JP2021100841A - Vehicle display device - Google Patents

Abstract

To realize a vehicle display device which has a transparent display panel mounted on a transparent member of a vehicle and a control section of the display panel with improved reliability.SOLUTION: A vehicle display device 1 comprises a transparent display panel 2 which is mounted on a transparent member of a vehicle. A control section 4 which performs drive control of the display panel 2 is arranged at a place which is different from a place of a vehicle body component on which the transparent member of the vehicle is installed. The control section 4 is mounted on a portion which is different from a boundary between external air and a vehicle interior and cannot be moved so as to reduce an influence of dew condensate and vibration when an occupant gets in and out of the vehicle.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

The present invention relates to an in-vehicle display device that displays an image on a transparent member in a vehicle.

Conventionally, in the field of displays, a transparent display panel in which a functional layer including a light emitting layer is formed on a translucent substrate and has a transparent structure as a whole is known. Examples of the display panel having this type of display panel include those described in Patent Document 1.

The display panel described in Patent Document 1 is an organic light emitting diode in which a pair of translucent electrode layers and a light emitting layer arranged between the pair of electrode layers are formed on a translucent substrate. A display panel made of (OLED) is provided.

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2019-91640

In recent years, an in-vehicle display device in which such a display panel is mounted on a transparent member in a vehicle such as an automobile, for example, a windshield or a side window has been proposed. When this transparent display panel is mounted on a side window to form a side window display device, a drive circuit for driving the display panel and a control ECU (abbreviation of Electronic Control Unit) should be arranged on the door member. Is assumed.

However, in this case, it is necessary to secure a space for accommodating the side window and its drive unit in the door member in order to enable the vertical movement of the side window, but since the installation space of the control ECU is limited, the arrangement thereof. Is restricted. Further, when the control ECU is arranged on a vehicle body member that is supposed to be movable, such as a door member that is opened and closed by an occupant, there is a concern that the reliability of the control ECU with respect to vibration may be lowered. Furthermore, if the control ECU is placed on a member of the vehicle located at the boundary between the outside air and the passenger compartment, such as a door member, dew condensation may occur due to the temperature difference between the outside and the passenger compartment. You will need it. Further, when the space for mounting precision parts such as a control ECU such as a door member is limited, it is difficult to take measures against the above vibration and dew condensation.

In view of the above points, the present invention provides an in-vehicle display device in which a transparent display panel is mounted on a transparent member of a vehicle and the reliability of a control unit that controls the display of the display panel can be ensured. The purpose is.

In order to achieve the above object, the in-vehicle display device according to claim 1 is an in-vehicle display device (1) that displays an image on a transparent member (V11) of a vehicle, and is a translucent display panel (1). 2), a drive circuit (3) of the display panel, and a control unit (4) for inputting a video signal to the drive circuit are provided. The display panel is arranged so as to overlap the transparent member, and the drive circuit is a vehicle. Of these, the control unit is fixed to the vehicle body member (V12) to which the transparent member is attached, and the control unit is mounted on the immovable non-movable member located in a portion of the vehicle different from the boundary between the outside and the passenger compartment. ..

According to this, the control unit that executes the drive control of the display panel is at a position different from the boundary between the outside and the passenger compartment, and is different from the vehicle body member to which the display panel and the drive circuit are attached, and is not movable. It is an in-vehicle display device mounted on a non-movable member. By arranging the control unit at a position different from the boundary between the outside and the passenger compartment, the influence of dew condensation is suppressed, and by mounting the control unit on a non-movable member, the influence of vibration due to getting on and off the occupant is suppressed. Therefore, the reliability of the control unit is improved.

The reference reference numerals in parentheses attached to each component or the like indicate an example of the correspondence between the component or the like and the specific component or the like described in the embodiment described later.

It is explanatory drawing for demonstrating the configuration of the vehicle-mounted display device which concerns on embodiment. It is a block diagram which shows the structural example of the vehicle-mounted display device which concerns on embodiment. It is sectional drawing which shows the cross-sectional structure of the side window between III-III of FIG. It is a figure which shows an example of the image display area of a display panel. It is a figure which shows another example of the image display area of a display panel.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In each of the following embodiments, parts that are the same or equal to each other will be described with the same reference numerals.

(Embodiment)
The vehicle-mounted display device 1 according to the embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4B. As shown in FIG. 1, the in-vehicle display device 1 is preferably applied as a side window display device that displays an image superimposed on a transparent member in a vehicle such as an automobile, particularly a side window V11. In the present specification, the case where the side window display device is used will be described as a typical example, but the present invention is not limited to this example.

