor are performed, and the positioning information obtained from each is multiplied by a reliability coefficient. A vehicle position positioning method for setting the current position is disclosed.
JP-A-11-304509 JP 2003-97959 A Japanese Patent No. 3194907

  However, all of the above three vehicle position estimation techniques may not function effectively. That is, (1) In a situation where a sufficient number of GPS signals for positioning cannot be received by a nearby building or the like, (2) traveling on a road other than the road described in the map data, and (3) positioning by an autonomous sensor is difficult. This is the situation where the steering wheel is operated. A typical example of this type is a multilevel parking lot in an urban area.

  In such a situation, there is not much inconvenience in the parking lot, but a big problem occurs when leaving the parking lot. In other words, if you leave the parking lot with the accuracy of your vehicle position deteriorated, it will be judged that your vehicle is on a road that is completely different from the actual one, and then you will run on a different road by map matching. A situation occurs in which the driver is notified of information as if he is doing.

In such a case, some GPS signals can be received on the road after leaving the parking lot. However, if a signal sufficient for positioning cannot be received, the positioning result by map matching is given priority. In many cases, it takes a long time to restore the position information.
On the other hand, a vehicle that simply travels on the road to which the parking lot exit is connected without entering or leaving the parking lot has a high possibility of specifying its own vehicle position. This is because a situation in which the current position cannot be accurately grasped in the own vehicle even though the current position can be grasped in the surrounding vehicles.

  The present invention improves the inconvenience of such a conventional example, and in particular, in the situation where the vehicle is not able to grasp the position of the own vehicle even though the surrounding vehicles can grasp the position, the position of the own vehicle It is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle position estimation device, a vehicle position estimation method, and a vehicle position estimation program that can correctly grasp the vehicle position.

In order to achieve the above object, a vehicle position estimation apparatus according to the present invention is a vehicle position estimation apparatus in a vehicle navigation system, which can receive information indicating the position of the surrounding vehicle transmitted by the surrounding vehicle. It has a communication means and the own vehicle position correction means which memorize | stores the positional information which this vehicle-to-vehicle communication means received as the present position information of the own vehicle (Claim 1).
Therefore, according to this, the position of the surrounding vehicle obtained through the vehicle-to-vehicle communication means is stored and held as the vehicle position of the own vehicle by the own vehicle position correcting means, so that the own vehicle position within a certain error range. Can be effectively and efficiently identified and maintained.

Here, the vehicle-to-vehicle communication means described above has a received radio wave selection function that selects the received radio wave having the maximum intensity when receiving a plurality of information indicating positions from a plurality of surrounding vehicles. (Claim 2).
As a result, the reception radio wave selection function works effectively, and relatively clear and highly sensitive position information with little influence of noise can be obtained from the surrounding vehicles, and the reliability of the apparatus can be further enhanced.

In addition, the above-described vehicle position correction means includes an own vehicle position estimation state determination means for determining whether or not the position of the own vehicle can be grasped. The own vehicle position correcting means described above uses the position information obtained by the inter-vehicle communication as the own vehicle position when the own vehicle position estimation state judging means determines that the position of the own vehicle cannot be grasped. You may comprise so that it may memorize | store (Claim 3).
For this reason, according to this, when any of the own vehicle position specifying device by each method of GPS, autonomous sensor, or map matching does not function, the above-mentioned own vehicle position correcting means is activated. There is an advantage that energy saving can be achieved.

  In addition, the vehicle position correcting means described above is provided with a surrounding vehicle specifying means for detecting a surrounding vehicle existing around the own vehicle as an information transmission vehicle by a pre-equipped sensor and extracting a relative positional relationship with the own vehicle. To do. Then, the vehicle position correction means described above corrects the position information received from the information transmission vehicle based on the relative positional relationship between the extracted information transmission vehicle and the vehicle, and stores it as position information of the vehicle. (Claim 4).

  In this way, since the position information of the own vehicle is corrected (corrected) based on the relative positional relationship with the own vehicle obtained by the surrounding vehicle specifying means, the accuracy of the position information of the own vehicle is further improved. Can do.

Here, the above-described surrounding vehicle specifying means may be configured to have a relative position specifying function for obtaining the relative positional relationship based on distance information obtained by the distance sensor while using the sensor as a distance sensor. 5).
The surrounding vehicle specifying means may be configured to have a relative position specifying function for obtaining the relative positional relationship based on position information obtained by the image sensor while using the sensor as an image sensor. ).

Further, the surrounding vehicle specifying means described above specifies the information transmitting vehicle that has transmitted the information indicating the position by the inter-vehicle communication when a plurality of surrounding vehicles are detected, and the position received from the specified information transmitting vehicle. A relative position specifying function for obtaining the relative positional relationship based on information is provided (claim 7).
For this reason, according to this, since the position of the own vehicle can be estimated based on the position information of a plurality of surrounding vehicles, the accuracy of the current position of the own vehicle can be further increased.

Here, the peripheral vehicle specifying means described above specifies the information transmission vehicle that has transmitted the information indicating the position by the inter-vehicle communication when a plurality of peripheral vehicles are detected, and the relative vehicle relative to the information transmission vehicle. It is good also as a structure provided with the relative position specific function which calculates | requires positional relationship based on the distance information obtained by the distance sensor as the said sensor (Claim 8).
The peripheral vehicle specifying means described above specifies the information transmission vehicle that has transmitted the information indicating the position by the inter-vehicle communication when a plurality of peripheral vehicles are detected, and the relative position with the information transmission vehicle. It is good also as a structure provided with the relative position specific function which calculates | requires a relationship based on the distance information obtained by the image sensor as said sensor.

Further, when the vehicle-to-vehicle communication means receives the information indicating the position from a plurality of surrounding vehicles, the own vehicle position correcting means selects one of the plurality of information indicating the position received by the vehicle-to-vehicle communication means. Is selected as the position information from the information transmission vehicle, and the selected position information is corrected based on the relative positional relationship between the information transmission vehicle and the own vehicle, and is stored as the position of the own vehicle. (Claim 10).
Therefore, according to this, even if there are a plurality of surrounding vehicles, the position information can be acquired and corrected in the same manner as in the case of a single surrounding vehicle, and the position information can be processed quickly. There is.

  Here, when the vehicle-to-vehicle communication means described above receives information indicating positions from a plurality of surrounding vehicles, the own vehicle position correcting means selects a plurality of information from the information indicating positions received by the vehicle-to-vehicle communication means. These are used as position information from the information transmission vehicle, and the position information from the selected information transmission vehicle is corrected based on the relative positional relationship between the plurality of information transmission vehicles and the own vehicle. You may comprise so that it may memorize | store as information (Claim 11).

