JP2014163819A - Travel guiding device for electrically-driven vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make it possible for the operator of an electrically-driven vehicle to easily grasp a travel possible range for each road kind.SOLUTION: A travel guiding device (10) includes a display control unit (11). The display control unit is provided so as to display a first travel possible range calculated with electric power consumption in a first road kind being a criterion and a second travel possible range calculated with electric power consumption in a second road kind being a criterion on a map screen with the current position of an electrically-driven vehicle being a criterion.

Description

  The present invention relates to a travel guide device for an electric vehicle (for example, an electric vehicle).

  Many devices of this type display a travelable distance or a travelable range on a navigation map screen based on the current position of the vehicle (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 7-85397 and (Refer to 9-119839, etc.)

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-85397 Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-119839

  As is well known, at present, in an electric vehicle (electric vehicle) not equipped with an internal combustion engine, the number of rechargeable parts is less than the number of places where fuel can be filled, and the time required for charging is much longer than the time required for fuel filling. However, there are restrictions on use. For this reason, in such an electric vehicle, the travelable distance is very important information.

  By the way, the travelable distance in the electric vehicle depends on the remaining charge amount and the power consumption. Here, the “power consumption” is the amount of power consumed per unit travel distance or the travelable distance per unit power amount. This electricity cost corresponds to “fuel consumption” in an automobile equipped with an internal combustion engine. This electricity cost typically varies depending on the road type (highway, general road, etc.). Therefore, the travelable distance on the highway and the travelable distance on the general road may be greatly different.

  In this regard, no conventional device of this type has been proposed that gives appropriate information to the driver based on such a viewpoint. The present invention has been made in view of the circumstances exemplified above.

  The travel guidance device for an electric vehicle according to the present invention includes a display control unit. The display control unit is provided to display a travelable range on a map screen based on the current position of the electric vehicle. A feature of the present invention is that the display control unit is configured to calculate a first travelable range calculated based on a power consumption in a first road type and a second travel calculated based on a power consumption in a second road type. The possible range is to be displayed on the map screen.

  In addition, the display control unit may be configured to display a third travelable range calculated using a power consumption in each of a plurality of road types on the map screen. In this case, the display control unit may be capable of switching between the display of the first travelable range and the second travelable range and the display of the third travelable range.

  In the travel guidance device of the present invention having such a configuration, the travel range is calculated on the basis of the first travelable range calculated on the basis of the electricity cost on the first road type and on the electricity cost on the second road type. The second travelable range is displayed on the map screen. Thereby, the driver of the electric vehicle can easily grasp the travelable range for each road type.

  In addition, when the third travelable range calculated using the electricity costs in each of a plurality of road types is displayed on the map screen, the first travelable range and the second travelable range are more than It is possible to provide the driver with information on the travelable range calculated in detail.

The figure which shows schematic structure of the travel guidance apparatus which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. The figure which shows an example of the screen displayed on the screen display apparatus shown by FIG. The flowchart which shows a specific example of operation | movement of the travel guidance apparatus shown by FIG. The flowchart which shows a specific example of operation | movement of the travel guidance apparatus shown by FIG.

  DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an embodiment of the invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In addition, since a modification will prevent understanding of description of one consistent embodiment, if it is inserted during the description of the said embodiment, it is described collectively at the end.

<Configuration>
Referring to FIG. 1, a travel guide apparatus 10 according to this embodiment is mounted on an electric vehicle (not shown) (a vehicle that uses only a rotating electric machine driven by a battery as a power source but does not have an internal combustion engine). . The travel guide device 10 is mainly configured by a main controller 11. The main controller 11 corresponding to the “display control unit” of the present invention is a so-called microcomputer including a CPU, a ROM, a RAM, an interface, and the like. The main controller 11 informs the driver based on the current position of the host vehicle detected by a known position detector 12 (geomagnetic sensor 12a, gyroscope 12b, mileage sensor 12c, GPS receiver 12d, etc.). It is configured to provide information as appropriate.

  The travel guidance device 10 includes a map data input unit 13, an operation input unit 14, a traffic information receiver 15, an external memory 16, a screen display device 17, a voice controller 18, and a speaker 19. ing.

  The map data input unit 13 includes a storage medium (not shown). The map data input unit 13 inputs various map-related data (so-called map matching data for improving position detection accuracy, etc. in addition to map data) stored in the above storage medium to the main controller 11. It is provided to do.

  The operation input unit 14 includes an operation unit (not shown) that is operated by a passenger (including a driver) of the electric vehicle described above. The operation input unit 14 accepts operations for executing various functions (destination setting, route search, current position correction, etc.) in the travel guidance device 10, and inputs an input signal based on the operations to the main controller 11. It is provided to input. The traffic information receiver 15 is provided to receive various types of information (traffic information, weather information, facility information, advertisement information, etc.) provided from the outside of the electric vehicle and to input the received contents to the main controller 11. It has been.