In FIG. 1, for convenience of explanation, the vertical directions on the paper are referred to as “up” and “down”, respectively, and these directions are indicated by arrows. The terms "upper" and "lower" in the present specification mean the directions shown in FIG. 1 unless otherwise specified. In FIG. 1, in order to make it easier to see, the portion of the side window V11, the drive circuit 3, the wiring 5, and the cable 6 that cannot be seen from the outside of the door member V1 is shown by a broken line, and the side window V11 is driven to move up and down. The equipment etc. are omitted. In FIGS. 1, 4A, and 4B, a part of the vehicle body member to which the display panel 2 is attached, for example, the door member V1, is omitted for easy viewing, and the outer shell of the display panel 2 is shown by a chain double-dashed line. Further, in FIGS. 4A and 4B, a cross section is not shown for easy viewing, but the image display area PA, which will be described later, is hatched.

Hereinafter, for convenience of explanation, a state in which the upper end of the side window V11 is in contact with the door member V1 as shown in FIG. 1 and there is no gap between them is referred to as a “fully closed state”. Further, the area of the side window V11 that can be seen from the outside in the fully closed state is referred to as a "visible area", and the area that cannot be seen from the outside is referred to as an "invisible area".

As shown in FIG. 1, the vehicle-mounted display device 1 includes a transparent display panel 2 which is superposed on the side window V11 of the door member V1 of the vehicle, a drive circuit 3, and a control unit 4. In the vehicle-mounted display device 1, the display panel 2 and its drive circuit 3 are mounted on the door member V1, and the control unit 4 connected to the drive circuit 3 is arranged at a position different from that of the door member V1.

The display panel 2 is a transparent display superimposed on the side window V11, and is, for example, an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display. The display panel 2 has a flexible configuration in which, for example, a TFT layer made of a plurality of thin film transistors (TFTs) and an OLED layer made of a plurality of OLED elements are laminated on an arbitrary film substrate that is translucent and flexible. It is said that.

The TFT layer includes a gate electrode, a gate insulating layer, a semiconductor layer, a source electrode, and a drain electrode, and a plurality of TFT elements whose current on / off can be controlled by adjusting the voltage of the gate electrode are repeatedly arranged in the plane direction. Become. The TFT layer is, for example, electrically connected to one of a pair of electrodes of the OLED element through a via hole provided in an interlayer insulating layer in which a drain electrode of the TFT element is arranged between the OLED layer and the TFT layer. , Used for drive control of OLED elements. In the OLED layer, for example, a hole injection layer, a hole transport layer, a light emitting layer, an electron transport layer, an electron injection layer, etc. are sequentially laminated between a pair of electrodes, and a voltage is applied between the pair of electrodes. As a result, a plurality of OLED elements that emit light are repeatedly arranged in the plane direction on the TFT layer. In the OLED layer, for example, a main pixel having three sub-pixels having different emission colors of red, green, and blue are repeatedly arranged along one direction in a plan view and an intersection direction intersecting the one direction. It becomes. The OLED layer is formed so as to cover the TFT layer formed on an arbitrary substrate, and is also covered with a sealing layer made of a material having a low water transmittance. Since the configurations of the OLED layer, the TFT layer, the sealing layer, the OLED display, and materials thereof are known, detailed description thereof will be omitted in the present specification. Further, the configuration of the OLED layer is not limited to the above-mentioned example, and any configuration can be adopted.

As shown in FIG. 3, the display panel 2 is arranged between two glass substrates V111 constituting the side window V11, and is optimally carbonized with an optical adhesive such as OCR (abbreviation of Optical Clear Resin) (not shown). ing. That is, when the side window V11 moves up and down by a drive device (not shown), the display panel 2 moves up and down together with the side window V11.

For example, as shown in FIG. 4A or FIG. 4B, the area of the display panel 2 in which the pixel group used for displaying the image is arranged is defined as the “image display area PA”, and the image display area PA is appropriately changed. .. The image display area PA may be of a size that occupies a part of the visible area of the side window V11, for example, as shown in FIG. 4A, or may be a size of the visible area of the side window V11, for example, as shown in FIG. 4B. It may be a size that occupies almost the entire area.

From the viewpoint of design, the display panel 2 has an end portion of the display panel 2 as shown in FIG. 1, even if the image display area PA is a part of the visible area (for example, half of the visible area). It is preferable that the plane size and arrangement are such that is located near the end of the visible area. Further, the area of the end portion of the side window V11 that can be seen by the occupant is defined as the "visible end portion", and the display panel 2 has a portion located near the visible end portion of the side window V11 from the same viewpoint. It is preferably in a folded state. This is to prevent deterioration of the appearance due to the conspicuous outer shell of the display panel 2 in addition to the visible end portion of the side window V11, and to improve the design. Even if the portion of the outer shell of the display panel 2 located near the visible end of the side window V11 is not bent, there is no problem in the display function or the like.

