JP3352464B2 - Traffic information 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 traffic information receiving apparatus for receiving traffic information such as traffic congestion information and parking lot information emitted from a transmitting station as radio signals and providing necessary traffic information to a driver.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a specific radio wave called a beacon radio wave or an FM broadcast radio wave emitted from a traffic information transmitting station provided for providing traffic information is used to cover a service area where these radio waves reach. Implementation of a traffic information service that provides traffic information such as road congestion information, accident information, and parking lot information to running vehicles has been planned and is being implemented.

[0003] The traffic information system as described above belongs to the category of a mobile communication system for transmitting and receiving data between a fixed station and a mobile station. It is well known that data to be transmitted is stored in a storage device on the mobile body side, and necessary information is extracted from the information stored in the storage device on the mobile body and used.
No. 4).

[0004]

By the way, when the data communication system in the above-mentioned conventional mobile communication system is applied to a traffic information communication system, a traffic information transmission station, which is a fixed station, naturally receives a service that the radio wave reaches. All the information that can be used in the area is emitted as a radio signal, and all the traffic information transmitted from the traffic information transmitting station is stored in the storage device of the vehicle, which is a mobile body. When using the traffic information, the driver of the vehicle extracts necessary information from the information stored in the storage device of the vehicle and uses it.

[0005] However, the information required by the driver is generally limited to a small number of traffic information such as traffic congestion information and parking lot information related to the route on which the driver is traveling. There is a problem that it takes time to find and extract traffic information required by a driver from among many traffic information provided by a fixed station having a wide service area such as an FM broadcasting station.

An object of the present invention is to provide a traffic information receiving apparatus which enables a driver to easily retrieve desired traffic information in a short time.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an operation means for receiving traffic information, a traffic information receiving means for receiving traffic information which is divided into items and is emitted from a transmitting station as a radio signal, and this traffic information receiving means. A traffic information receiving apparatus comprising: a storage unit for storing the traffic information received by the information receiving unit for each of the items; and an output unit for outputting the traffic information by an output operation of the operation unit. During the output operation, only the information name of each item of traffic information is sequentially output from the storage means to the output means, and these are output as voices from the speaker. During the first output operation, the operation means When the output operation is performed, the control means causes the traffic information corresponding to the item being output at that time to be output from the storage means to the output means, and to output this from the speaker as audio. The is characterized in that it comprises. In the traffic information receiving device, when the control means performs the second output operation during the first output operation, only the traffic information corresponding to the item output at that time is output. Is output from the storage means to the output means, or the traffic information corresponding to the item being output at that time and the traffic information of the subsequent items are output from the storage means to the output means. It may be as follows. Further, in the traffic information receiving apparatus, the control means may store only the information name of a designated item among the plurality of traffic information items at the time of the first output operation of the operation means from the storage means to the output means. May be output.

[0008]

The storage means stores the traffic information classified by item, emitted from the transmitting station as a radio signal, and received by the traffic information receiving means for each item. Then, at the time of the first output operation of the operation means, the control means causes only the information name of each item of the traffic information to be sequentially output from the storage means to the output means according to the designation, and outputs these from the speaker. Output as audio. Further, the control means includes:
When the second output operation is performed on the operation means during the first output operation, traffic information including traffic information corresponding to the item being output at that time, and the traffic information corresponding to the item being output at that time. Only the traffic information or the traffic information corresponding to the item at that time and the traffic information of the subsequent items are output from the storage means to the output means, and are output from the speaker as voice.

[0009]

According to the present invention, the items of traffic information that are stored separately for each item are selected and necessary traffic information is output by voice, so that the driver can easily obtain desired traffic information in a short time. Can be taken out. That is, it is possible to obtain only desired traffic information.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 shows the configuration of an embodiment of the traffic information receiving apparatus according to the present invention.

The traffic information receiving apparatus shown in FIG. 1 includes data and a control signal in a band which is not currently used as a subcarrier of an FM broadcast wave of an FM multiplex broadcast, and a binary signal of the data and the control signal is integrated. It is used in a system that carries a traffic information signal as a set of packets and uses FM broadcast radio waves transmitted from an FM broadcast station together with an FM voice multiplex signal including left and right voice signals. The traffic information is divided into items and emitted from FM broadcast stations as FM broadcast radio waves.

The traffic information receiving apparatus includes an on-vehicle FM multiplex receiving apparatus 1 and an FM multiplex receiving apparatus 1
A packet decoder 2 for extracting the packet from the broadcast wave, a controller 3 for controlling the entire apparatus, and a traffic information memory R for storing traffic information output from the packet decoder 2 under the control of the controller 3 for each item
AM4, a voice synthesizing device 6 for converting traffic information extracted from the traffic information memory RAM 4 via the controller 3 into a voice signal, left and right voice signals from the FM multiplex receiving device 1 and traffic from the voice synthesizing device 6. It comprises a selector 7 for switching information and information, an amplifier (AMP) 8 for amplifying the audio signal output of the selector 7 and a speaker 9.