Further, the vehicle-to-vehicle communication means described above has a surrounding vehicle information receiving function for receiving information indicating the position of the surrounding vehicle transmitted by the surrounding vehicle and information indicating the attribute of the surrounding vehicle. A vehicle that matches the attribute of the information transmission vehicle from an image acquired by an imaging means separately equipped with a vehicle that has transmitted the position information indicating the position of the peripheral vehicle and the attribute information indicating the attribute of each peripheral vehicle. It is good also as a structure provided with the transmission vehicle specific function specified by finding out (Claim 15).
For this reason, according to this, since the vehicle matching the attribute of the information transmission vehicle is found from the image acquired by the imaging means, it is easy to confirm the position of the surrounding vehicle. There is an advantage that it can be specified more accurately.

In order to achieve the above object, in the vehicle position estimation method according to the present invention, the vehicle-to-vehicle communication step for receiving information indicating the position of the surrounding vehicle transmitted by the surrounding vehicle, and the position information received by the vehicle-to-vehicle communication step. And a vehicle position correction step for storing the vehicle position as the vehicle position of the vehicle.
Therefore, according to this, the position of the surrounding vehicle obtained in the inter-vehicle communication process is stored and held as the vehicle position of the own vehicle in the own vehicle position correction process, so that the own vehicle position is surely kept within a certain error range. Can be identified and retained.

Here, in the vehicle-to-vehicle communication process described above, when information indicating a position is received from a plurality of surrounding vehicles, the radio wave having the maximum intensity among the received radio waves may be selected (claim 17). . As a result, relatively clear position information that is less affected by noise can be obtained from surrounding vehicles.
Prior to the execution of the vehicle position correction step described above, a vehicle position estimation situation determination step for determining whether or not the position of the vehicle is known is set. In the vehicle position correction step, The information obtained by the inter-vehicle communication may be stored as the own vehicle position only when it is determined that the position of the own vehicle cannot be grasped in the own vehicle position estimation situation determination step. .
In this way, energy saving of the entire apparatus can be achieved.

  Further, prior to the execution of the vehicle position correction process described above, a surrounding vehicle specifying process is provided in which a surrounding vehicle existing around the vehicle is detected as an information transmission vehicle by a sensor and a relative positional relationship with the vehicle is extracted. In the own vehicle position correcting step, the position information received from the information sending vehicle is corrected based on the relative positional relationship between the information sending vehicle extracted in the surrounding vehicle specifying step and the own vehicle, and this is corrected. May be stored as (claim 19).

Here, in the peripheral vehicle specifying step described above, a distance sensor may be used as the sensor, and the relative positional relationship may be obtained based on distance information obtained by the distance sensor.
Further, in the peripheral vehicle specifying step described above, an image sensor may be used as the sensor, and the relative positional relationship may be obtained based on image information obtained by the image sensor.

Further, in the above-described peripheral vehicle specifying step, when a plurality of peripheral vehicles are detected, the information transmitting vehicle that transmits the information indicating the position by the inter-vehicle communication is specified, and the position received from the specified information transmitting vehicle You may comprise so that the relative positional relationship of the said information transmission vehicle and the own vehicle may be calculated | required based on information (Claim 22).
In this way, the position of the host vehicle can be estimated based on the position information of a plurality of surrounding vehicles, so that the accuracy of the current position of the host vehicle can be further increased.

Here, in the peripheral vehicle specifying step described above, when a plurality of peripheral vehicles are detected, the information transmitting vehicle that transmits the information indicating the position by the inter-vehicle communication is specified, and the relative vehicle to the information transmitting vehicle is determined. The positional relationship may be obtained based on distance information obtained using a distance sensor as the sensor.
Further, in the above-described surrounding vehicle specifying step, when a plurality of surrounding vehicles are detected, the information transmitting vehicle that transmits the information indicating the position by the inter-vehicle communication is specified, and the relative position between the information transmitting vehicles The relationship may be obtained based on image information obtained by using an image sensor as the sensor.

  Further, when information indicating the position is received from a plurality of surrounding vehicles in the vehicle-to-vehicle communication process described above, the vehicle position correcting process selects one of the information indicating the position received in the vehicle-to-vehicle communication process. The position information received from the information transmission vehicle is corrected based on the relative positional relationship between the information transmission vehicle and the host vehicle and stored as the position information of the host vehicle. (Claim 25). In this way, even if there are a plurality of surrounding vehicles, the position information can be acquired and corrected as in the case of a single surrounding vehicle, and there is an advantage that the position information can be processed quickly. .

  Further, when information indicating the position is received from a plurality of surrounding vehicles in the vehicle-to-vehicle communication process described above, a plurality of information indicating the position received in the vehicle-to-vehicle communication process is selected in the vehicle position correction process. Information received from a plurality of information transmission vehicles, and the positional information received from the plurality of information transmission vehicles is corrected based on the relative positional relationship between the information transmission vehicle and the host vehicle and stored as the position of the host vehicle. (Claim 26).

Here, in the above-described own vehicle position estimation situation determination step, it may be determined that the own vehicle position cannot be grasped only when the GPS signal cannot be received for a certain period of time (claim 27). Further, the vehicle position estimation situation determination step may determine that the vehicle position cannot be grasped only when a predetermined steering operation is performed within a predetermined time.
Further, in the above-described vehicle position estimation situation determination step, it is determined that the vehicle position cannot be grasped only when the GPS signal cannot be received for a certain period of time and a predetermined steering operation is performed within the certain period of time. (Claim 29).

In the vehicle-to-vehicle communication process described above, information indicating the position of the surrounding vehicle and information indicating the attribute of the surrounding vehicle transmitted from the surrounding vehicle are received, and in the surrounding vehicle specifying process, the position of the surrounding vehicle is received. The information transmission vehicle that transmits the information and the attribute information is found in the image acquired by the imaging means equipped in advance, and the vehicle that matches the attribute is identified and specified as the peripheral vehicle that transmitted the position information and the attribute information. You may comprise (Claim 30).
In this way, since the information transmission vehicle is specified based on the attribute information, the information transmission vehicle can be specified with high accuracy and speed, and the correction accuracy of the position information can be increased.

Here, in each invention according to the above-described vehicle position estimation method, the execution contents (various information processing portions) of each process as a component may be programmed and executed by a computer (claims). Item 31 to 45).
Even in this case, the above-described object of the present invention can be effectively achieved, and the vehicle position of the host vehicle can be effectively specified within a certain error range.

  Since the present invention is configured and functions as described above, according to this, even in the situation where neither the GPS, the autonomous sensor, or the own vehicle position specifying device based on the map matching method is functioning effectively. Even if these devices are not equipped, the current position information is obtained from the surrounding vehicles by inter-vehicle communication, and the current position information of the surrounding vehicles is stored and held as the own vehicle position. As described above, it is possible to provide an unprecedented superior vehicle position estimation device, position estimation method, and position estimation program capable of effectively specifying the vehicle position within a certain error range.

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
[First Embodiment]
1 and 2 show a vehicle position estimation apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention. The vehicle position estimation apparatus shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 includes an inter-vehicle communication means 101 that directly communicates between the own vehicle and surrounding vehicles, and an own vehicle that corrects the position of the own vehicle obtained by the inter-vehicle communication 101. Vehicle position correcting means 102.

