JP2602821B2 - Vehicle navigation system - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a navigation device capable of outputting information on an intersection on a predetermined route.

[Prior art]

In a conventional navigation device, for example,
As disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 58-144710 or Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 60-202307, it is detected that the distance between the current position of the vehicle and the intersection has approached a predetermined distance, and the vehicle travels in the direction of travel of the intersection. Such information is notified to the driver by voice or display.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

However, in such a conventional navigation device that notifies the traveling direction of the vehicle at the intersection only at a predetermined distance before the intersection, information on the intersection cannot be obtained until the vehicle approaches a specific range of the intersection. While traveling on a road with a large number of lanes, it is not known which lane should be used to turn right and left at the intersection smoothly, and even when the road is congested, If you drive, you must drive with anxiety about whether you can make a right or left turn at the next intersection. There are few cases where you can not actually make a right or left turn, and there is a problem that you are confused in the subsequent processing. Furthermore, even when turning right and left at an intersection and turning right and left again at the next intersection, information on the next intersection is not obtained, not only panicing the driver but also missing the timing of turning right and left There is also. Therefore, the present invention solves the above-mentioned problems, and after turning right or left at an intersection, by notifying the information about the next intersection and a junction by voice, the driver can deal with the next intersection with ease. An object of the present invention is to provide a vehicular navigation device capable of reducing a burden on a driver and improving driving safety. [Means for Solving the Problems] To solve the above problems, predetermined map information is displayed on the display means, and the vehicle travels a predetermined distance before an intersection to be guided on a preset route. A distance sensor (3) for detecting a traveling distance of a vehicle and generating a distance signal in a vehicle navigation device for guiding a direction.
An azimuth sensor for detecting the traveling azimuth of the vehicle to generate an azimuth signal; (2) an arithmetic processing means for calculating the current position from the distance signal from the distance sensor and the azimuth signal from the azimuth sensor (step 102) A storage means (RAM9) for storing information on traveling including at least information on the intersections to be guided on the route and the traveling directions between the intersections to be guided and information on the distance between the intersections to be guided; Determining means (step 104) for determining whether the vehicle has turned at an intersection to be guided on the set route;
When the determining means determines that the vehicle has turned at an intersection to be guided on a preset route, information on traveling after the intersection has been turned is read from the storage means to advance the next intersection to be guided. Voice output means (step 105) for outputting voice information of the direction and the distance to the intersection. [Operation and Effect of the Invention] According to the present invention, a vehicle that displays predetermined map information on a display unit and guides the traveling direction of a vehicle at a predetermined distance before an intersection to be guided on a preset route. When the navigation device determines that the user has made a right or left turn at the intersection, at least the traveling direction information and the distance information of the vehicle at the next intersection to be guided, for example, "Next is 5K
The guidance information such as "m is to the right" is read from the storage means and notified by voice. With this, the present invention detects that the vehicle has turned at an intersection to be guided on a preset route, and immediately detects the next. As the information on the traveling of the vehicle, the information of the traveling direction and the distance information are notified by voice, so that the information of the current position of the vehicle can be confirmed by, for example, looking at the map displayed on the display device, and then the guidance required Information on the direction of travel at the intersection and the distance to the intersection can be confirmed by voice, and whether the intersection or the junction on the predetermined route that requires the next guidance is short or long. Psychological preparation for progress at the next predetermined intersection, that is, there is a turning point and you must be careful, or there is no place to turn right or left for a while and drive slowly Psychological preparations such as whether to be able to cut, giving the driver a psychological margin and improving the driving safety.If the distance to the next predetermined intersection is long, the driver As described above, not only has a psychological margin, but also confirms that there is no right or left turn for a while, so that it is possible to concentrate on driving without, for example, sequentially confirming a point to be turned on a map. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of a vehicle navigation device according to the present invention, wherein 1 is a map storage device, 2 is a direction sensor, 3 Is a distance sensor, 4 is a switch,
5 is a touch panel, 6 is an input interface, 7 is an internal bus, 8 is a CPU, 9 is RAM, 10 is ROM, 11 is an output interface, 12 is a CRT, 13 is a voice synthesizer, 14 is an amplifier, and 15 is a speaker. . In the figure, a map storage device 1 in which map data is stored is composed of a video disk, a video tape, a CDROM, or the like. If necessary, map data of a specific area is read out and displayed on the CRT 12. The azimuth sensor 2 detects terrestrial magnetism and a steering angle corresponding to the traveling azimuth of the vehicle, for example, and generates azimuth data. The distance sensor 3 detects, for example, the number of rotations of a wheel and generates distance data for each unit distance. The azimuth sensor 2 and the distance sensor 3 detect the moving distance and moving direction from the starting point to calculate the current position of the vehicle.
