JP2544989Y2 - Beacon receiver - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a beacon receiver which can be carried into a vehicle and displays information necessary for driving assistance based on information obtained from a roadside beacon.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, roadside beacons for radiating radio waves containing various information from a beacon antenna to a relatively narrow area are arranged at predetermined distances in a road traffic network, and beacon reception for receiving radio waves radiated from a beacon antenna is known. Machine is being developed. The roadside beacon has a function of transmitting various types of traffic information in addition to a function of transmitting position data and road direction data. The transmitted traffic information includes road congestion, construction, and other road usage information around the area where the beacon antenna is installed, and facilities and houses around the area where the beacon antenna is installed. There are detailed map information including the location of personal information, personal names, and map information over a rather wide range including the location where the beacon antenna is installed.

On the other hand, recently, in order to assist the vehicle in traveling on unfamiliar land, a current position of the vehicle is detected based on outputs from a distance sensor and a direction sensor, and a road map including the detected current position of the vehicle is provided. Has been put to practical use, which reads out from a map memory and displays it on a display device. In such a navigation device, the current position of the vehicle displayed on the display device with the increase in the traveling distance greatly deviates from the actual position due to an error inherent in the vehicle speed sensor and the direction sensor. There is a possibility that it will. In addition, when traveling near a railway line or the like, a large error may occur in the direction sensor due to a magnetic effect.

Therefore, conventionally, a technique has been used in which a navigation device and a beacon receiver are combined, position data and road direction data radiated from a roadside beacon are taken into the navigation device, and the current position and direction of the vehicle are calibrated. I have. That is, the beacon receiver has a function of calibrating the navigation device. For this reason, it is often mounted on a vehicle in a form attached to a navigation device.

[0005] However, as described above, the beacon receiver can capture not only the position data and the road direction data but also the traffic information data. Therefore, the beacon receiver is useful even in a vehicle having no navigation device. Things. Therefore, there is a demand for a beacon receiver that can be easily brought into a vehicle without assuming that it is connected to a navigation device.

[0006]

By the way, as shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, a beacon antenna is installed beside a road by using an existing structure such as a signpost 50 or a lighting pole 60. Most of the time. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 6, a beacon antenna 52 that emits a radio wave including traffic information and the like is provided at a tip end of a signpost 50 or the like installed beside a road 51.
Radio waves radiated from the beacon antenna 52 are received by a beacon receiver mounted on a vehicle 53 running on a road.

[0007] Such a beacon antenna is installed not only on the general road 51 as shown in FIG. 6 but also on an elevated road as shown in FIG. That is, the beacon antenna 62 is provided at the tip of the lighting pole 60 or the like installed beside the elevated road 61. A radio wave radiated from the beacon antenna 62 is radiated into a range 66, and the radio wave is received by a beacon receiver mounted on a vehicle 63 running on an elevated road 61.

The radio wave radiated from the elevated road 61 includes identification data indicating that the radio wave is information relating to the elevated road 61 and traffic information data relating to the elevated road. By the way, the beacon antenna is installed on the side of the road, and the radio wave arrives diagonally from above. Is done. For this reason, when the vehicle 65 is traveling on the general road 64 running parallel to the elevated road 61, the radio wave radiated from the beacon antenna 62 installed on the elevated road 61 travels along the general road 64. Vehicle 65
May be received by the beacon receiver mounted on the vehicle. In this case, the display information in the vehicle 65 displays traffic information on the elevated road 61 and the like.

At this time, if the navigation device is mounted on the vehicle 65 traveling on the general road 64, the vehicle 65 can autonomously determine that the vehicle 65 is traveling on the general road 64. When the identification information indicating that the road is the elevated road 61 is included, the reception information can be prevented from being displayed on the display device. However, if the navigation device is not mounted on the vehicle 65, the received information is displayed on the display device as it is regardless of whether or not the received information relates to the elevated road 61.

Therefore, information irrelevant to the driver of the vehicle 65 is displayed. Although this is not so much a problem, the driver is not allowed to use the general road 6 even though the displayed information is the information of the elevated road 61.
There is a risk of misunderstanding that the information is No. 4, and in this case, there is a problem in the safety of running the vehicle. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to solve the above-described technical problem, and in a simple beacon receiver that can be brought into a vehicle, to be able to determine whether the received information is information on an elevated road, An object of the present invention is to provide a beacon receiver that can prevent misrecognition of information.

[0011]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a beacon receiver, comprising: identification information for distinguishing between information on an elevated road and information on a general road; A beacon receiver that receives information including information necessary for driving assistance from the roadside beacon and displays the information on the display means, based on the identification information, the received information is information on an elevated road or information on a general road. Determination means for determining whether there is any information, and notification means for notifying that the information displayed on the display means is information regarding the elevated road when the received information is determined to be information regarding the elevated road. It is a thing.