  In this case, a vehicle equipped with this vehicle position estimation device is often provided with at least one of a vehicle position specifying device using GPS, an autonomous sensor, or a map matching method. In this embodiment, a case will be described in which a vehicle equipped with any one of these other vehicle position specifying devices is equipped with the vehicle position estimation device in this embodiment.

The vehicle-to-vehicle communication means 101 described above performs direct communication between the own vehicle and the surrounding vehicles, and can be used for a system capable of ad hoc communication without going through a base station like a mobile phone. It has become. In this case, the information to be communicated is the current position information of the surrounding vehicles.
As an ad hoc communication means between vehicles, for example, there are “IEEE802.11b” and “UWB (Ultra Wide Band)”.

An example of a specific configuration of the vehicle-to-vehicle communication unit 101 will be described with reference to FIG.
The vehicle-to-vehicle communication means 101 shown in FIG. 1 includes a wireless antenna 11A, a radio wave intensity measuring unit 11, a data receiving unit 12, and a communication control unit 13. The intensity of the radio wave received by the radio antenna 11A is measured by the radio wave intensity measuring unit 11. The data receiver 12 demodulates the radio signal and converts it into data. At this time, the radio wave intensity data measured by the radio wave intensity measuring unit 11 is also received. The data receiving unit 12 outputs both the current position information of the surrounding vehicles and the radio wave intensity data, which are the received data, to the own vehicle position correcting means 102.

The own vehicle position correcting means 102 has a function of correcting the current position of the own vehicle based on the current position information of surrounding vehicles input from the inter-vehicle communication means 101.
As shown in FIG. 1, the own vehicle position correcting unit 102 includes a data storage unit 21, a data transmission unit 22, and a data processing control unit 23. The data storage unit 21 includes an interface that stores data input from the vehicle-to-vehicle communication unit 101 and provides the data to devices other than the device (vehicle position estimation device) in the present embodiment. All of these operations are controlled by the data processing control unit 23.
The data processing control unit 23 is also provided with an interface that enables information exchange with an external device other than the present device (vehicle position estimation device).

Here, an example of the operation of the vehicle position correcting means 102 described above will be described in detail with reference to the flowchart of FIG.
A timer is set when the power supply ACC is turned on (S111) (S112). This timer is provided in advance in the data processing control unit 23 described above.
Next, radio waves including vehicle position information of the vehicle are received from surrounding vehicles (S113: inter-vehicle communication step). At this time, the received radio wave intensity I is measured by the radio wave intensity measuring unit 11. It is determined whether or not the measured radio wave intensity is equal to or greater than a preset threshold value Ish (S114).

Here, if the measured radio wave intensity is equal to or greater than the threshold value Ish, and if the timer T1 set when the ACC is on is within a preset threshold time (S115), the vehicle position information based on the received radio wave is obtained. The vehicle position is set (S116, S118).
On the other hand, if no signal equal to or higher than the preset radio field intensity threshold Ish is received within a certain time Tsh (S117, S118), the position information is not stored.
In this embodiment, the vehicle position information of the surrounding vehicles is received, but other DGPS correction signal information possessed by the surrounding vehicles may be used.

Next, the overall operation of the first embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.
FIG. 2A is a flowchart showing an example of a process performed by the vehicle position estimation apparatus according to the first embodiment.

First, the vehicle-to-vehicle communication means 101 receives vehicle position information transmitted from surrounding vehicles (step S001: vehicle-to-vehicle communication step). The own vehicle position correcting unit 102 stores the vehicle position information received by the inter-vehicle communication unit 101 as the current position of the own vehicle (step S002: own vehicle position correcting step). As a specific example, if the vehicle position information acquired in step S001 is (latitude I, longitude K), for example, the point (latitude I, longitude K) is stored as the vehicle position in step S002. Specifically, the vehicle position information received by the inter-vehicle communication means 101 is taken in as the corrected position information of the own vehicle, instead of the information on the own vehicle position provided in advance.
In addition, the vehicle position information acquired in step S001 originally indicates the current position of the surrounding vehicle on the side that transmitted the radio wave. If the maximum reach of the radio wave is d (m), the error is less than d (m). This can be specified as position information concerning the position of the vehicle with accuracy.

  As described above, even when the own vehicle cannot determine the position of the own vehicle by the conventional own vehicle position specifying means, the current position information is acquired by the inter-vehicle communication from the neighboring vehicle specifying the current position, and this is used. By setting the position of the vehicle, it is possible to specify the position of the host vehicle with accuracy with the maximum error of the inter-vehicle communication radio wave as the maximum error.

In the above embodiment, the embodiment has been described on the premise that no positioning method such as GPS, 3D gyro, and map matching is used. However, the vehicle position estimation apparatus according to the present embodiment is installed in a device equipped with these positioning methods. You may equip it.
In this case, the next step S002 is executed only when the position information can be acquired in step S001. If radio waves from surrounding vehicles cannot be received, the vehicle position is corrected by the autonomous sensor (the sensor included in the vehicle) from time to time using the vehicle position stored in step S002 as an initial value. do it.

  Further, in the first embodiment, the case where the latitude and longitude coordinates of the surrounding vehicles are received as the vehicle position information is shown. However, as the position information, in addition to this, the name of the road that is running, May include the direction of the road in which it is located. The direction of the road may be expressed as “from south to north”, or the traveling direction of the vehicle when the north is expressed by 0 degrees, the east by 90 degrees, the south by 180 degrees, or the like.

  Furthermore, in the first embodiment, the vehicle-to-vehicle communication means 101 is configured to receive vehicle position information transmitted from surrounding vehicles (S001). At this time, it is received from surrounding vehicles. If the received radio wave is below a certain preset intensity, it is not necessary to use it. On the other hand, when a plurality of radio waves having a certain intensity or more are received, only the vehicle position information obtained from the one having the maximum intensity may be used.

[Second Embodiment]
Next, a second embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.
Here, the same reference numerals are used for the same constituent members as those of the first embodiment described above.

  First, in FIG. 3, the vehicle position estimation apparatus according to the second embodiment includes an inter-vehicle communication means 101 that directly communicates between the own vehicle and a surrounding vehicle, and the position of the own vehicle acquired by the inter-vehicle communication 101. Own vehicle position correcting means 102 for performing correction. Whether or not a conventional vehicle position measurement system (positioning system) such as a GPS, an autonomous sensor, or map matching equipped in the own vehicle is operating normally is included in the own vehicle position correcting means 102. A vehicle position estimation situation determination means 103 for determining is also provided.

Among these, the specific configurations of the inter-vehicle communication means 101 and the own vehicle position correcting means 102 are the same as those described with reference to FIG.
On the other hand, the vehicle position estimation situation determination means 103 provided in the vehicle position correction means 102 determines whether or not a conventional positioning system such as GPS, autonomous sensor, or map matching is functioning effectively. In addition to having a function of checking the probability of the vehicle position by checking, it has a situation determination function of outputting a determination result as to whether or not it is better to acquire position information from another vehicle to the own vehicle position correction means 102.

