JP2017096204A - Vehicle control device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To properly perform the stop control of an own vehicle corresponding to a local community.SOLUTION: A vehicle control device 1 performing the stop control of an own vehicle according to an inter-vehicle distance between the own vehicle and a front vehicle when the front vehicle is stopped in front of the own vehicle, comprises: a location identifying part 11 which identifies a location of the own vehicle; a parameter storage part 21 which stores in map information an inter-vehicle parameter related to an inter-vehicle distance between the own vehicle and the front vehicle at a stop in association with a preset local communication, and ; a selection part 12 which selects the inter-vehicle parameter which is associated with the local community corresponding to the location of the own vehicle which is identified by the location identifying part; and a control part 13 which controls the stop of the own vehicle with respect to the front vehicle on the basis of the inter-vehicle parameter which is selected by the selection part.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to a vehicle control device.

  2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a technique for changing the specification of a vehicle according to the area where the vehicle is located is known (for example, see Patent Document 1). In this technique, the position of the host vehicle is recognized by a GPS device or the like, and for example, a specification corresponding to the country corresponding to the host vehicle position is applied to the device mounted on the vehicle.

JP-A-10-208194

  The conventional technology changes the specification of the device mounted on the own vehicle to a specification based on, for example, a law. For example, the own vehicle according to the characteristics of each region such as the driving tendency of a driver of another vehicle. Therefore, there is room for improvement.

  Therefore, an object of the present invention is to appropriately carry out stop control of the own vehicle according to the region.

  In order to solve the above-described problems, the present invention provides a vehicle control device that performs stop control of a host vehicle in accordance with the inter-vehicle distance between the host vehicle and the preceding vehicle when the front vehicle ahead of the host vehicle is stopped. A parameter storage unit that stores a vehicle location parameter relating to a vehicle-to-vehicle distance between the vehicle at a stop and a vehicle location parameter that identifies the vehicle location, and is associated with an area that is set in advance in the map information. And a selection unit that selects an inter-vehicle parameter associated with the area corresponding to the location of the host vehicle specified by the location determination unit, and the vehicle's vehicle relative to the preceding vehicle based on the inter-vehicle parameter selected by the selection unit. A control unit that performs stop control.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, stop control of the own vehicle according to an area can be implemented appropriately.

It is a block diagram which shows the vehicle control apparatus which concerns on this embodiment. It is a flowchart which shows the control processing in a vehicle control apparatus.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a vehicle control device of the present embodiment. A vehicle control device 1 shown in FIG. 1 is a device that is mounted on a vehicle and controls the host vehicle. Specifically, the vehicle control device 1 acquires various information such as information related to the state of the host vehicle and the traffic state around the host vehicle, and performs vehicle control such as stop control based on the acquired information. Vehicle control is implemented as driving assistance which supports a driver's driving, for example. Note that the vehicle control device 1 may be an automatic driving system that performs automatic driving in which the host vehicle travels toward a destination without the driver performing a driving operation. In this case, stop control or the like is performed as vehicle control in automatic driving.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the vehicle control device 1 includes an ECU [Electronic Control Unit] 2. The ECU includes a CPU [Central Processing Unit], a ROM [Read Only Memory], a RAM [Random Access Memory], etc., and loads various programs stored in the ROM into the RAM and executes them by the CPU. Perform control and arithmetic processing.

  A GPS receiver 3 is connected to the ECU 2. The GPS receiver 3 measures the position of the host vehicle (for example, the latitude and longitude of the host vehicle) by receiving signals from three or more GPS satellites. The GPS receiving unit 3 transmits the measured position information of the own vehicle to the ECU 2.

  A radar sensor 4 is connected to the ECU 2. The radar sensor 4 is provided, for example, at the front end of the host vehicle and the rear end of the host vehicle, and detects obstacles around the host vehicle using millimeter waves. For example, the radar sensor 4 transmits an millimeter wave before and after the host vehicle, and detects an obstacle by receiving the millimeter wave reflected by an obstacle such as another vehicle. The radar sensor 4 transmits obstacle information regarding the detected obstacle to the ECU 2. As the radar sensor 4, LIDAR [Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging] may be used. Further, an obstacle may be detected by a camera instead of the radar sensor 4.