Further, when the display panel 2 is a transparent OLED display, it is preferable to arrange an arbitrary UV cut film on the outer surface of the side window V11 in order to reduce deterioration due to the influence of ultraviolet rays contained in sunlight. When the UV cut film is arranged, the wavelength range of the ultraviolet rays absorbed by the UV cut film may be only 360 nm or less, or 420 nm or less, and is appropriately changed.

In the display panel 2, for example, a terminal portion (not shown) connected to a TFT layer and an OLED layer (not shown) is formed in a portion of the side window V11 located in an invisible region, and an optional terminal portion such as an FPC or the like is formed in the terminal portion. Flexible wiring 5 is connected. The display panel 2 is connected to the drive circuit 3 via the wiring 5.

The wiring 5 is at least longer than the moving dimension of the side window V11 in the vertical movement. Further, the connection location and number of the wiring 5 are appropriately changed according to the arrangement and number of terminal portions (not shown) of the display panel 2.

The drive circuit 3 includes, for example, a drive IC in which a T-CON, a ROM, or a RAM is mounted on a circuit board (not shown) and outputs a drive signal corresponding to a video signal from the control unit 4 to the display panel 2. It is an electronic control unit. As shown in FIG. 1, for example, the drive circuit 3 is arranged and fixed in the accommodation space in which the side window V11 of the door member V1 is accommodated. The drive circuit 3 is connected to the control unit 4 by an arbitrary communication cable 6 such as an LVDS (abbreviation of Low Voltage Differential Signaling) cable for high-speed differential transmission, and a video signal or the like is transmitted from the control unit 4. Entered.

The length and routing of the cable 6 are appropriately changed according to the mounting position of the control unit 4, but when displaying an image having a short frame rate on the display panel 2, it is preferable to make the cable 6 as short as possible. Further, the number of cables 6 and the connection points in the drive circuit 3 are arbitrary.

As shown in FIG. 2, the control unit 4 is, for example, an electronic control unit constituting a microcomputer having a processor 41 and a memory 42, and is referred to as an HCU (abbreviation of HMI (Human Machine Interface) Control Unit). The control unit 4 is located at a position different from the boundary between the outside and the passenger compartment of the vehicle, and is a member different from the vehicle body member (for example, the door member V1) on which the display panel 2 is mounted, and is immovable and immovable. It is mounted on the member. This is to improve the reliability of the control unit 4 by arranging it in a non-movable portion such as the door member V1 where dew condensation does not occur due to the temperature difference between the outside air and the vehicle interior.

Examples of the non-movable member include an instrument panel and the like, but the non-movable member is not limited to the member as long as it is a member that does not easily cause a temperature difference from the outside air and is not moved or deformed by an occupant. In other words, the non-movable member is a vehicle body member whose shape, orientation, arrangement, etc. are not changed by the occupant.

As shown in FIG. 2, the control unit 4 is connected to an in-vehicle sensor 8, an in-vehicle device 9, and the like via an arbitrary in-vehicle network 7 in addition to the drive circuit 3. The control unit 4 inputs a video signal to the drive circuit 3 based on the output signal from the vehicle-mounted sensor 8 or the vehicle-mounted device 9 and the stored information of the memory 42, and various types such as display control and drive control of the display panel 2 are performed. The configuration is such that control can be executed.

The in-vehicle sensor 8 includes, but is not limited to, any sensor that can be mounted on the vehicle, such as a proximity sensor, a temperature sensor, an acceleration sensor, a gyro sensor, and a distance measuring sensor. Examples of the in-vehicle device 9 include various devices that can be mounted on a vehicle such as a navigation device, a car air conditioner, an in-vehicle camera, an arbitrary electronic device such as an audio device and a communication device, and an operation device such as a switch, a dial, a pedal and a touch pad. However, it is not limited to these. Further, the control unit 4 may be connected to at least one of the vehicle-mounted sensor 8 and the vehicle-mounted device 9, and may be configured to execute display control of the display panel 2 based on these output signals.

For example, when a user approaches a vehicle equipped with an in-vehicle display device 1, when a predetermined output signal is input from an in-vehicle sensor 8 such as a proximity sensor, the control unit 4 drives a drive circuit based on a predetermined program. Control is performed so that a video signal is output to 3 and a predetermined video is displayed on the display panel 2. In this way, in the control unit 4, various programs and data tables for displaying images on the display panel 2 are stored in the memory 42, and the processor 41 executes these various programs based on the output signal from the outside. It is configured to be performed.