The switch 4 and the touch panel 5 are operated by a driver to input data such as a destination input, a map enlargement input, and the like. With this operation, the destination and the current position of the vehicle are input to the RAM 9 at the start of navigation. Also RAM9
Stores intersection data on a route to a destination as described later. The touch panel 5 is, for example, a CRT 12
Is operated on a specific touch area among the divided touch areas, and a signal corresponding to the operation is generated. The input interface 6 is a signal conversion device for sending an input from each sensor, storage device, switch, etc. to the internal bus 7. A program for inputting / outputting various data via the input interface 6, the output interface 11, and the internal bus 7 and a data processing is input to the ROM 10, and is executed by the CPU 8. The voice synthesizing circuit 13 receives a signal from the output interface 11 that outputs information on traveling such as next intersection information or information between intersections, synthesizes voice, and outputs the next intersection information or the intersection from the speaker 15 via the amplifier 14. The driver is notified of information on traveling, such as information during the driving. Similarly, upon receiving a signal from the output interface 11 that outputs information on traveling, the CR
The information is displayed on T12 to notify the driver. Next, the outline of the navigation processing according to the present invention will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. In the figure, in step 101, the azimuth data from the azimuth sensor 2 and the distance data from the distance sensor 3 are read, and then the current position is calculated (step 102). In step 103, select and set the intersection where the vehicle is traveling,
In step 104, it is determined whether or not the intersection has been turned based on the data obtained from the direction sensor 2, and YES
If it is, the process proceeds to step 105, and the information of the next intersection is notified by voice at the time of traveling a predetermined distance after the detection of right / left turn. If NO, the process returns to step 101. In this case, the information of the next intersection is notified to the driver, for example, "Next is a right (left) turn at XX km." Next, a detailed flow of the navigation processing when a steering angle sensor is used as the direction sensor and a wheel rotation counter is used as the distance sensor will be described with reference to FIGS. Figure 3 is a diagram showing a state of the i-th and (i + 1) -th intersection to turn on the route, d _i is the intersection between the distance on the route, D ₀ is a predetermined distance on the route from the i-th intersection,
D ₁ is a predetermined distance on the route from i + 1 th intersection. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the contents of the stored intersection data, the intersection number to the destination, the distance on the route to the next intersection, information on right / left turn (straight means straight ahead), right / left turn rudder. Each corner is stored. For example, information on right / left turn at the next intersection that requires guidance, such as "Next is right (left) turn at XX km ahead", intersection name, intersection shape, intersection features, For example, data which is the basis of notification information by voice or display, such as information indicating that the vehicle is traveling straight ahead (roadway) over XX km or distance information or the like up to the next intersection is stored. In this embodiment, the intersection information and the information up to the intersection are configured to be notified by voice or display, but the intersection name, the distance to the intersection, right / left turn information, and straight ahead information are notified by voice, and the intersection shape, The intersection feature information may be configured to be used in combination so as to be notified by display. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the relationship between a right (or left) turn and a change in the steering angle, in which the steering angle becomes a predetermined angle α _i or more (or −α _i or less) in the right (or left) direction, and then α ₀ or less. When it becomes (or −α ₀ or more), it is determined that the user has turned right (or left). FIG. 6 is a detailed diagram of the navigation processing flow. In the figure, navigation processing is started from a start step 200, and first, an intersection number is set to 0 (step 201). In step 202, it is determined whether or not the intersection number is equal to the number of intersections n to the destination. If the intersection number is equal to or more than n, it means that all the intersections on the route have been passed, and the navigation processing is END (step 203). ). When the intersection number is smaller than n,
For example, when the vehicle is at the ith intersection in FIG. 3, the rotation speed counter is reset, and the rotation speed is read thereafter (steps 204 and 205). Then, by multiplying the coefficient to calculate the travel distance to the rotational speed, travel distance to determine whether greater than the predetermined distance D _o from the i-th intersection (step 206, 207), the distance D _o
Returning to step 205 when it does not reach the distance D when the above _o proceeds to step 208, the distance to the next intersection [delta] = d _i -D
_The driver is notified of the information of _o and right / left turns by voice. This _Do
Is set as appropriate, the notification timing is selected as appropriate immediately after turning right or left, or earlier. Next, in step 209,
Along with reading the distance by the rotation counter, the detected steering angle is read. Next, the traveling distance is calculated (step 21).