  In the present embodiment, the location specifying unit 11, the selection unit 12, and the control unit 13 are configured by the ECU 2. In addition, the vehicle control device 1 includes a parameter storage unit 21.

  First, the parameter storage unit 21 will be described. The parameter storage unit 21 also functions as a map database that stores map information. Regional information is set in advance in the map information. The parameter storage unit 21 is a storage unit that stores various parameters used in the vehicle control of the host vehicle performed by the vehicle control device 1 in association with a preset area. In the present embodiment, the parameter storage unit 21 is provided in the host vehicle. The parameter storage unit 21 may be provided in a server or the like that can communicate with the host vehicle via a communication network.

  Various parameters used in the vehicle control include an inter-vehicle distance between the host vehicle and the preceding vehicle at a stop, an inter-vehicle distance during travel, an inter-vehicle distance after a lane change, and the like. These parameters may have different trends from region to region. Therefore, it is preferable to use different parameters for each region in order to appropriately control the vehicle. The parameter storage unit 21 of the present embodiment stores an inter-vehicle parameter related to the inter-vehicle distance between the host vehicle and the preceding vehicle at the time of stopping in association with the area. The inter-vehicle parameter is, for example, a parameter related to the inter-vehicle distance between the host vehicle and the preceding vehicle when stopping behind the preceding vehicle that is stopped at an intersection or the like equipped with a traffic light.

  The inter-vehicle parameters for each region are collected as follows, for example. That is, a measurer is arranged in the vicinity of a stop line at an intersection existing in a certain area, and the inter-vehicle distance between the leading vehicle and the subsequent second vehicle when the vehicle stops on the stop line is measured and recorded. Then, the collected inter-vehicle distance data is statistically processed (for example, an average value is calculated), and the value calculated by the processing is used as the inter-vehicle parameter in the area. Then, the inter-vehicle parameter is stored in the parameter storage unit 21 in association with information for identifying the area.

  The location specifying unit 11 specifies the location of the host vehicle (the location of the host vehicle in the map information) based on the location information transmitted from the GPS receiver 3. The location specifying unit 11 specifies the location of the host vehicle, and sends information related to the specified location to the selection unit 12.

  The selection unit 12 refers to the parameter storage unit 21 and selects the inter-vehicle parameter associated with the region corresponding to the location of the host vehicle identified by the location location identification unit 11.

  Specifically, the selection unit 12 refers to the parameter storage unit 21 and acquires an area to which the location of the host vehicle specified by the location determination unit 11 belongs. For this determination, the vehicle control device 1 is provided with map data in which a region and a position belonging to the region are stored in association with each other, and the map data is referred to by the selection unit 12 so that the vehicle is located. It is good also as acquiring.

  And the selection part 12 acquires the inter-vehicle parameter linked | related with the area where the own vehicle is located in the parameter memory | storage part 21. FIG. The selection unit 12 sends the acquired inter-vehicle parameter to the control unit 13.

  When the front vehicle traveling ahead of the host vehicle is stopped, the control unit 13 performs stop control of the host vehicle according to the inter-vehicle distance between the host vehicle and the front vehicle. The control unit 13 detects that the preceding vehicle is stopped based on the obstacle information of the radar sensor 4 and detects the inter-vehicle distance between the host vehicle and the preceding vehicle.

  The control unit 13 performs stop control of the host vehicle based on the inter-vehicle parameter selected by the selection unit 12. Specifically, when a vehicle stop condition for stopping the host vehicle is satisfied by stopping the vehicle in front of the host vehicle, the control unit 13 controls the vehicle of the host vehicle using the inter-vehicle parameter. To implement. The own vehicle stop condition may be satisfied when the distance between the stopped front vehicle and the own vehicle is equal to or less than a predetermined distance, and when the inter-vehicle time between the stopped front vehicle and the own vehicle is equal to or less than the predetermined time. May be satisfied.

  The control unit 13 performs deceleration control and stop control of the host vehicle so that the inter-vehicle distance between the stopped front vehicle and the host vehicle becomes the inter-vehicle distance indicated by the inter-vehicle parameter. The deceleration control and stop control of the host vehicle are realized by, for example, brake control by controlling the brake actuator and throttle control by controlling the throttle actuator.