  The external memory 16 is a rewritable nonvolatile storage medium (for example, a hard disk drive, a flash memory, or the like) that can retain the stored contents even when the ignition switch is turned off. The external memory 16 is provided so as to appropriately store various data processed by the main controller 11.

  The screen display device 17 includes a display screen such as a liquid crystal. This screen display device 17 is a map-related data input from the map data input unit 13 and a current position of the vehicle on the map data specified based on the input from the position detector 12 (hereinafter simply “current position”). And so on) are displayed on the above-described display screen. In the following description, the map display on the display screen in the screen display device 17 based on the map data is abbreviated as “map screen”. The voice controller 18 outputs voice guidance information to the occupant based on the processing result of the main controller 11 via the speaker 19.

  The main controller 11 is connected to the vehicle control unit 20. The vehicle control unit 20 is provided so as to input the driving state of the electric vehicle (remaining charge amount, regenerative power amount, vehicle traveling speed, accelerator pedal operation amount, brake operation amount, etc.) to the main controller 11. . The configuration of the travel guide device 10 described above is the same as the basic configuration of a conventionally known so-called navigation device, and therefore, detailed description of the configuration of the travel guide device 10 is omitted in this specification.

<Overview of operation>
The outline of the operation in the configuration of the present embodiment will be described below. When the destination is set by an operation on the operation input unit 14, the main controller 11 searches for and sets an optimum guide route from the current position detected by the position detector 12 to the destination. Further, the main controller 11 displays the set guidance route on the display screen in the screen display device 17 so as to overlap the mark indicating the current position and the map screen.

  Further, the main controller 11 calculates the travelable range based on the current remaining charge amount regardless of whether or not the destination is set (that is, whether or not the guidance route is set). Then, the main controller 11 displays the screen so as to superimpose the calculated travelable range on the mark indicating the current position and the map screen (when the guidance route is set, this guidance route is also superimposed). It is displayed on the display screen in the device 17. That is, the main controller 11 displays the travelable range on the map screen based on the current position.

  Here, in the present embodiment, the main controller 11 displays the “simple display” shown in FIG. 2A and the “detailed display” shown in FIG. To do. In FIG. 2, a thick road indicates a highway, and a thin road indicates a general road.

  The “simple display” in FIG. 2A is a travelable range that is simply calculated for each road type (corresponding to “first travelable range” and “second travelable range” of the present invention). Are displayed in a superimposed manner. Specifically, in the “simple display” in FIG. 2 (a), the vehicle travels on a highway (in addition to a national highway in a statutory road, including a motorway with a speed limit of 60km / h or more). A possible range and a travelable range when traveling on a general road are displayed. On the other hand, the “detailed display” in FIG. 2B corresponds to the travelable range calculated in detail in consideration of the change of the road type in the travel (planned) route (corresponding to the “third travelable range” of the present invention). Display).

  That is, in the “simple display” in FIG. 2A, the travelable distance Ra on the general road is calculated based on the electricity cost Da on the general road. Similarly, the travelable distance Rb on the highway is calculated based on the electricity cost Db on the highway. A circle centered on the current position and having a radius of Ra and a circle having a radius of Rb are displayed as concentric circles. In FIG. 2 (a), the outer side of the two concentric circles indicates the travelable range corresponding to the travelable distance Rb on the expressway (the electric cost Db on the expressway in this case is the average travel) It is assumed that the speed is 80 km / h.)

  On the other hand, in the “detailed display” in FIG. 2B, a certain reference point is specified that is located in a specific direction that forms an angle θ with the current traveling direction with reference to the current traveling direction at the current position. Then, based on the planned travel distance for each road type up to the reference point, the power consumption for each road type, and the current remaining charge, the travelable distance in the specific direction is calculated in detail. Then, by plotting the travelable range for each angle θ described above in a range of θ = 0 to 360 degrees, a detailed travelable range centered on the current position is displayed.

  Hereinafter, specific examples of processing for the above-described “simple display” and “detailed display” will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 3 and 4. In FIG. 3 and FIG. 4, “step” is abbreviated as “S”. Each routine shown in the flowcharts of FIGS. 3 and 4 is stored in the above-described ROM in the main controller 11. When the routine of FIG. 3 is started at an appropriate timing, the above-described CPU in the main controller 11 executes processing corresponding to each step.

  When the routine of FIG. 3 is started, first, at step 310, it is determined whether or not the travelable range is displayed on the map screen. When the display command or display setting of the travelable range by the occupant has not been performed (step 310 = NO), the processing after step 320 is skipped, and the processing of this routine is temporarily ended. In this case, neither the “simple display” in FIG. 2A nor the “detailed display” in FIG. Therefore, the description of this specific example will be continued below assuming that the determination in step 310 is “YES”.

