JP3278330B2 - Navigation device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a navigation device which displays the position of a vehicle on a map, transmits and receives position information to and from other devices, and can also display position information of other devices.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, navigation devices for vehicles have been developed.
In addition to the basic function of displaying a map around the position of the own vehicle, communication means for communicating with other vehicles is provided, and the position of other vehicles can be confirmed by displaying the position of other vehicles on the map. ing. Equipped with a map display function centered on other vehicles or a map display function that automatically adjusted the display scale and display center position of the map so that both the own vehicle and the other vehicle fit within the display screen,
It is devised so that the position of another vehicle can be easily confirmed.

FIG. 4 shows an example of such a navigation device. The speed and direction of the vehicle are detected by a speed sensor 101 and a direction sensor 102, respectively, and the position of the vehicle is detected by a GPS receiver 103. The vehicle position calculation unit 105 performs calculation for displaying the current position on the map read from the map storage unit 104 based on the detected vehicle speed, azimuth, and own position. When various input operations such as enlargement / reduction of a map, scrolling, and calling of a map by search are performed from the input operation unit 106, the map display control unit 107 performs map display control according to the input operation, and the map display unit 108 displays the map on the display unit 109. Display map and own vehicle. The other-vehicle communication unit 110 periodically performs transmission and reception of position information and the like with a navigation device mounted on another vehicle,
The position information is passed to the map display control unit 107, and the map screen displayed on the display unit 109 is switched to a screen centered on another vehicle.

[0004]

However, the above conventional navigation device only displays the position of the other vehicle on the screen, and the user cannot know the positional relationship between the own vehicle and the other vehicle unless the user looks at the screen. However, there is a problem in that the user frequently checks the screen, for example, when constantly monitoring the positional relationship between another vehicle and the own vehicle, and when the user is a driver, driving safety is reduced and fatigue is increased. For example,
If you are traveling with multiple cars with friends, you want to always monitor the position of other cars, but if a car came out of the group,
In addition, only when approaching a separated car (or a waiting car), it is sufficient to confirm the position of the other vehicle in detail, and it is not necessary to constantly monitor the position of the other vehicle by looking at the screen.

An object of the present invention is to solve such a conventional problem, and an object of the present invention is to provide an excellent navigation device which can easily inform a user of a positional relationship between a host vehicle and another vehicle. .

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention comprises a positional relationship output means for outputting a warning in accordance with the distance between the own vehicle and another vehicle, wherein the distance between the vehicles is within a predetermined range.
A warning is output when it is determined that the object has moved from the outside to the inside .

[0007]

Therefore, according to the present invention, it is determined that the inter-vehicle distance between the own vehicle and another vehicle has moved from outside the predetermined range to inside.
By outputting a warning at times, a rough timing for confirming the position of the other vehicle in detail is transmitted to the user, and the frequency of monitoring the positional relationship between the own vehicle and the other vehicle is reduced.
The position of the other car in detail only when the car that separated from the group came out
Has only to be confirmed, so that there is an effect that safety can be improved.

[0008]

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 101 is a speed sensor for detecting the speed of a vehicle equipped with a navigation device, 102 is a direction sensor for detecting the direction of the vehicle, and 103 receives radio waves from GPS satellites and outputs positioning information indicating the reception position. GP
S receiver; 104, a map storage unit that outputs map information stored in a CD-ROM or the like; 105, a calculation for representing on a map the current position measured based on the vehicle speed, the vehicle direction, the received position, and the map information Vehicle position calculation unit that performs
Reference numeral 06 denotes an input operation unit for performing various input operations such as enlargement / reduction of a map, scrolling, and calling of a map by searching; 107, a map display control unit for controlling a display map; 108, map information from the map storage unit 104; A map display unit for displaying a map at the display center and display scale set by the map display control unit 107; a display unit 109 such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) for displaying map information from the map display unit 108 on a screen; 111 is another car communication unit which periodically transmits and receives position information and the like to and from a navigation device mounted on another car, 111
Is an inter-vehicle distance determining unit that obtains an inter-vehicle distance between the two vehicles from the received other vehicle position and the own vehicle position calculated by the vehicle position calculating unit 105, and outputs a sound signal to the speaker 112 when the value satisfies a predetermined condition. It is.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be described. In the above embodiment, first, an operation for displaying a map around the current position of a normally used vehicle will be described. The vehicle position calculation unit 105 calculates the current position based on the vehicle speed from the speed sensor 101, the vehicle direction from the direction sensor 102, the positioning information from the GPS receiver 103, and the map information from the map storage unit 104. The vehicle position information from the vehicle position calculation unit 105 and the map display information indicating the display scale designated by the input operation unit 106 are sent to the map display unit 108 through the map display control unit 107, and the map display unit 108 The map information is extracted from the map storage unit 104 according to the information, and a screen signal is sent to the display unit 109 to be displayed on the screen.

