JP2012132789A - Vehicular navigation device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a vehicular navigation device which does not hinder safety driving, by which it is easy for a driver, etc. to grasp a travel route to a destination, and which has a low possibility of being erroneously understood.SOLUTION: In a vehicular navigation device 1 that guides a vehicle to a travel destination based on self-vehicle position information of the vehicle, and information on a road where the vehicle travels, projection means 8 for projecting a moving image of a guide material for guiding the travel direction of the vehicle is provided in a part of front glass 15 of the vehicle so as to be superposed on an actual image to be observed through the front glass of the vehicle. Since a driver does not become careless in front by looking aside from the front glass, and the travel direction is guided by superposing the moving image of the guide material on the actual image itself, the driver easily recognizes the travel direction, and a possibility of erroneously understanding the travel route to the destination is reduced. The moving image of the guide material may be persons, animals and plants, or animation characters, etc., and a plurality of guide materials may be projected along the travel direction of the vehicle to be guided.

Description

  The present invention relates to a vehicle navigation apparatus that performs route guidance from a current position to a destination when a car or the like travels.

  For example, as described in Patent Document 1, the vehicular navigation device displays the travel route to the set destination on the display, or saves the route traveled by the car and calls it appropriately and displays it on the display device. It is widely used as a user-friendly device for automobile drivers.

JP 2002-81955 A

  However, according to the vehicle navigation apparatus and the like described in Patent Document 1, although there is an advantage that the driver can easily grasp the travel route, the navigation display is mounted on the dashboard or the like. When a person looks at the display, he / she becomes careless ahead, which may interfere with safe driving.

  In addition, according to the conventional vehicle navigation device, there is a room for improvement, such as the fact that the travel route is misunderstood because the driver is notified of the travel route by voice or display on the display.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle navigation device that does not hinder safe driving, and that allows a driver or the like to easily grasp a travel route to a destination and that is less likely to be mistakenly understood. And

  In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a vehicle navigation apparatus for guiding a vehicle to a travel destination based on the vehicle position information of the vehicle and road information on which the vehicle travels. Projection means is provided for projecting a moving image of a derivative for inducing a direction on a portion of the windshield of the vehicle so as to be superimposed on an actual image observed through the windshield of the vehicle.

  According to the present invention, since the moving image of the derivative that guides the traveling direction is superimposed on the actual image observed through the windshield, the driver does not carelessly look away from the windshield. There is no risk of disturbing driving. In addition, the moving image of the derivative is superimposed on the actual image observed through the windshield to guide the traveling direction, so the traveling direction can be easily recognized, and the travel route to the destination may be misunderstood. Can be reduced.

  In the vehicle navigation apparatus, the moving image of the derivative can be a moving image of any one of a person, a plant, and an animation character, and the traveling direction can be displayed in an easily understandable manner.

  In the vehicular navigation device, the traveling direction can be displayed more easily by projecting the plurality of derivatives along the traveling direction of the guided vehicle.

  In the above vehicle navigation device, by further comprising voice guidance means for guiding the traveling direction of the vehicle by voice, the possibility of erroneously understanding the travel route to the destination can be further reduced. it can.

  As described above, according to the present invention, there is provided a vehicle navigation device that does not interfere with safe driving, and that allows a driver or the like to easily grasp a travel route to a destination and has a low possibility of being erroneously understood. Can be provided.

1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a vehicle navigation device according to the present invention. It is the schematic which shows the example of installation of the projection part of FIG. It is the schematic which shows an example of a guidance animation. It is the schematic which shows the other example of a guidance animation. It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement of the navigation apparatus for vehicles concerning this invention.

  Next, an embodiment for carrying out the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of a vehicle navigation apparatus according to the present invention. This vehicle navigation apparatus 1 is roughly divided into a GPS (Global Positioning System) antenna 2, a GPS receiver 3, and an acceleration sensor 4. And a gyro sensor 5, a clock 6, an operation unit 7, a display unit 8, a projection unit 9, a control unit 10, a recording unit 15, and the like.

  The GPS receiver 3 receives a GPS signal from a GPS satellite via the GPS antenna 2.

  The acceleration sensor 4 is provided for detecting acceleration during traveling of the host vehicle, and various sensors such as a mechanical type, an optical type, and a semiconductor type can be used.

  The gyro sensor 5 is provided for positioning and calculating a yaw angular velocity (rotational angular velocity) of the host vehicle, and a mechanical or optical sensor can be used.

  The timepiece 6 can generate current time information of the vehicle navigation device 1 based on, for example, the oscillation frequency of a crystal resonator, and is always driven by a battery (not shown).

  The operation unit 7 is provided with an operation element for a driver or the like to operate the vehicle navigation apparatus 1 and outputs a control signal corresponding to an operation on the operation element. For example, a power key for turning on / off the power of the vehicle navigation apparatus 1 and a key for setting a guide from the current location to the destination are provided as the operators. These various keys may be provided, for example, as hardware keys on the housing of the vehicle navigation device 1. When the display unit 8 is a touch panel display, the various keys are provided as software keys on the display unit 8. It may be displayed. The recording unit 15 is, for example, an HDD (Hard Disc Drive) or a flash memory, and records map data and the like.

  The display unit 8 is composed of, for example, an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), and displays a map screen, a menu screen, and the like. As the display unit 8, for example, a touch panel display in which a touch panel having a touch sensor is stacked on an LCD can be used.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the projection unit 9 is placed on the dashboard 17 of the vehicle, and is provided to project a derivative such as a guidance animation to be described later on the windshield portion of the vehicle. In configuring such a projection unit 9, for example, a head up display (HUD) technique for projecting a virtual image display can be used. The parts other than the projection unit 9 of the vehicle navigation device 1 are installed on or near the dashboard 17 in the same manner as a general vehicle navigation device.