The above is the basic configuration of the vehicle-mounted display device 1. That is, the in-vehicle display device 1 transmits a video signal to the display panel 2 mounted on the transparent member of the vehicle via the control unit 4 which is a part of the system that integrates various in-vehicle devices 9 mounted on the vehicle. Is input.

According to the present embodiment, the control unit 4 that controls the display of the display panel 2 is a portion of the vehicle that is different from the vehicle body parts on which the display panel 2 is mounted, and is not a boundary between the outside and the passenger compartment. Moreover, it is an in-vehicle display device 1 mounted on a non-movable member that is not movable. Therefore, in the vehicle-mounted display device 1, the degree of freedom in arranging the control unit 4 is increased, and the influence of vibration and dew condensation is reduced, so that the reliability of the control unit 4 is improved.

(Other embodiments)
Although the present invention has been described in accordance with Examples, it is understood that the present invention is not limited to the Examples and structures. The present invention also includes various modifications and modifications within a uniform range. In addition, various combinations and forms, as well as other combinations and forms including only one element thereof, more or less, are also within the scope and ideology of the present invention.

(1) For example, in the above embodiment, an example in which the control unit 4 is an HCU has been described, but the control unit 4 may have a configuration capable of executing drive control of the display panel 2, and is not limited to the HCU. It may be a control ECU.

(2) In the above embodiment, an example in which the display panel 2 is a transparent OLED display has been described, but any display may be translucent and may be a liquid crystal display as well as an OLED display.

Further, the example in which the display panel 2 is arranged between the two glass substrates V111 constituting the side window V11 has been described, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the display panel 2 may be attached to the surface of the side window V11 on the passenger compartment side. Good.

(3) In the above embodiment, the example in which the display panel 2 constitutes the side window display device superimposed on the side window V11 has been described, but the display panel 2 constitutes the rear window display device superimposed on the rear window. May be good. If the control unit 4 is placed in the vicinity of the mounted part of the vehicle to which the rear window is mounted, reliability may decrease due to dew condensation, but the control unit 4 should be mounted in a place different from the mounted part. Therefore, it becomes less susceptible to dew condensation and its reliability is improved.

The rear window may be blown by a defroster to prevent or eliminate fogging. Especially in winter, it is assumed that the air is blown at a high temperature, and in this case, the temperature of the display panel 2 rises. At this time, if the temperature rise in the display panel 2 as the OLED display is fed back to, for example, the control unit 4 to correct the current, the reliability of the control unit 4 is improved and the correction accuracy of the display panel 2 is improved. And reliability will be improved.

(4) The control unit 4 and its method described in the present disclosure are dedicated provided by configuring a processor and memory programmed to perform one or more functions embodied by a computer program. It may be realized by a computer. Alternatively, the control unit 4 and its method described in the present disclosure may be realized by a dedicated computer provided by configuring the processor with one or more dedicated hardware logic circuits. Alternatively, the control unit 4 and its method described in the present disclosure are a combination of a processor and memory programmed to execute one or more functions and a processor composed of one or more hardware logic circuits. It may be realized by one or more dedicated computers configured by. Further, the computer program may be stored in a computer-readable non-transitional tangible recording medium as an instruction executed by the computer.

1 In-vehicle display device 2 Display panel 3 Drive circuit 4 Control unit 41 Processor 42 Memory 8 In-vehicle sensor 9 In-vehicle device V11 Transparent member V111 Glass base material V12 Body member

Claims (5)

An in-vehicle display device (1) that displays an image on a transparent member (V11) of a vehicle.
Translucent display panel (2) and
The drive circuit (3) of the display panel and
A control unit (4) for inputting a video signal to the drive circuit is provided.
The display panel is arranged so as to overlap the transparent member.
The drive circuit is fixed to a vehicle body member (V12) to which the transparent member is attached in the vehicle.
The control unit is an in-vehicle display device that is located on a non-movable member that is located at a portion of the vehicle that is different from the boundary between the outside and the vehicle interior and is immovable. The transparent member is a side window.
The vehicle-mounted display device according to claim 1, wherein the vehicle body member is a door member. The vehicle-mounted display device according to claim 2, wherein the display panel is a flexible OLED display and is arranged between two glass substrates (V111) constituting the transparent member. The vehicle-mounted display device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the control unit is an HCU including a processor (41) and a memory (42). The control unit is connected to at least one of the vehicle-mounted sensor (8) and the vehicle-mounted device (9) mounted on the vehicle, and the display control of the display panel is based on the output signal from the vehicle-mounted sensor or the vehicle-mounted device. 4. The vehicle-mounted display device according to claim 4.

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