Next, the operation for monitoring the position of another vehicle will be described with reference to FIGS. As shown in FIG. 2, when the own vehicle 201 constantly monitors the position of the other vehicle 202, the current position P _{1 of the} other vehicle 202 on the road 203 periodically acquired by the other vehicle communication unit 110 through the mobile phone line. Is output to the map display control unit 107, and a map is displayed around the other vehicle 202, so that the user can be notified of the location of the other vehicle 202. If you only want to check if there is a car that is out of the group or if the separated car has reached the vicinity of your car, such as when traveling with multiple cars with friends, the user needs to use the input operation unit in advance. A warning sound boundary radius D for setting the warning sound boundary 204 is input through 106. The inter-vehicle distance determination unit 111 causes the speaker 112 to output a warning sound when the other vehicle 202 crosses the warning sound boundary 204.
It is sufficient to switch to the map display centered on 02, and the frequency of gaze at the screen for confirming the position of another vehicle is reduced, so that fatigue of the user can be reduced and driving safety can be improved.

Next, a method of determining the warning sound output by the following distance determination section 111 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First,
After performing the initial setting (step 301), the other vehicle communication unit 1
Each time the current position P ₁ of the other vehicle 202 is obtained in 10 (step 302), obtains the inter-vehicle distance d between the current position P ₀ of the subject vehicle 201 (step 303). If the current position P ₁ ′ of the other vehicle 202 received last time is inside the warning sound boundary 204 and the current position P ₁ this time is outside the warning sound boundary 204 (step 306), the other vehicle 202 It is determined that the player has escaped outside the warning sound boundary 204, and a warning sound for escape is output (step 307). Further, the current position P ₁ ′ of the other vehicle 202 received last time is outside the warning sound boundary 204, and the current position P _{1 of} this time is the warning sound boundary 2
04 (step 309), the other vehicle 2
02 is determined to have entered the inside of the warning sound boundary 204, and an intrusion warning sound different from the escape sound is output (step 310). At this time, if the other vehicle 202 is traveling near the warning sound boundary 204, unnecessary rush warning sounds and escape warning sounds are frequently output alternately and are noisy. The next warning sound is not output until the inter-vehicle distance d has changed by the predetermined value α or more (steps 304 and 305). By performing the above process for each vehicle, a plurality of vehicles can be monitored simultaneously.

In the above-described embodiment, the warning sound boundaries 204 for the escape determination and the rush determination are common, but they may be individually set, and a more detailed warning may be issued. Further, either the escape determination or the rush determination may be performed.

[0013]

As is apparent from the above embodiment, the present invention has a positional relation output means for outputting a warning in accordance with the distance between the own vehicle and another vehicle, and the distance between the vehicles is set outside the predetermined range.
Just output a warning when it is determined that
Is judged to have moved from outside the specified range to the inside
In this case, a warning is also output, and it is possible to easily know whether another vehicle enters or leaves a predetermined range of the own vehicle. Therefore, when it is desired to check whether or not another vehicle is around the own vehicle, the frequency of watching the display screen can be reduced, which has the effect of reducing fatigue of the user and improving driving safety.

Further, according to the present invention, when a warning is output once,
As long as the inter-vehicle distance does not change more than the predetermined value,
It is obtained by so as to stop the output, when the other vehicle is also such that out slightly several times border <br/> field warning, has the effect of preventing <br/> output of unnecessary alerts.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a navigation device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a positional relationship between the own vehicle and another vehicle in the device.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing processing of an inter-vehicle distance determination unit in the apparatus.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a conventional navigation device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 101 Speed sensor 102 Direction sensor 103 GPS receiver 104 Map storage unit 105 Vehicle position calculation unit 106 Input operation unit 107 Map display control unit 108 Map display unit 109 Display unit 110 Other vehicle communication unit 111 Inter-vehicle distance determination unit 112 Speaker

────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of front page (56) References JP-A-60-107200 (JP, A) JP-A-6-325299 (JP, A) JP-A-6-247244 (JP, A) JP-A-6-247244 320983 (JP, A) JP-A-6-150195 (JP, A) JP-A-6-282795 (JP, A) JP-A-7-212824 (JP, A) JP-A-58-223015 (JP, A) JP-A-60-191399 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G08G 1/00-1/16 G01C 21/00

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A vehicle position calculating means for calculating position information indicating a position of a host vehicle, a map storage means for storing map information in advance, and a position information obtained by the position calculating means for the host vehicle as a map together with the map information. Display means for displaying on the screen, other vehicle communication means for receiving position information from another vehicle, position information of the other vehicle received by the other vehicle communication means, and the position of the own vehicle calculated by the own vehicle position calculation means And a positional relationship output means for calculating a distance between the two vehicles from the information and outputting a predetermined warning, wherein the positional relation output means has determined that the distance between the vehicles has moved from inside to outside of a predetermined range. The navigation device outputs the predetermined warning at the time. 2. The system according to claim 1, wherein, when the positional relationship output means outputs a warning once, the output of the next warning is stopped while the inter-vehicle distance does not change by a predetermined value or more. Navigation device.