  In step 320, the electricity costs on the general road and the highway are read out. In this specific example, it is assumed that the electricity cost Da for the general road and the electricity cost Db (Wh / km) for the highway are stored in advance in the ROM in the main controller 11.

Next, in step 330, the travelable distance Ra (km) on the general road and the travelable distance Rb (km) on the expressway are calculated by the following equations. In the following equation, J is the remaining charge (Wh). Ka and Kb are performance coefficients. This performance factor is set for each road type in consideration of battery aging, amount of regeneration due to braking, system loss, and the like, and is stored in the external memory 16 (battery aging state). Since the detection of this is well known at the time of filing of the present application, description thereof is omitted).
Ra = Ka · J / Da
Rb = Kb · J / Db

  Subsequently, in step 340, “simple display” and “detailed display” are selected. If “simple display” is selected (step 340 = YES), the process proceeds to step 350. In step 350, the “simple display” in FIG. 2A is performed using Ra and Rb calculated in step 330 described above. On the other hand, when “detail display” is selected (step 340 = NO), the process proceeds to step 360, and “detail display” in FIG. 2B is performed. A specific example of the “detail display” process will be described later (see the flowchart of FIG. 4). Thus, after the display process of the travelable range is performed according to the occupant's selection, the process of this routine is temporarily ended.

When “detailed display” is selected in step 340 in the flowchart of FIG. 3 (step 340 = NO), the subroutine shown in the flowchart of FIG. 4 is started. When such a subroutine is started, first, in step 410, the power consumption for each road type is read out as in step 320 described above. However, in step 410, the power consumption for each more detailed road type is read as follows.
Expressway: D1, General national road: D2, General prefectural road: D3, General city road: D4, Narrow street: D5
(Note that the highway power consumption D1 here is the same value as the highway power consumption Db in the above-mentioned step 320. In this specific example, the general road power consumption Da in the above-described step 320 is (The value is the same as D4.)

  Next, in step 415, the value of the direction θ is initialized (θ = 0). As will be described later, the value of θ is incremented for each predetermined angle Δθ. Subsequently, the process proceeds to step 420. In step 420, it is determined whether θ is 360 degrees. In this case, since θ is 0, the determination in step 420 is “NO”, and the process proceeds to step 430.

In step 430, the distance described above with respect to the direction that forms an angle θ (clockwise) on the map data when the current traveling direction at the current position (the time of execution of step 415) is 0 degrees. A reference point is identified using Ra (see step 330). This reference point is the point where the distance from the current position is closest to Ra among the points where the straight line drawn from the current position toward the angle θ direction intersects the road. In step 430, a planned travel route from the current position is searched for and set for this reference point. Further, in step 430, planned travel distances R1 to R5 for each road type in the set planned travel route are calculated.
Expressway: R1, General national road: R2, General prefectural road: R3, General city road: R4, Narrow street: R5

In the following step 440, the power usage W1 to W5 corresponding to the planned travel distance for each road type calculated in step 430 is calculated.
Expressway: W1 = D1 / R1 / K1
General national highway: W2 = D2 / R2 / K2
General prefectural road: W3 = D3 ・ R3 / K3
General city road: W4 = D4 ・ R4 / K4
Narrow street: W5 = D5 ・ R5 / K5

In the following step 450, excess / deficiency power ΔJ is calculated by the following equation.
ΔJ = J− (W1 + W2 + W3 + W4 + W5)

  In the subsequent step 460, correction using the travel (possible) distance corresponding to the excess / deficient power ΔJ is performed on the reference point. Specifically, the corrected travel distance ΔR is calculated from the power consumption according to the type of the road where the reference point exists (hereinafter referred to as “target road”) and the excess / deficiency power ΔJ. Then, the position moved by the distance ΔR on the target road from the reference point is specified as the farthest position where the vehicle can travel in the direction θ. The farthest position is a position closer to the current position than the reference point when ΔR is a negative value, and is a position farther from the reference point when the value is positive.

  When the farthest position in the direction θ is specified in step 460, the process proceeds to step 470, and the farthest position is plotted on the map screen. Thereafter, the process proceeds to step 480, the direction θ is incremented by Δθ, and the process returns to step 420.

  In this way, by repeating the above steps 430 to 470 while the direction θ is incremented by Δθ, the farthest position is specified for each Δθ. When the identification of the farthest position for 360 degrees from the current position ends (step 420 = YES), the process proceeds to step 490. In step 490, a plot of the farthest position for the entire circumference is connected, so that the “detailed display” of the travelable range as shown in FIG. 2B is performed on the map screen. Thereafter, the processing of this routine is temporarily terminated.