Here, an example of a specific configuration of the vehicle position estimation situation determination unit 103 will be described with reference to FIG.
The vehicle position estimation situation determination unit 103 shown in FIG. 3B includes a vehicle speed sensor 31, a steering angle sensor 32, and an acceleration sensor 33 that are autonomous sensors, a vehicle rotation angle calculation unit 34, and a GPS lost detection unit 35. , A DGPS reception detection unit 36, a position estimation accuracy deterioration determination unit 37, and an overall control unit 38. Reference numeral 37 denotes an FM receiver, and reference numeral 37A denotes an antenna of the FM receiver 37. Reference numeral 38 denotes a GPS receiver, and reference numeral 38A denotes an antenna of the GPS receiver 38.

  In this case, the original data (basic data) for estimating the vehicle position includes external signal information such as GPS signals and DGPS signals, acceleration sensors, vehicle speed sensors, steering angle sensors, etc. Two types are used: output information from the rotation angle portion obtained by calculating the rotation angle of the vehicle based on information from the autonomous sensor 30 mounted on the host vehicle. Then, the position estimation accuracy deterioration determining unit 37 determines whether or not the position estimation of the own vehicle is reliable as will be described later (see FIG. 4B). This is output to the vehicle position correcting means 102 described above.

Here, an example of the operation of the vehicle position estimation situation determination means 103 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.
First, it is determined whether or not the position estimation accuracy degradation determination unit 37 has degraded the vehicle position estimation accuracy using GPS. The determination as to whether or not the estimation accuracy of the position of the vehicle by GPS has deteriorated is made based on the reception status from GPS satellites, that is, the position and number of captured satellites. For example, if no signal from a GPS satellite can be received, it is determined that the signal is deteriorated. If two signals are received, it is determined that the signal is deteriorated because three-dimensional accuracy cannot be ensured (S211).

Subsequently, the rotation angle of the host vehicle is calculated using the information from the autonomous sensor described above (S212). After it is determined that the GPS accuracy has deteriorated, the rotation angle of the host vehicle is calculated using the autonomous sensor. In this case, for example, when the rotation angle exceeds a preset threshold value Rsh (S213), it is determined that the position estimation accuracy of the host vehicle has deteriorated (S214).
If it is determined that the position estimation accuracy of the own vehicle has deteriorated, the position information of the surrounding vehicles is received and set as the position information of the own vehicle.

  In the second embodiment, vehicle position information of surrounding vehicles is received. However, as in the case of the first embodiment described above, correction signal information for DGPS possessed by the surrounding vehicles may be received. .

Next, the operation of the entire apparatus in the second embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.
First, the vehicle position estimation situation determination means 103 described above checks whether or not a conventional vehicle position estimation device such as GPS, an autonomous sensor, or map matching is functioning effectively to determine the current position of the vehicle. The probability is verified, it is determined whether it is better to acquire the position information from the surrounding vehicles, and the result is output to the own vehicle position correcting means 102 (step S201: own vehicle position estimation situation determining step).

Here, in order to verify the current position accuracy of the vehicle position determined in the vehicle position estimation situation determination step, in this embodiment, the vehicle position cannot be grasped only when the GPS signal cannot be received for a certain period of time. Is set in advance so as to be determined.
In this case, apart from determining the timing of receiving the GPS signal, it may be determined that the vehicle position cannot be grasped only when a predetermined steering operation is performed within a predetermined time. Alternatively, it may be determined that the vehicle position cannot be grasped only when a GPS signal cannot be received for a certain period of time and a predetermined steering operation is performed within a certain period of time.

  Subsequently, the host vehicle position correcting unit 102 determines whether or not the host vehicle position estimation state determining unit 103 determines that it is better to acquire position information from surrounding vehicles (whether or not the position of the host vehicle is known). ) Is checked (step S202). If it is determined that it is better to acquire the position information from the surrounding vehicle (when it is determined that the position of the own vehicle is not grasped), the current position from the surrounding vehicle acquired by the inter-vehicle communication means 101 Information step S203) is stored as the host vehicle position (step S204: host vehicle position correcting step).

On the other hand, when it is determined that it is not necessary to acquire information from surrounding vehicles, step S701 is executed again. Here, the vehicle-to-vehicle communication unit 101 performs vehicle-to-vehicle communication only when there is a position information acquisition request from the own vehicle position correcting unit 102. By performing vehicle-to-vehicle communication only when this position information acquisition request is made, the amount of vehicle-to-vehicle communication can be reduced, the load on the vehicle-to-vehicle communication means can be reduced, the durability of the entire device is improved, and the energy of the power source is saved. be able to.
Here, in the second embodiment, the surrounding vehicle that transmits the position information is a vehicle only when it can be determined that the vehicle position can be grasped by the own vehicle position estimation state determination means 103 mounted on the surrounding vehicle. Information may be transmitted by inter-vehicle communication. By doing so, it is possible to prevent uncertain information from propagating to the periphery.

[Third Embodiment]
Next, a third embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.
As shown in FIG. 5A, the vehicle position estimation apparatus according to the third embodiment is obtained by the inter-vehicle communication means 101 that directly communicates between the own vehicle and the surrounding vehicles, and the inter-vehicle communication 101. A vehicle position correcting unit 102 for correcting the position of the vehicle, and a vehicle position estimation state determining unit 103 and a surrounding vehicle specifying unit 104 are newly provided.
Of these, the vehicle-to-vehicle communication unit 101 and the vehicle position estimation state determination unit 103 are the same as those in the second embodiment described above.

The peripheral vehicle specifying means 104 described above has a function of detecting a vehicle existing in the vicinity using a sensor previously mounted on the own vehicle and extracting the relative positional relationship.
For this vehicle detection and relative positional relationship extraction, for example, when one imaging device is used as a sensor, the document “Development of vehicle detection technology using edge pair feature space projection method”, actual work of ViEW2005 vision technology Shop Lecture Proceedings: pp. You may use the imaging device concerning the technique as described in 160-165 ((Co) precision engineering society) etc.
Further, as a method for performing stereo vision using two cameras, the literature “Development of a stereo image recognition device for vehicle front monitoring”, IEICE Tech. 37-42 (The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers) and the like are known.

  Further, when extracting the relative positional relationship, a distance measuring sensor other than the one using the imaging device as described above may be used. For example, by measuring the distance between each other using a distance sensor such as a millimeter wave sensor, a laser sensor, an ultrasonic sensor, and a necessary processing device corresponding thereto, the relative distance between the vehicle and the vehicles existing in the vicinity is measured. The positional relationship can be obtained.

  Here, as described above, the vehicle position correcting unit 102 described above, from the vehicle-to-vehicle communication unit 101, when the vehicle position estimation state determining unit 103 determines that it is better to acquire the position information from the surrounding vehicles. It has a function of storing the acquired position information of the surrounding vehicle (value corrected by the relative position information extracted by the surrounding vehicle specifying means 104) as the position of the own vehicle.