0), the travel distance is the distance obtained by subtracting a predetermined distance D ₁ of the from the intersection from the distance d _i to i + 1 th intersection (d _i -D ₁₎ to determine whether a smaller (step 211), the smaller step returning to 209, continuing to read the distance and the steering angle, it is determined to have reached within a predetermined distance D ₁ up to greater if i + 1 th intersection, to detect the right or left turn at step 212-214.
That is, the absolute value of the steering angle to determine whether greater than a predetermined angle alpha _i (step 212), continue to read the distance and the steering angle returns to the step 209 is smaller, larger if reads steering angle (step 213), It is determined whether the steering angle has returned within α ₀ (step 214). alpha ₀ when greater than reads the steering angle (step 213), if the back within alpha _0, determines that the vehicle has turned at an intersection as shown in FIG. 5, the intersection number, the one obtained by adding intersection number After setting, the process returns to step 202, and the same processing is performed thereafter. In the above-described embodiment, the description has been given of turning right and left at an intersection. However, even if the turning is not right or left, for example, a characteristic intersection or a branch point on a route such as passing through an intersection immediately after exiting an expressway may be used. The next intersection information to be notified after turning right or left may be targeted for passing, and the right / left turning information and the distance to the intersection have been described. However, it is needless to say that the present invention is not limited to this. It is possible to appropriately select the shape, heading direction, and other characteristics of the intersection, etc. The number of times of notification is not limited to once after turning right or left, but also several times every time a given distance is traveled in order to call attention. It is also possible to repeat the sound, and the sound to be informed may be appropriately changed in sound quality such as a male voice for a right turn and a female voice for a left turn. Further, in some cases, the next intersection information may be provided to the driver by combining the image data with the image data on the next intersection, and providing a visual display and a sound notification. As described above, the vehicle navigation device of the present invention includes:
By detecting whether or not the vehicle has turned at an intersection on a preset route, if it is determined that the vehicle has turned, intersection information at the next intersection on the route, for example, intersection right / left turn information, intersection name, intersection shape, Information such as intersection feature information or information up to the next intersection, for example, distance information to the intersection, route information such as "The road is more than XX km" can be obtained early by the notification means,
The driver can deal with the next intersection with ease. For example, the lane change can be made earlier according to the right / left turn information even while traveling on a road with a large number of lanes, so that the intersection can be turned right or left without panic near the intersection. Also, in the case of turning right and left at the next intersection after turning right and left at an intersection, since the information of the next intersection is notified after turning right and left, it is possible to improve the driving safety without causing the driver to panic. . Furthermore, even if the road on which the vehicle is traveling is congested, it is possible to know in advance which lane should be used to make a right or left turn at the next intersection. It is possible to improve.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining an embodiment of a vehicle navigation device according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a navigation processing flow of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a curve on a route. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the state of the intersection, FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the contents of the stored intersection data, FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the relationship between turning right and left and a change in the steering angle, FIG. It is a figure for explaining a navigation processing flow when a distance sensor is used as a rotation number counter. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Map storage device, 2 ... Orientation sensor, 3 ... Distance sensor, 4 ... Switch, 5 ... Touch panel, 6 ... Input interface, 7 ... Internal bus, 8 ... CPU, 9
…… RAM, 10 …… ROM, 11 …… Output interface, 12
…… CRT, 13 …… Speech synthesizer, 14 …… Amplifier, 15 ……
speaker.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-62-88100 (JP, A) JP-A-61-49300 (JP, A) JP-A-61-20199 (JP, A)

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A vehicular navigation apparatus for displaying predetermined map information on a display means and providing guidance in a traveling direction of a vehicle at a predetermined distance before an intersection to be guided on a predetermined route. A distance sensor (3) for detecting a distance to generate a distance signal; a direction sensor for detecting a traveling direction of the vehicle and generating a direction signal; and (2); a distance signal from the distance sensor and a direction from the direction sensor. Arithmetic processing means for calculating the current position from the signal (step 10
2); storage means (RAM9) for storing information on traveling including at least the information on the traveling direction and the distance between the intersections to be guided on the route and the intersections to be guided on the route; Judgment means for judging whether the vehicle has turned at an intersection to be guided on the route (step 10)
4) and, when the determining means determines that the vehicle has turned at an intersection to be guided on a preset route, reads information on traveling after turning at the intersection from the storage means, and reads at least the following information. A vehicle navigation apparatus comprising: a voice output unit (step 105) for outputting voice information of a traveling direction of an intersection to be guided and a distance to the intersection.