[0012] According to the above arrangement, whether the received information is information on an elevated road or information on a general road is determined by the determination means based on the identification signal included in the received information from the roadside beacon. Is determined. If it is determined that the received information is information on an elevated road, the notifying unit notifies that the information displayed by the display unit is information on the elevated road. Thus, the driver can determine whether or not the displayed information is information on an elevated road.

[0013] In the beacon receiver according to the second aspect, the display means can switch a display color between at least two colors, and the notification means responds to a result of the judgment by the judgment means. And control means for setting the display color of the display means. According to the above configuration, the display color of the display unit set by the control unit corresponds to the determination result as to whether or not the displayed information is information on an elevated road. Thus, it is possible to determine whether or not the displayed information is information relating to an elevated road, at a glance of the display means.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the beacon receiver, the display means can generate light by switching between a transmissive liquid crystal display element and at least two colors of light, and emit light from behind the liquid crystal display element. The control means sets the light color of the light source in accordance with the result of the judgment by the judgment means. According to the above configuration, light from a light source which constitutes a part of the display means and can be generated by switching at least two colors of light is emitted from behind the liquid crystal display element. At this time, the color of the light generated from the light source is set by the control unit, and corresponds to whether or not the displayed information is information on an elevated road. Thus, the above object can be achieved without major changes in the configuration of the beacon receiver.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an overall configuration of the beacon receiver according to one embodiment of the present invention. The beacon receiver 20 is a beacon receiver having a simple configuration used without being connected to an in-vehicle navigation device. Is provided with an operation switch group 3.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a state in which the beacon receiver 20 is arranged in a vehicle. This beacon receiver 20
Is used by being installed on a dashboard 31 in a vehicle compartment 30 with the display unit 2 facing the driver. FIG. 1 is a sectional view schematically showing the internal configuration of the beacon receiver 20.
A monochrome transmissive liquid crystal display element 4 that constitutes a part of the display unit 2 is provided on the front surface of the receiver body 1, and behind it, light emitted from a light emitting diode (LED) 5 is guided. In addition, a transparent plastic light guide plate 6 for irradiating the entire back surface of the liquid crystal display element 4 is built in. The light emitting diode 5 can switch between red and green light to emit light, and functions as a light source in this embodiment. The light emitting diode 5 and the liquid crystal display element 4 constitute a display means.

A receiving circuit 7 for receiving a signal from a receiving antenna 6 for receiving a radio wave radiated from a roadside beacon is provided inside the receiver main body 1. The receiver body 1 further includes an information processing unit 11 including an information processing circuit 9 and a control circuit 10 for processing information carried on the received radio waves. The information control circuit 9 functions as a determination unit in the present embodiment. Also, the control circuit 1
Reference numeral 0 denotes a circuit constituted by, for example, a microcomputer or the like, which functions as a control unit for controlling the emission color of the light emitting diode 5.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the electrical configuration of the beacon receiver 20. Information received by the receiving antenna 6 is input to the receiving circuit 7. Then, the information is processed by the information processing circuit 9, and the processed information is displayed on the liquid crystal display element 4. In the information processing circuit 9,
It is determined whether or not the received information is information on an elevated road, and the result of the determination is transmitted to the control circuit 10.
Then, based on the result of this determination, the control circuit 10 controls the light emission color of the light emitting diode 5.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the receiving operation of the beacon receiver 20. First, a radio wave radiated from the roadside beacon is received by the receiving antenna 6 and transmitted to the receiving circuit 7 (step S1). The signal that has undergone the demodulation processing and the like in the receiving circuit 7 is transmitted to the information processing circuit 9 and necessary information in the received information is selected (step S).
2). The necessary information is information selected by the driver by operating the switch group 3 (see FIG. 2) in advance, such as traffic information in the traveling direction of the vehicle or map information. Then, the information selected by the information processing circuit 9 is displayed on the liquid crystal display element 4 (Step S3).

On the other hand, the information processing circuit 9 determines whether the displayed information is information received from a roadside beacon installed on a general road or information received from a roadside beacon installed on an elevated road. Is determined (step S4). In this case, the factor to be determined is the identification data included in the information radiated from the elevated road. That is, the information radiated from the elevated road includes identification data indicating that the radiation information is information on the elevated road, and the determination in step S4 is made based on this.

Based on the result of this determination, the control circuit 10
Controls the emission color of the light emitting diode 5. In this case, the light emitting diode 5 causes the control circuit 10 to emit green light when information other than information on the elevated road is displayed.
The emission color is set. That is, as a result of the above determination, if identification data indicating that the information is information on an elevated road is not included, the light emitting diode 5 emits green light (step S5), and the light is guided to the light guide plate 6. The light is emitted from the rear surface of the liquid crystal display element 4 (step S7). That is, the display color is green.