Next, the overall operation of the third embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.
First, the vehicle position estimation situation determination means 103 checks whether or not a conventional vehicle position estimation device such as GPS, an autonomous sensor, or map matching is functioning effectively, and verifies the probability of the vehicle position. Then, a determination result of whether or not it is better to acquire the position information from the surrounding vehicles (whether or not the own vehicle position is grasped) is output to the own vehicle position correcting means 102 (step S301).

Subsequently, the host vehicle position correcting unit 102 determines whether or not the host vehicle position estimation state determining unit 103 described above should acquire position information from surrounding vehicles (the host vehicle position is not grasped). A check is made (step S302). If it is determined that it is better to acquire the position information from the surrounding vehicle, the inter-vehicle communication means 101 takes in the current position information from the surrounding vehicle (step S303), and the above-described own vehicle position correcting means. 102 detects a surrounding vehicle and its relative positional relationship from an image obtained by an imaging means (image sensor) as a pre-equipped sensor (a surrounding vehicle specifying step), and obtains the current position information obtained from the surrounding vehicle as the relative position. It correct | amends based on position information, and memorize | stores it as an own vehicle position (step S305: own vehicle position correction process).
In this case, a distance sensor may be used as the sensor and the relative positional relationship may be obtained based on distance information obtained by the distance sensor.

Here, an example of specific correction of the surrounding vehicle information based on the relative position information will be described.
Now, it is assumed that information on the existence position “north latitude H1 degree, east longitude T1 degree” and the traveling direction “north direction” is received from surrounding vehicles. Further, if the relative position of the surrounding vehicle extracted by the surrounding vehicle specifying means 104 is “H2 degrees to the north, T2 degrees to the west”, the vehicle position correcting means 102 is “North latitude H1−H2 degrees, East longitude T1 + T2 degrees”. Is stored as the location of the vehicle.
If the relative positional relationship is indicated by a coordinate system centered on the vehicle camera of the vehicle, the above information is calculated using information such as the direction of the optical axis of the vehicle camera, internal parameters, and the radius of the earth. Is done.

  Thus, according to the above-described embodiment, the position of the own vehicle can be specified in more detail based on the position information of the surrounding vehicles.

[Processing when there are multiple surrounding vehicles (part 1)]
Next, in each of the above-described embodiments, the case where only one vehicle is detected as the surrounding vehicle has been described, but the position information of the surrounding vehicle received by the inter-vehicle communication unit 101 is one. A process when the surrounding vehicle specifying unit 104 detects a plurality of vehicles will be described.

  In this case, the inter-vehicle communication means 101 receives not only the position information of the surrounding vehicles but also the attribute information of the surrounding vehicles. Here, the attribute information indicates a vehicle registration number, a vehicle type, a vehicle body color, an appearance image, and the like.

The surrounding vehicle specifying means 104 detects a vehicle that matches the received attribute information from the image. As a vehicle registration number recognition method, for example, the method described in “Character reading device, character reading method and character reading control program used in the character reading device” of Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-023428 can be used.
As an appearance image, for example, as shown in FIG. 6A, a collection of images when the surrounding vehicle itself is viewed from various directions can be cited. After the vehicle that transmitted the information is specified by these methods (peripheral vehicle specifying step), the processing can be performed in the same manner as when only one peripheral vehicle is detected.

As shown in FIG. 5B, the surrounding vehicle specifying means 104 described above includes a vehicle attribute storage unit 41, an image sensor 42, an image storage unit 43, a vehicle attribute search unit 44, a relative position calculation unit 45, and a control unit 46. Comprising.
In this case, information related to the attributes of the vehicle is simultaneously received from the neighboring vehicles communicated by the vehicle-to-vehicle communication means 101 and stored in the vehicle attribute storage unit 41. As described above, the vehicle attributes indicate a vehicle registration number, a vehicle type, a vehicle body color, an appearance image, and the like.

  Subsequently, the image sensor 42 is used to image the surroundings of the host vehicle and accumulate in the image storage unit 43. The image sensor 42 may be a visible light camera or an infrared camera. The vehicle attribute search unit (attribute matching vehicle specifying unit) 44 extracts a vehicle that matches the attribute information in the vehicle attribute storage unit 41 from the image stored in the image storage unit. And if a vehicle is extracted, the relative position calculation part 45 will calculate the relative position with respect to the own vehicle of the said vehicle (peripheral vehicle specific process). Subsequently, the relative position calculation result is sent to the own vehicle position correcting means 102. After the vehicle related to information transmission is specified, the own vehicle position correcting means 102 operates and the same processing is performed as when only one surrounding vehicle is detected. Reference numeral 46 denotes an operation control unit. The operation control unit 46 controls the operation of each component.

[Processing when there are multiple surrounding vehicles (part 2)]
Next, processing when a plurality of vehicles exist in the vicinity and the inter-vehicle communication unit 101 receives position information from the plurality of vehicles will be described in detail with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 7 shows a situation in which a plurality of peripheral vehicles 1401, 1402, 1403 exist around the own vehicle 1407, and position information 1401a, 1402a, 1403a is received from them. An example of the operation of the surrounding vehicle specifying means 104 in this case is shown in FIG.
In FIG. 8, first, when the vehicle-to-vehicle communication unit 101 receives a plurality of pieces of position information 1401a, 1402a, 1403a from a plurality of surrounding vehicles (step S501: surrounding vehicle specifying step), the surrounding vehicle specifying unit 104 detects the position information 1401a. One piece of peripheral information from the vehicle considered to be most useful is selected from ˜1403a (step S502), and processing is performed assuming that only this information has been received (step S503).
In this case, as a method for selecting useful information, in each of the above embodiments, when a plurality of surrounding vehicles are detected, the vehicle having the strongest reception strength and the vehicle received at the earliest time are selected and set as the reference vehicle. The Then, based on the positional information received from the specified information transmission vehicle, the relative positional relationship between the information transmission vehicle and the host vehicle is the same as in the case where there is one peripheral vehicle in the second embodiment described above. Alternatively, it is calculated based on information obtained using an image sensor.

FIG. 9 shows another example of the operation of the surrounding vehicle specifying means 104 described above.
In the operation example shown in FIG. 9, first, when the position information 1401a, 1402a, 1403a from a plurality of surrounding vehicles is received by the inter-vehicle communication means 101 (step S601), the surrounding vehicle specifying means 104 receives the position information 1401a˜ An example in which a plurality of pieces of useful information are selected from 1403a is shown. When selecting the plurality of pieces of information (step S602), for each piece of information, the surrounding vehicle that transmitted the information is specified and the relative positional relationship is extracted (step S603: surrounding vehicle specifying step).
FIG. 10 shows the own vehicle estimated positions 1701 to 1703 calculated based on each information. In FIG. 10, reference numeral 1704 indicates the final corrected current position of the vehicle obtained by weighted averaging according to the reliability of each of the plurality of pieces of information described above (step S1604). In this case, if the reliability is unknown, it may be corrected by weighting equally.