  Then, with reference to FIG. 2, the control process in the vehicle control apparatus 1 is demonstrated. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a stop control process performed by the vehicle control device 1. The flowchart shown in FIG. 2 is implemented when vehicle control (driving support, automatic driving) by the vehicle control device 1 is started. The flowchart shown in FIG. 2 ends even when the vehicle control is canceled due to cancellation of driving assistance by the driver or the like.

  First, when vehicle control by the vehicle control device 1 is started, in step S1, the control unit 13 establishes a host vehicle stop condition that is a condition for performing stop control based on the obstacle information of the radar sensor 4. Determine whether or not. If it is determined that the host vehicle stop condition is satisfied, the process proceeds to step S2. If it is not determined that the host vehicle stop condition is satisfied, the current stop control process is terminated. Thereafter, step S1 is started again after a predetermined time has elapsed.

  In step S <b> 2, the control unit 13 performs stop control of the host vehicle using inter-vehicle parameters according to the area where the host vehicle is located. The inter-vehicle parameter is acquired in advance from the parameter storage unit 21 by the selection unit 12 based on the location position of the host vehicle identified by the location location identification unit 11 before the control process of step S <b> 2 is performed. Is given. This makes it possible to perform vehicle stop control based on the inter-vehicle parameters set for each region.

  In subsequent step S3, the control unit 13 determines whether a stop condition or an acceleration condition in the host vehicle is satisfied. If it is determined that the stop condition or the acceleration condition is satisfied, the process returns to step S1. If it is not determined that the stop condition or the acceleration condition is satisfied, the process returns to step S2 and the stop control is continued.

  That is, when the host vehicle stops, the control unit 13 determines that the stop condition is satisfied, ends the stop control of the host vehicle, and ends the current stop control process. Thereafter, step S1 is started again after a predetermined time has elapsed. On the other hand, when the vehicle changes to a situation in which the host vehicle should be accelerated due to the start of the preceding vehicle, the control unit 13 interrupts the stop control of the host vehicle, assuming that the acceleration condition is satisfied, and this stop control End the process. Thereafter, step S1 is started again after a predetermined time has elapsed.

  As described above, according to the vehicle control device 1 of the present embodiment, since the stop control of the host vehicle is performed based on the inter-vehicle parameters set for each region, it is possible to appropriately perform the stop control according to the region. it can. Thereby, since the own vehicle can be stopped at an appropriate stop distance in the area, smooth stop control suitable for the surrounding drivers in the area can be realized.

  The present invention has been described in detail based on the embodiments. However, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. The present invention can be variously modified without departing from the gist thereof.

  For example, on a road with two or more lanes on one side, when changing lanes between other vehicles traveling in adjacent lanes, the value of the distance (interval) between the other vehicle to be secured and the host vehicle may be changed depending on the region. Good. This makes it difficult for the drivers of other vehicles in the area to feel unreasonable and allows the host vehicle to run smoothly.

  Further, when the host vehicle turns right, it may be changed for each region how much time is allowed to collide with the oncoming vehicle and the right turn is started. As a result, the driver of other vehicles in the area does not seem unreasonable and enables smooth operation.

  Further, when traveling straight, turning right, or turning left at an intersection where there is no signal, it may be changed for each region by the amount of time that the vehicle can pass with other vehicles that may collide with each other. As a result, the driver of other vehicles in the area does not seem unreasonable and enables smooth operation.

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Vehicle control apparatus, 2 ... ECU, 3 ... GPS receiving part, 4 ... Radar sensor, 11 ... Location position specifying part, 12 ... Selection part, 13 ... Control part, 21 ... Parameter storage part.

Claims (1)

When a front vehicle ahead of the host vehicle is stopped, the vehicle control device performs stop control of the host vehicle according to an inter-vehicle distance between the host vehicle and the front vehicle.
A location identifying unit that identifies the location of the vehicle,
A parameter storage unit that stores an inter-vehicle parameter related to the inter-vehicle distance with the preceding vehicle at the time of stopping in association with an area set in advance in map information;
A selection unit that selects the inter-vehicle parameter associated with the region corresponding to the location of the host vehicle identified by the location determination unit;
A control unit that performs the stop control of the host vehicle with respect to the preceding vehicle based on the inter-vehicle parameter selected by the selection unit;
A vehicle control device comprising:

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