On the other hand, if the identification data indicating that the information is related to an elevated road is included, the control circuit 10 causes the light emitting diode 5 to emit red light (step S6). Then, the light is guided to the light guide plate 6 and irradiated from the rear surface of the liquid crystal display element 4 (step S7). Therefore, at this time, the display color is red. As described above, in the beacon receiver of the present embodiment, when the displayed information is information on a general road, green light is emitted from behind the liquid crystal display element, and the information is on an elevated road. Is irradiated with red light. Therefore, the driver can determine at a glance whether the displayed information is information on a general road or information on an elevated road, depending on whether the display color is green or red. For this reason, the driver does not mistakenly recognize the information on the elevated road displayed during traveling on the general road as the information on the general road. Thereby, the safety at the time of running the vehicle can be improved. In addition, in this embodiment, the display is changed by using a light emitting element for supplying light from behind the liquid crystal display element, which is switchable between two light emitting colors. There is no need to significantly change the configuration. Further, in such a configuration, since a monochrome liquid crystal display element can be used, the object can be achieved with an inexpensive configuration.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. For example, in the above embodiment, a liquid crystal display element is used as the display means, but a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) may be used. In this case, for example, when the displayed information is information relating to an elevated road, a character, a symbol, a graphic, or the like indicating that the elevated road may be displayed on the CRT screen. Also, using a color CRT,
Depending on whether the displayed information is an elevated road,
The display color may be changed. This is the same when a color liquid crystal panel is used.

In the above embodiment, the light from the light emitting diode is guided to the light guide plate and irradiated from behind the liquid crystal display element.
The difference in the color of the light informs the driver whether or not the displayed information is information from an elevated road, but the information on the elevated road is provided by a light emitting diode provided separately from the liquid crystal display element. It may be displayed whether or not.

That is, for example, a green light emitting diode and a red light emitting diode are arranged outside the area where the liquid crystal display element is installed. For example, the green light emitting diode is turned on while displaying information on a general road, and the information is displayed during displaying information on an elevated road. May light a red light emitting diode. Alternatively, only the red light emitting diode may be provided, and the red light emitting diode may be turned on only during the display of information on the elevated road.

Further, in addition to the light emitting diode used in the above-described embodiment, the light emitting element for irradiating light from behind the liquid crystal display element includes a fluorescent tube or an electroluminescent (EL). An element that can emit two colors of light may be used. In the above embodiment, the driver is informed by the light emitted from the light emitting diode whether or not the displayed information is the information from the elevated road. You may. Also, the external shape of the beacon receiver may be such that an openable and closable display unit is provided on a base in addition to the one incorporated in an integral case.

In addition, various changes can be made without changing the gist of the present invention.

[0028]

As described above, according to the beacon receiver according to the first aspect of the present invention, it is notified by the notifying means that the received information relates to the elevated road, so that the information displayed on the display means is elevated. It can be easily determined whether or not the information is related to roads. This eliminates erroneous recognition of information, so that safety in running the vehicle can be improved.

Further, according to the beacon receiver according to the second aspect, the display color of the display means is switched, and the above-mentioned notification is performed. Can be determined at a glance. further,
According to the beacon receiver according to the third aspect, the above notification can be performed by controlling the color of light emitted from the light source that emits light from behind the liquid crystal display element, so that the configuration of the conventional beacon receiver is greatly changed. No need. Thus, the object can be achieved with an inexpensive configuration.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view illustrating an internal configuration of a beacon receiver according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view illustrating an overall configuration of a beacon receiver.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a state in which a beacon receiver is installed in a vehicle.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an electrical configuration of a beacon receiver.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an operation of the beacon receiver.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an installation state of a roadside beacon.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an installation state of a roadside beacon installed on an elevated road.

[Description of Signs] 4 Liquid crystal display element 5 Light emitting diode 6 Light guide plate 9 Information processing circuit 10 Control circuit

Claims (3)

(57) [Scope of request for utility model registration] An information including identification information for distinguishing whether it is information on an elevated road or information on a general road and information necessary for driving assistance is received from a roadside beacon and displayed on a display means. A beacon receiver, based on the identification information, determining whether the received information is information on an elevated road or information on a general road, and determining that the received information is information on an elevated road. And a notifying means for notifying that the information displayed on the display means is information on an elevated road. 2. The display means is capable of switching a display color between at least two colors. The notifying means responds to a result of the judgment by the judging means.
The beacon receiver according to claim 1, further comprising control means for setting a display color of said display means. 3. The control means includes a transmissive liquid crystal display element and a light source capable of switching and generating light of at least two colors and irradiating light from behind the liquid crystal display element. The means corresponds to the determination result of the determination means,
3. The beacon receiver according to claim 2, wherein the light emission color of said light source is set.