  Here, in the case described above, the final vehicle position 1704 is obtained by weighted average of the own vehicle estimated positions 1701 to 1703. However, the final vehicle position may be obtained by least square approximation or the like.

  Thus, by estimating the position of the host vehicle using information received from a plurality of vehicles, position errors based on various factors are averaged compared to the case of using information from a single vehicle. This gives a more accurate position.

  Here, with respect to each step executed in the description of the operation in each of the above-described embodiments, the information processing content that is the execution content may be programmed and executed by the computer.

  As described above, in each of the above-described embodiments, even if any of the vehicle position specifying devices using the GPS, autonomous sensor, or map matching method is not functioning effectively, Even if these devices are not equipped, the current position information is acquired from the surrounding vehicles by inter-vehicle communication, and the current position information of the surrounding vehicles is stored and held as the own vehicle position. As a result, the vehicle position can be effectively identified within a certain error range.

Further, by performing the inter-vehicle communication only when the own vehicle position cannot be specified, the number of times of acquiring the current position information of the surrounding vehicles can be reduced, thereby reducing the load on the communication means 101. Have
Furthermore, the vehicle position can be estimated with higher accuracy by providing the surrounding vehicle specifying means 104 separately. The reason is that the current position of the vehicle can be calculated by correcting the current position information of the surrounding vehicle received from the surrounding vehicle based on the relative positional relationship between the vehicle that transmitted the information and the vehicle. It is.

  Further, the vehicle that has transmitted the information is identified from the surrounding vehicles, and the current position information of the surrounding vehicles received from the surrounding vehicle is corrected based on the relative positional relationship between the vehicle that has transmitted the information and the own vehicle. In addition, when there are a plurality of vehicles that have transmitted information, the vehicle position can be estimated by combining the information obtained from each vehicle. Therefore, even if there are a plurality of surrounding vehicles as described above. The vehicle position can be estimated with high accuracy.

It is a block which shows 1st Embodiment of this invention. 2A and 2B are diagrams showing the operation in the first embodiment shown in FIG. 1, FIG. 2A is a flowchart showing the operation of the entire apparatus, and FIG. 2B shows the operation of the vehicle position correcting means disclosed in FIG. It is a flowchart. FIGS. 2A and 2B are block diagrams showing a second embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2B is a block diagram showing a configuration example of the vehicle position estimation situation determining means in FIG. FIG. 3A is a flowchart showing the overall operation of the second embodiment shown in FIG. 3, and FIG. 3B is a vehicle position estimation situation determination means disclosed in FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the example of operation | movement. FIGS. 3A and 3B are diagrams showing a third embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 3A being a block diagram, and FIG. 3B being a block diagram showing a configuration example of surrounding vehicle specifying means in FIG. FIG. 6A is a diagram illustrating an operation in the third embodiment illustrated in FIG. 5, FIG. 6A is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of an appearance image (vehicle attribute information) of a surrounding vehicle, and FIG. 6B is a third diagram illustrated in FIG. 5. It is a flowchart which shows the whole operation | movement of embodiment. It is explanatory drawing which shows the condition which receives information from a some surrounding vehicle. It is a flowchart which shows the operation example (select one information) of the surrounding vehicle specific | specification means in 3rd Embodiment shown in FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the operation example (selecting several information) of the surrounding vehicle specific | specification means in 3rd Embodiment shown in FIG. It is a schematic explanatory drawing which shows a mode that the own vehicle position is estimated based on the information from a some surrounding vehicle.

Explanation of symbols

101 Vehicle-to-vehicle communication means 102 Own vehicle position correcting means 103 Own vehicle position estimation status judging means 104 Peripheral vehicle specifying means 1401, 1402, 1403 Peripheral vehicles 1401a, 1402a, 1403a Vehicle position information 1701, 1702, 1703 Self-estimated individually Estimated position of vehicle 1704 Estimated position of own vehicle finally estimated

Claims (45)