<Action and effect>
Then, the effect | action and effect by the structure of this embodiment are demonstrated. In the travel guide device 10 of this embodiment, the “simple display” includes a travelable range calculated based on the electric cost Da of a general road and a travelable range calculated based on the electric cost Db of an expressway. , Displayed on the map screen. Thereby, the driver of the electric vehicle can easily grasp the travelable range for each road type. Further, by displaying the travelable range calculated using the electricity costs D1 to D5 in each of the plurality of road types on the map screen in “detailed display”, more detailed information on the travelable range can be obtained by the driver. Provided to.

<Modification>
Hereinafter, some typical modifications will be exemplified. In the following description of the modified examples, the same reference numerals as those in the above embodiment can be used for portions having the same configurations and functions as those described in the above embodiment. And about description of this part, the description in the above-mentioned embodiment shall be used suitably in the range which is not technically consistent. Needless to say, the modifications are not limited to those listed below. In addition, a part of the above-described embodiment and all or a part of the plurality of modified examples can be combined appropriately as long as they are technically consistent.

  The present invention is not limited to the specific apparatus configuration described above. For example, as the position detector 12, various sensors provided in the vehicle, such as a steering rotation sensor and a wheel speed sensor, are appropriately used. That is, among the above-described steering rotation sensor and the like, and the geomagnetic sensor 12a listed as an example of the position detector 12, the one that is actually used for the travel guide device 10 as the position detector 12 can be appropriately selected. As the operation input unit 14, a so-called remote controller or voice input device can be used as appropriate. Further, instead of the external memory 16, the built-in memory of the main controller 11 or the above-described storage medium in the map data input unit 13 can be used.

  The present invention is not limited to the specific operation mode described above. For example, the “simple display” in FIG. 2A and the “detailed display” in FIG. 2B may be switched to each other as in the above-described specific example, or both may be simultaneously displayed on the map screen ( That is, it may be displayed. Further, in step 430 of the flowchart of FIG. 4, the distance Rb may be used instead of the distance Ra.

  The power consumption may be a travelable distance per unit power amount. In this case, the above formula is appropriately modified. In the above-described specific example, the power consumption Da of the general road in step 320 may be selected from any one of D2 to D5, or a value calculated from D2 to D5 (for example, Average value). When the average value is used, it may be a simple arithmetic average value of D2 to D5, or may be a value weighted in consideration of the existence ratio for each road type.

  Electricity costs for each road type (Da, Db, D1 to D5 in the above-described specific examples) may be actual measurement values, that is, learning values (for actual measurement or learning of electric costs, for example, JP-A-9-191505, (Refer to Unexamined-Japanese-Patent No. 2003-219503, Unexamined-Japanese-Patent No. 2012-222876, etc.). In this case, the power consumption is stored in the external memory 16 in a rewritable manner. Then, actual measurement (learning) of the electricity cost is performed for each road type.

  In particular, depending on vehicle characteristics (for example, vehicle body shape, that is, air resistance value) and driving tendency (for example, average travel speed) of the driver, the power cost Da on the general road is better than the power cost Db on the highway (unit: The value may be small in the case of Wh / km). For this reason, by learning the electricity consumption for each road type, it is possible to display the optimum travelable range according to the vehicle body characteristics and the driving tendency.

  The classification mode of the road type is not limited to the specific example described above. That is, for example, a statutory high-speed automobile national road and other automobile-only roads may be distinguished from each other as different road types. Moreover, the classification of the road type in the general road may be different from the above specific example.

  The subject of the present invention is not limited to the travel guidance device 10. That is, the object of the present invention includes, for example, a computer program that is read and executed by the CPU in the main controller 11 as a computer and that is configured to realize the above-described operations (each procedure). . Similarly, the subject of the present invention includes a computer-readable storage medium storing such a computer program.

  Other modifications not specifically mentioned are naturally included in the technical scope of the present invention without departing from the essential part of the present invention. In addition, in each element constituting the means for solving the problems of the present invention, elements expressed in terms of function and function are specific configurations disclosed in the above-described embodiments and modifications, and equivalents thereof. In addition to objects, any configuration capable of realizing the action / function is included.

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Travel guidance apparatus, 11 ... Main controller, 12 ... Position detector, 13 ... Map data input part, 17 ... Screen display apparatus, 20 ... Vehicle control part.

Claims (3)

A travel guidance device (10) for an electric vehicle,
The first travelable range calculated based on the power consumption in the first road type and the second travelable range calculated based on the power consumption in the second road type are set as the current position of the electric vehicle. A travel guide device comprising a display control unit (11) provided to be displayed on a map screen as a reference.   The display control unit is provided so as to display a third travelable range calculated using electricity costs in each of a plurality of road types on the map screen based on the current position. The travel guidance device according to claim 1.   The display control unit is provided to be switchable between a display of the first travelable range and the second travelable range and a display of the third travelable range. Item 3. The travel guide device according to Item 2.

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