JP5581801B2 - Information providing apparatus and information providing method - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a technique for providing information at an appropriate timing, and more particularly, to an information providing technique in consideration of a load for each sensory device of a user and an information provision form suitability.

  In recent years, the amount of information that can be provided by information devices tends to increase year by year as information devices such as in-vehicle devices and mobile devices become highly functional and high-performance, and wireless network environments become widespread and broadband.

  On the other hand, for users who use these information devices, the use of information devices is a subtask and often serves to assist main tasks such as driving. In addition, due to the characteristics that accompany the movement of the user, the situation where the user is placed changes from moment to moment, and the information required by the user and the desired receiving method vary and change. For this reason, the information device needs to provide information to the user with an appropriate information provision form and timing so as not to disturb the main task.

  There are the following as conventional techniques in consideration of the form and timing of information provision. In Patent Document 1, when performing warning and route guidance in a curve by driving a car, the information provision timing is taken into consideration and information is provided independently or simultaneously as mixed information. Or a method of providing the same. In Patent Document 2, when driving a car, restrictions are imposed on the provision of audio information according to driving conditions, or priority is given to each media source, and information with low priority is not provided and high priority is provided. A method for providing only information is disclosed. Patent Document 3 discloses a method of selecting information to be displayed in accordance with a driving situation in driving a car.

  In these prior arts, the information provision form is limited to either voice or screen display, and the information provision form is not changed according to the load on the sensory organs such as the visual, auditory, and tactile senses of the user. Absent.

  On the other hand, Patent Document 4 discloses a method of selecting information to be provided according to a user's cognitive load and information priority in driving a car. In Patent Document 4, since the user's load is summarized as one-dimensional information called cognitive load, the information provision form cannot be changed in accordance with the load for each sensory organ such as visual, tactile, and auditory senses.

  Patent Document 5 discloses a method for determining information provision timing based on prediction of a user's workload by driving a car. In Patent Document 5, a user's workload is calculated on the assumption of an information provision form determined in advance for each information to be provided, and a more appropriate information provision form is not selected from a plurality of information provision forms. Absent.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-019594 Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-104209 JP 2006-193044 A JP-T-2004-524203 JP 2008-82940 A

  As described above, in the prior art, it is not possible to select an appropriate information provision form and information provision timing in consideration of a load for each sensory organ such as a user's vision, touch, and hearing.

  An object of the present invention is to determine a more appropriate information provision form and information provision timing based on the load of each sensory organ such as a user's visual sense, tactile sense, and auditory sense and the suitability of the information provision form.

In order to solve the above problems, an information providing apparatus according to the present invention provides:
An advertisement queue to store information that needs to be provided,
Status acquisition means for acquiring the status of the vehicle and the driver;
Information provision processing means for extracting information that needs to be provided to the driver based on the situation obtained from the situation acquisition means and storing the information in the provision information queue;
Based on the situation obtained from the situation acquisition means, a situation prediction means for predicting the future load of each sensory device of the driver;
An information provision form / timing determination means for determining an information provision form and information provision timing of information stored in the provision information queue;
With
Each of the information defines a plurality of information provision forms and the degree of conformity for each information provision form ,
An evaluation function that evaluates the appropriateness of provision timing is defined for each information provision form using sensory organ load and fitness as parameters,
The information provision form / timing determining means determines the information provision form and information provision timing of the information stored in the provision information queue so that the sum of the evaluation functions for each information is maximized.

  In this way, it is possible to select the information provision form and the information provision timing in consideration of the load of each user's sensory organ, and thus it is possible to provide information more suitable for the situation.

  Moreover, it is preferable to further include information providing means for providing information in the determined information providing form when the timing determined above arrives.

In addition, each of the above information has a defined priority, and it is also preferable that the evaluation function further evaluates the appropriateness of the provision timing using the priority as a parameter .

  The present invention can be understood as an information providing apparatus including at least a part of the above means. Moreover, it can also be understood as an information providing method for performing these processes, and a program for realizing these methods. Each of the above means and processes can be combined with each other as much as possible to constitute the present invention.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to determine a more appropriate information provision form and information provision timing based on the load of each sensory organ such as the user's visual, tactile, and auditory senses and the degree of suitability of the information provision form.

It is a figure which shows the function structure of the information provision apparatus which concerns on this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of the information acquired by a condition acquisition part. It is a flowchart of provided information extraction processing. It is a flowchart of an information provision form / information provision timing determination process. (A) Appropriateness of basic information provision timing, (B) Load for each sensory organ, (C) Timing appropriateness (evaluation value) considering sensory organ load for each provision form.

<System overview>
The information providing apparatus according to the present embodiment is an apparatus that is mounted on a vehicle and provides various information to a driver or a passenger. Examples of provided information (provided information) include warning information that reminds you of the presence of pedestrians that are difficult to see in the dark, route guidance information for guiding routes such as turning left and right, and direct impact on driving It includes entertainment information such as store information that is useful to know. Of course, the information provided is not limited to these. Conversely, it is not necessary to provide all of the information to be provided to the driver via this information providing device, and it is preferable to provide information closely related to safety such as a collision warning directly.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a functional configuration of the information providing apparatus according to the present embodiment. The information provision apparatus includes a provision information DB (101), a map information DB (102), a situation acquisition unit (103), an information provision processing unit (104), a provision information queue (105), a situation prediction unit (106), an information provision A form / information provision timing determination unit (107) and an information provision device (108) are included. Note that each functional unit other than the status acquisition unit 103 and the information providing device 108 which will be separately described below can be realized by a computer having a CPU or various storage devices executing a program. All may be realized by dedicated hardware.