  The control unit 10 controls the entire vehicle navigation apparatus 1 and includes an input control unit 11, a navigation processing unit 12, a display control unit 13, and a projection control unit 14.

  The input control unit 11 determines the input content and the selection content based on a control signal corresponding to the operation of the driver or the like supplied from the operation unit 7, and outputs the operation signal to the navigation processing unit 12.

  The navigation processing unit 12 is based on the GPS signal received by the GPS receiving unit 3, the signals from the acceleration sensor 4 and the gyro sensor 5, and the position / latitude indicating vehicle position (latitude, longitude) and driving information (angle, acceleration, etc.). Get driving information. Further, when the destination is set by the driver or the like operating the operation unit 7, the operation signal is received from the input control unit 11, and the current location is determined based on the map data recorded in the recording unit 15. Calculate the travel route to the destination.

  The display control unit 13 reads out the map data from the recording unit 15 to generate a map image, or performs a process of switching the display screen of the display unit 8 according to the operation of the driver or the like on the operation unit 7.

  The projection control unit 14 is provided for generating a guidance animation based on the travel route calculated by the navigation processing unit 12 and the position / driving information acquired by the navigation processing unit 12. Moreover, the process etc. which switch the animation or image to project according to operation of the driver | operator etc. with respect to the operation part 7 are also performed.

  Here, the guidance animation generated by the projection control unit 14 will be described. FIG. 3 shows a state in which the generated guidance animation (hereinafter abbreviated as “guidance animation” as appropriate) is projected onto the windshield 15 of the vehicle. This guidance animation uses a humanoid character 20. . In addition, the said character is not restricted to a human type, As shown in FIG. 4, it can also be set as the insect type characters 30, such as a ladybird, and other animal and plant characters.

  Next, the operation of the vehicle navigation apparatus 1 having the above-described configuration will be described with reference to FIG.

  In step S1, it is determined whether or not the vehicle navigation device 1 is turned on or the start of the engine of the vehicle on which the vehicle navigation device 1 is mounted is detected. If any of these is detected, the process proceeds to step S2. On the other hand, if none of these is detected, the process returns to step S1.

  Next, in step S2, when the driver or the like operates the operation unit 7 of the vehicle navigation device 1 to set a destination, select an animation to be projected, and the like, the navigation processing unit 12 performs step S3. In step S4, position / driving information is acquired based on the GPS signal from the GPS receiving unit 3, and a travel route from the current location to the destination is calculated based on the map data recorded in the recording unit 15 in step S4.

  When the driver starts driving the vehicle, in step S5, the projection control unit 14 guides the vehicle as a derivative for guiding the vehicle to the destination based on the travel route calculated by the navigation processing unit 12 (people A type character 20) is generated. The guidance animation is generated by estimating the actual image observed through the windshield 15 based on the three-dimensional map data recorded in the recording unit 15 and the position / driving information by the projection control unit 14 and calculating the estimated actual image. Associate the derivative with the data.

  Then, for example, as shown in FIG. 3A, when the intersection is guided to turn left, the humanoid character 20 is projected onto the windshield 15 so as to actually turn left (step S6). . That is, the moving image of the human character 20 that guides the traveling direction is superimposed on the actual image observed through the windshield 15.

  Further, when the vehicle is guided to go straight, as shown in FIG. 3B, the humanoid character 20 can be projected so as to go straight on the actual road. Even when the insect character 30 shown in FIG. 4 is used, it can be projected in the same manner. In step S7, the driver travels according to the guidance instruction of the projected humanoid character 20.

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, since the moving image of the humanoid character 20 that guides the traveling direction is superimposed on the actual image observed through the windshield 15, the driver keeps an eye on the windshield 15. There will be no inattention in front and there is no risk of disturbing safe driving. Further, since the moving direction of the humanoid character 20 is superimposed on the actual image observed through the windshield 15 to guide the traveling direction, the traveling direction can be easily recognized, and the traveling route to the destination is mistaken. The possibility of understanding decreases.

  In addition, the possibility of misunderstanding the travel route to the destination can be further reduced by using the voice for the direction of travel in the same way as in the past in accordance with the direction of travel by the humanoid character 20.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Vehicle navigation apparatus 2 GPS antenna 3 GPS receiving part 4 Acceleration sensor 5 Gyro sensor 6 Clock 7 Operation part 8 Display part 9 Projection part 10 Control part 11 Input control part 12 Navigation processing part 13 Display control part 14 Projection control part 15 Recording Part 17 Dashboard 18 Windshield 20 Human character 30 Bug character

Claims (4)

In a vehicle navigation device for guiding the vehicle to a travel destination based on the vehicle position information of the vehicle and road information on which the vehicle travels,
Vehicle having projection means for projecting a moving image of a derivative for guiding a traveling direction of the vehicle on a portion of the windshield of the vehicle so as to be superimposed on an actual image observed through the windshield of the vehicle Navigation device.   The vehicle navigation device according to claim 1, wherein the moving image of the derivative is a moving image of any one of a person, a plant, and an animation character.   The vehicle navigation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of the derivatives are projected along a traveling direction of the vehicle to be guided.   4. The vehicle navigation device according to claim 1, further comprising voice guidance means for guiding the traveling direction of the vehicle by voice.

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