The output of the auto-skip switch 11 and the output of the operation switch 12 are input to the controller 3. As shown in FIG. 3, the controller 3 has a header portion for identifying traffic information at the top, and stores the traffic information in the traffic information memory RAM 4 in a pattern in which the traffic information is arranged following the header portion. Remember.

On the other hand, when the auto-skip switch 11 is turned on, the controller 3 skips the traffic information following the header portion, and stores only the information name corresponding to the header from the traffic information memory RAM 4 as shown in FIG. The output is made to the speech synthesizer 6. When the driver turns off the auto-skip switch 11 when the traffic information item desired by the driver is heard as a voice in this state, as shown in FIG. The traffic information memory RAM 4 stores only the traffic information corresponding to the item output from 6 or the items and traffic information following the traffic information corresponding to the item at that time.
To output means.

A switching signal controlled by the operation of the operation switch 12 is sent from the controller 3 to the selector 7.
Output to As described above, the selector 7 switches between the left and right voice signals from the FM multiplex receiving device 1 and the traffic information from the voice synthesizing device 6 according to the switching signal.

The controller 3 may also control devices 13 such as a compact disk player and a cassette deck.

Next, the operation of the traffic information receiving apparatus of FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the flow of FIG.

The control program of the controller 3 of the traffic information receiving apparatus is started, and in step S1, the driver operates the operation switch 12 so that the traffic information, for example, the traffic congestion information out of the traffic congestion information and the parking lot information is operated. When the automatic skip switch 11 is turned on after the selection in step 12, the controller 3 executes step S2 to search the traffic information memory RAM 4 for a header having traffic jam information.

Thereafter, in step S3, the controller 3 outputs the header portion of the traffic congestion information found in step S2 to the speech synthesizer 6, and causes the speaker 9 to output it as speech.

In step S4, the controller 3 determines whether or not the auto-skip switch 11 is turned off. If the controller 3 determines that the auto-skip switch 11 is not turned off, the process returns to step S1.
When it is determined that the auto-skip switch 11 is turned on, step S5 is executed, and the congestion information below the traffic information item of the header read at that time is output to the speech synthesizer 6 (see FIG. 5).

As described above, by simply operating the auto skip switch, the driver can obtain the traffic congestion information necessary for the driver, for example, a route near the own vehicle.

When the driver operates the operation switch 12 to select the parking lot information in step S1 of the flow of FIG. 2, the driver transmits the parking lot information near the own vehicle in the same manner as the traffic jam information. Can be easily obtained.

In the above embodiment, the traffic information items desired to be heard are preset in advance by operating the operation switch 12, and by operating the auto skip switch 11
The driver can automatically select and listen to the preset traffic information desired to be heard.

[Brief description of the drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a control flow of a controller of the traffic information receiving device of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a storage pattern of traffic information stored in a traffic information memory RAM.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a skip operation of a traffic information item when an auto skip switch is turned on.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of an output operation of traffic information when an auto skip switch is turned off from on.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 FM multiplex receiver 2 packet decoder 3 controller 4 RAM for traffic information memory 6 voice synthesizer 7 selector 8 amplifier 9 speaker 11 auto skip switch 12 operation switch

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of front page (56) References JP-A-62-90061 (JP, A) JP-A-3-3000 (JP, A) JP-A-3-138515 (JP, A) JP-A-4- 195400 (JP, A) Japanese Utility Model 1-103000 (JP, U) (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G08G 1/09-1/0969 G01C 21/00

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] 1. An operation means for receiving traffic information, a traffic information receiving means for receiving traffic information that is divided into items and emitted from a transmitting station as a radio signal, and a traffic information received by the traffic information receiving means. A traffic information receiving device comprising: a storage unit for storing the traffic information for each of the items; and an output unit for outputting the traffic information by an output operation of the operation unit. Only the information name of each item is sequentially output from the storage means to the output means, and these are output as sounds from the speaker. When the second output operation is performed on the operation means during the first output operation, Control means for outputting traffic information corresponding to the item being output at that time from the storage means to the output means and outputting the same as sound from a speaker is provided. Traffic information receiving apparatus. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the controller stores only the traffic information corresponding to the item being output at the time when the second output operation is performed on the operation unit during the first output operation. 2. A traffic information receiving apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said traffic information is output from said output means to said output means. 3. The control means according to claim 1, wherein, when said second output operation is performed on said operation means during said first output operation, traffic information corresponding to the item being output at that time and the subsequent traffic information are displayed. The traffic information receiving apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the traffic information of the item is output from the storage means to the output means. 4. The control means causes the storage means to output only the information name of a designated item from the storage means to the output means at the time of the first output operation of the operation means. Claim 1 characterized by the above-mentioned.
3. The traffic information receiving device according to any one of 3.