Vehicle-to-vehicle communication means capable of receiving information indicating the position of the surrounding vehicle transmitted by the surrounding vehicle, and own vehicle position correcting means for storing the position information received by the vehicle-to-vehicle communication means as current position information of the own vehicle. Have
The vehicle position correction means includes a correction storage function for storing the position information received by the inter-vehicle communication means as correction information instead of the position information of the own vehicle stored in advance. Position estimation device. In the vehicle position estimation device according to claim 1,
The vehicle-to-vehicle communication means has a reception radio wave selection function for selecting a radio wave having the maximum intensity among the received radio waves when receiving a plurality of pieces of information indicating positions from a plurality of surrounding vehicles. A vehicle position estimation device as a feature. In the vehicle position estimation device according to claim 1 or 2,
The vehicle position correction means includes a vehicle position estimation situation determination means for determining whether or not the position of the vehicle can be grasped.
The own vehicle position correcting means stores the position information obtained by the inter-vehicle communication as the own vehicle position when the own vehicle position estimation state judging means judges that the position of the own vehicle cannot be grasped. A vehicle position estimation device characterized by the above. In the vehicle position estimation device according to claim 3,
The vehicle position correcting means is equipped with a surrounding vehicle specifying means for detecting a surrounding vehicle existing around the vehicle as an information transmission vehicle by a sensor equipped in advance and extracting a relative positional relationship with the vehicle,
The own vehicle position correcting means corrects the position information received from the information transmission vehicle based on the relative positional relationship between the extracted information transmission vehicle and the own vehicle, and stores this as position information of the own vehicle. A vehicle position estimation device comprising a position information correction storage function. In the vehicle position estimation device according to claim 4,
The vehicle position estimation device characterized in that the surrounding vehicle specifying means has a relative position specifying function for using the sensor as a distance sensor and obtaining the relative positional relationship based on distance information obtained by the distance sensor. . In the vehicle position estimation device according to claim 4,
The vehicle position estimation device characterized in that the surrounding vehicle specifying means has a relative position specifying function for using the sensor as an image sensor and obtaining the relative positional relationship based on position information obtained by the image sensor. . In the vehicle position estimation device according to any one of claims 4 to 6,
The peripheral vehicle specifying means specifies the information transmission vehicle that has transmitted the information indicating the position by the inter-vehicle communication when detecting a plurality of peripheral vehicles, and based on the positional information received from the specified information transmission vehicle. A vehicle position estimation device comprising a relative position specifying function for obtaining the relative positional relationship. In the vehicle position estimation device according to claim 7,
The peripheral vehicle specifying means specifies the information transmission vehicle that has transmitted information indicating the position by the inter-vehicle communication when a plurality of peripheral vehicles are detected, and indicates the relative positional relationship with the information transmission vehicle. A vehicle position estimation device comprising a relative position specifying function obtained based on distance information obtained by a distance sensor as a sensor. In the vehicle position estimation device according to claim 7,
The peripheral vehicle specifying means specifies the information transmission vehicle that has transmitted information indicating the position by the inter-vehicle communication when a plurality of peripheral vehicles are detected, and indicates the relative positional relationship with the information transmission vehicle. A vehicle position estimation apparatus comprising a relative position specifying function obtained based on distance information obtained by an image sensor as a sensor. In the vehicle position estimation device according to any one of claims 7 to 9,
When the inter-vehicle communication means receives information indicating the position from a plurality of surrounding vehicles, the own vehicle position correcting means selects one of the plurality of information indicating the position received by the inter-vehicle communication means. The position information from the information transmission vehicle is corrected, and the selected position information is corrected based on the relative positional relationship between the information transmission vehicle and the host vehicle, and stored as the position of the host vehicle. Position estimation device. In the vehicle position estimation device according to any one of claims 7 to 9,
When the inter-vehicle communication means receives information indicating the position from a plurality of surrounding vehicles, the own vehicle position correcting means selects a plurality of information from the information indicating the position received by the inter-vehicle communication means. The position information from the information transmission vehicle is corrected and the position information from the selected information transmission vehicle is corrected based on the relative positional relationship between the plurality of information transmission vehicles and the own vehicle, and stored as the position information of the own vehicle. A vehicle position estimation device characterized by the above. In the vehicle position estimation device according to any one of claims 3 to 11,
The vehicle position estimation status determination means includes a status determination function for determining that the vehicle position cannot be grasped when a signal of the global positioning system (GPS) cannot be received for a certain period of time. Vehicle position estimation device. In the vehicle position estimation device according to any one of claims 3 to 11,
The vehicle position estimation situation determination means includes a situation determination function for determining that the host vehicle position cannot be grasped when a predetermined steering operation is performed within a predetermined time. Estimating device. In the vehicle position estimation device according to any one of claims 3 to 11,
The vehicle position estimation status determination means has a status determination function for determining that the vehicle position cannot be grasped when a GPS signal is not received for a certain time and a predetermined steering operation is performed within a certain time. A vehicle position estimation device characterized by comprising: In the vehicle position estimation device according to any one of claims 4 to 11,
The vehicle-to-vehicle communication means has a surrounding vehicle information receiving function for receiving information indicating the position of the surrounding vehicle transmitted by the surrounding vehicle and information indicating the attribute of the surrounding vehicle,
The information transmission vehicle from the image acquired by the imaging unit separately equipped with the vehicle in which the peripheral vehicle specifying unit transmits the positional information indicating the position of the peripheral vehicle and the attribute information indicating the attribute of each peripheral vehicle. A vehicle position estimation device comprising a transmission vehicle specifying function for specifying a vehicle that matches the attribute of the vehicle. A vehicle-to-vehicle communication step for receiving information indicating the position of the surrounding vehicle transmitted by the surrounding vehicle, and a vehicle position correcting step for storing the position information received in the vehicle-to-vehicle communication step as the vehicle position of the vehicle,
The vehicle position estimation method wherein the vehicle position correction step stores the position information received by the inter-vehicle communication means as correction information instead of the position information of the own vehicle stored in advance. . In the vehicle position estimation device according to claim 16,
In the vehicle-to-vehicle communication step, the vehicle position estimation method is characterized in that, when information indicating a position is received from a plurality of surrounding vehicles, a vehicle having the maximum intensity of the received radio wave is selected. In the vehicle position estimation method according to claim 16 or 17,
Prior to the execution of the host vehicle position correction step, a host vehicle position estimation situation determination step for determining whether or not the position of the host vehicle can be grasped is provided.
In the own vehicle position correcting step, the information obtained by the inter-vehicle communication is stored as the own vehicle position only when the own vehicle position is determined not to be grasped by the own vehicle position estimation situation judging step. A vehicle position estimation method characterized by the above. In the vehicle position estimation method according to claim 18,
Prior to the execution of the vehicle position correction step, a surrounding vehicle specifying step for detecting a surrounding vehicle existing around the vehicle as an information transmission vehicle by a sensor and extracting a relative positional relationship with the vehicle is provided.
In the vehicle position correction step, the position information received from the information transmission vehicle is corrected based on the relative positional relationship between the information transmission vehicle and the vehicle extracted in the surrounding vehicle identification step, and stored as the position of the vehicle. A vehicle position estimation method characterized by the above. In the vehicle position estimation method according to claim 19,
The vehicle position estimation method characterized in that, in the peripheral vehicle specifying step, a distance sensor is used as the sensor and the relative positional relationship is obtained based on distance information obtained by the distance sensor. In the vehicle position estimation method according to claim 19,
In the surrounding vehicle specifying step, an image sensor is used as the sensor, and the relative positional relationship is obtained based on image information obtained by the image sensor. In the vehicle position estimation method according to any one of claims 19 to 21,
In the surrounding vehicle specifying step, when a plurality of surrounding vehicles are detected, the information transmitting vehicle that transmits the information indicating the position by the inter-vehicle communication is specified, and based on the position information received from the specified information transmitting vehicle And determining the relative positional relationship between the information transmission vehicle and the host vehicle. In the vehicle position estimation method according to claim 22,
In the surrounding vehicle specifying step, when a plurality of surrounding vehicles are detected, the information transmitting vehicle that transmits the information indicating the position by the inter-vehicle communication is specified, and the relative positional relationship with the information transmitting vehicle is determined. A vehicle position estimation method characterized in that it is obtained based on distance information obtained using a distance sensor as the sensor. In the vehicle position estimation method according to claim 22,
In the surrounding vehicle specifying step, when a plurality of surrounding vehicles are detected, the information transmitting vehicle that transmits the information indicating the position by the inter-vehicle communication is specified, and the relative positional relationship with the information transmitting vehicle is determined. A vehicle position estimation method characterized by being obtained based on image information obtained using an image sensor as the sensor. In the vehicle position estimation method according to any one of claims 22 to 24,
When information indicating positions is received from a plurality of surrounding vehicles in the inter-vehicle communication process, the vehicle position correction process selects one of the information indicating positions received in the inter-vehicle communication process. In addition to the information from the transmitting vehicle, the positional information received from the information transmitting vehicle is corrected based on the relative positional relationship between the information transmitting vehicle and the own vehicle and stored as the positional information of the own vehicle. A vehicle position estimation method as a feature. In the vehicle position estimation method according to any one of claims 22 to 24,
When information indicating the position is received from a plurality of surrounding vehicles in the inter-vehicle communication process, a plurality of information indicating the position received in the inter-vehicle communication process is selected and transmitted in the own vehicle position correcting process. In addition to the information from the vehicle, the positional information received from the plurality of information transmission vehicles is corrected based on the relative positional relationship between the information transmission vehicle and the own vehicle, and stored as the position of the own vehicle. Vehicle position estimation method. In the vehicle position estimation method according to any one of claims 18 to 26,
The vehicle position estimation method according to claim 1, wherein, in the vehicle position estimation situation determination step, it is determined that the vehicle position cannot be grasped only when the GPS signal cannot be received for a certain time. In the vehicle position estimation method according to any one of claims 18 to 26,
In the vehicle position estimation situation determination step, the vehicle position estimation method is characterized in that it is determined that the vehicle position cannot be grasped only when a predetermined steering operation is performed within a predetermined time. In the vehicle position estimation method according to any one of claims 18 to 26,
In the vehicle position estimation situation determination step, it is determined that the vehicle position cannot be grasped only when a GPS signal cannot be received for a certain period of time and a predetermined steering operation is performed within a certain period of time. A vehicle position estimation method as a feature. In the vehicle position estimation method according to any one of claims 19 to 26,
In the inter-vehicle communication step, receiving information indicating the position of the surrounding vehicle and information indicating the attribute of the surrounding vehicle transmitted by the surrounding vehicle,
In the peripheral vehicle specifying step, an information transmission vehicle that transmits the positional information and attribute information of the peripheral vehicle is found in an image acquired by an imaging unit equipped in advance, and a vehicle that matches the attribute is found and is used as the positional information. And a vehicle position estimation method characterized in that it is specified as a surrounding vehicle that has transmitted attribute information. Vehicle-to-vehicle communication information processing for processing the position information into a state in which content analysis is possible when information indicating the position of the surrounding vehicle transmitted by the surrounding vehicle is received;
The vehicle position correction process for acquiring and storing the received position information as the current position information of the vehicle,
And in the vehicle position correction process, instead of storing the position information of the vehicle stored in advance, the position information received and processed in the inter-vehicle communication process is stored as correction information.
A vehicle position estimation program characterized by causing a computer to execute these. In the vehicle position estimation program according to claim 31,
In the vehicle-to-vehicle communication information processing, when each position information is received from a plurality of surrounding vehicles, the computer executes a radio wave selection process that selects a radio wave having the maximum intensity among the received radio waves. A vehicle position estimation program characterized by that. In the vehicle position estimation program according to claim 31 or 32,
A process preceding the host vehicle position correction process, that is, a host vehicle position estimation situation determination process for determining whether or not position information of the host vehicle is grasped;
In the host vehicle position correction process, the position information obtained by the inter-vehicle communication is used as the position information of the host vehicle only when it is determined that the position of the host vehicle is not grasped by the host vehicle position estimation situation determination process. Provide a process to identify and memorize,
A vehicle position estimation program characterized by causing a computer to execute these. In the vehicle position estimation program according to claim 33,
A process preceding the own vehicle position correcting process, that is, a surrounding vehicle specifying process for detecting a surrounding vehicle existing around the own vehicle as an information transmission vehicle by a sensor and extracting a relative positional relationship with the own vehicle;
In the own vehicle position correction process, the position information received from the information sending vehicle is corrected based on the relative positional relationship between the information sending vehicle extracted by the surrounding vehicle specifying process and the own vehicle, and stored as the position of the own vehicle. Set up a process,
A vehicle position estimation program characterized by causing a computer to execute these. In the vehicle position estimation program according to claim 34,
In the surrounding vehicle specifying process, a vehicle is used that uses a distance sensor as the sensor and causes the computer to execute a process for obtaining the relative positional relationship based on distance information obtained by the distance sensor. Estimation program. In the vehicle position estimation program according to claim 34,
In the surrounding vehicle specifying process, a vehicle position is characterized in that an image sensor is used as the sensor and a process for obtaining the relative positional relationship based on image information obtained by the image sensor is executed by a computer. Estimation program. In the vehicle position estimation program according to any one of claims 34 to 36,
In the surrounding vehicle specifying process, when a plurality of surrounding vehicles are detected, a process for specifying the information transmitting vehicle that transmits information indicating a position by the inter-vehicle communication, and position information received from the specified information transmitting vehicle A vehicle position estimation program that causes a computer to execute a process for obtaining a relative positional relationship between the information transmission vehicle and the host vehicle based on the information. In the vehicle position estimation program according to claim 37,
In the surrounding vehicle specifying process, when information on a plurality of surrounding vehicles is input, a process of specifying the information transmitting vehicle that transmits information indicating a position by inter-vehicle communication, and the specified information transmitting vehicle A vehicle position estimation program that causes a computer to execute a process of obtaining a relative positional relationship between the two based on distance information obtained using a distance sensor as the sensor. In the vehicle position estimation program according to claim 37,
In the surrounding vehicle specifying process, when information on a plurality of surrounding vehicles is input, a process of specifying the information transmitting vehicle that transmits information indicating a position by inter-vehicle communication, and the specified information transmitting vehicle A vehicle position estimation program for causing a computer to execute a process for obtaining a relative positional relationship between the two based on image information obtained using an image sensor as the sensor.
The vehicle position estimation program according to any one of claims 37 to 39,
When receiving information indicating positions from a plurality of surrounding vehicles in the inter-vehicle communication process, the host vehicle position correction process selects one of the plurality of position information received in the inter-vehicle communication process. Processing to obtain position information from the information sending vehicle, and processing to correct the position information received from the information sending vehicle based on the relative positional relationship between the information sending vehicle and the own vehicle, and store the position information as the own vehicle, A position estimation program for a vehicle characterized in that the computer is executed. The vehicle position estimation program according to any one of claims 37 to 39,
When information indicating positions from a plurality of surrounding vehicles is received in the inter-vehicle communication process, a plurality of pieces of position information received in the inter-vehicle communication process are selected and transmitted in the own vehicle position correction process. A process for processing position information from a vehicle, and a process for correcting position information received from a plurality of the information transmission vehicles based on a relative positional relationship between the information transmission vehicle and the own vehicle and storing it as the position of the own vehicle. A vehicle position estimation program characterized in that the vehicle position estimation program is executed. In the vehicle position estimation program according to any one of claims 33 to 41,
In the vehicle position estimation situation determination process, the computer is caused to execute a situation determination process that determines that the vehicle position cannot be grasped only when the GPS signal cannot be received for a certain period of time. Vehicle position estimation program. In the vehicle position estimation program according to any one of claims 33 to 41,
In the vehicle position estimation situation determination process, the computer is caused to execute a situation determination process that determines that the vehicle position cannot be grasped only when a predetermined steering operation is performed within a predetermined time. A vehicle position estimation program as a feature. In the vehicle position estimation program according to any one of claims 33 to 41,
In the vehicle position estimation situation determination process, a situation determination process for determining that the vehicle position cannot be grasped only when a GPS signal cannot be received for a certain period of time and a predetermined steering operation is performed within a certain period of time. A vehicle position estimation program characterized by causing a computer to execute. In the vehicle position estimation program according to any one of claims 34 to 41,
In the vehicle-to-vehicle communication process, the information indicating the position of the surrounding vehicle and the information indicating the attribute of the surrounding vehicle transmitted by the surrounding vehicle are received and processed.
In the peripheral vehicle specifying process, an information transmission vehicle that transmits the positional information and attribute information of the peripheral vehicle is found in an image acquired by an imaging means equipped in advance, and a vehicle that matches the attribute is found and is used as the positional information. And a vehicle position estimation program for causing a computer to execute a vehicle identification process for identifying a surrounding vehicle that has transmitted attribute information.

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