<Provided information extraction process>
[Information provision processing section]
The processing performed by the information provision processing unit 104 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. The information provision processing unit 104 acquires the current situation from the situation acquisition unit 103 or the map information DB 102 (S31). Then, based on inputs from the provided information DB 101, the map information DB 102, and the situation acquisition unit 103, information that may be provided to the driver is extracted sufficiently before it is required to be provided (S32). Various attributes are given to the extracted information and stored in the provision information queue 105 (S33). The necessity of providing information can be determined as follows. If it is information such as store information or route guidance that determines whether information provision is necessary or not, information required to be provided can be determined based on the position of the host vehicle, the planned travel route, map information, and the like. In addition, it is possible to determine whether or not a schedule notification or a regular break notification should be provided based on time.

[Attributes given to information]
The information stored in the provision information queue 105 by the information provision processing unit 104 is given the following attributes.

  “Information priority” represents the degree of necessity of providing information. This is given as a non-negative integer. The smaller the value, the higher the priority. For example, information is classified according to the degree of contribution to safety, such as information priority “0” for alert information, information priority “1” for route guidance information, and information priority “2” for entertainment information. give.

  The “timing appropriateness evaluation function” (hereinafter also simply referred to as an evaluation function) is a function for evaluating the appropriateness by using the timing of providing information such as time and position as an input. As will be described in detail later, this evaluation function is a function that also depends on the information provision form and sensory organ load, and represents the information timing appropriateness for each time or position for each information provision form. Here, it should be noted that since the movement of the vehicle, that is, the position at each time can be predicted, the time and the position can be treated equivalently as parameters.

The “information provision form list” includes an information provision form that can be used to provide the information, an information form corresponding to the corresponding information provision form, a time required to provide the information, and a degree of fitness of the information with respect to the information provision form. It is a list enumerating. That is, it is expressed as a list having the following four sets as elements.

  The provision form is expressed by a combination of a difference in information provision aggressiveness and a difference in information provision device. Differences in the aggression of information provision include the “push type” in which information is actively provided from the information device without the user's instruction, and the “pull type” in which the information device provides the information only after the user instructs it. is there. However, even in the pull type, it is necessary to notify the user of the presence of information itself. The information providing device 108 includes a display, a speaker, a warning lamp, and a haptic device. Furthermore, there is a difference in expression method in each information providing device. When these elements are combined, the information providing form includes, for example, “displaying a marker on a two-dimensional map on the display”, “displaying a marker on a two-dimensional map”, and “displaying a marker on a display”. "Display marker on 3D map", etc. When using a speaker, "Reading address by voice" or "Guidance by voice (example:" There is XX on the right side of XXm ")" etc. is there.

The information format corresponding to the information provision form is an expression form when providing given information in the information form. For example, in the case of representing “a point on a map”, an information format of “latitude / longitude” is given to a provision form of “display a marker on a map on a display” and provision of “guidance by voice” For the form, the information form “text representing the address” is given to the form of providing “reading the address by voice”.

  The information providing time is a time required when providing information in a given information providing form. This is the sum of the time required for providing information (displaying and reading) and the time required for a person to grasp the information. For example, when the information “point on the map” is represented, the information providing time “5 seconds” is given to the information providing form “display a marker on the map on the display”. Is provided with an information providing time “10 seconds” (calculated from the length of the address).

  The degree of suitability of the information with respect to the information provision form is a degree representing how much the given information provision form is suitable as a means for providing the given information among a plurality of information provision forms. For example, if the information “a point on a map” is represented, if “marker display on 2D map on display” is considered to be more suitable than “speech address reading by voice”, “display The degree of matching of “display marker on upper map” is set higher.

  These attributes given to the provided information may be stored together with the information provided in the provided information DB 101. In addition, the information provision processing unit 104 may assign these attributes based on the situation obtained from the situation acquisition unit 103. It is also preferable to store some attributes in advance in the provision information DB 101 and determine other attributes based on the obtained situation.

<Status acquisition process>
The situation acquisition unit 103 acquires various elements constituting the situation relating to the inside or outside of the user 109 and the vehicle 110. The elements that make up the situation are diverse, some of which are shown in FIG.

  The vehicle state is acquired from various sensors such as a speed sensor, an acceleration sensor, a steering sensor, an accelerator opening sensor, and a GPS device. The travel environment is acquired by a GPS device, a map database, a millimeter wave radar, a camera, communication / broadcast reception, and the like. These are the conditions related to the environment where the user is placed and the state of the device in use, and can be called “physical conditions”. In addition to this, the physical situation includes time and weather such as morning, noon, and night, and information on the outside environment such as whether pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles, etc. exist in the surroundings. It also includes the usage status of various application devices such as audio equipment, air conditioners, telephones, and cruise control.

  Other factors that make up the situation include boarding purpose and time margin. The boarding purpose can be acquired from the destination, the date and time, and the user's profile, and the time margin can be acquired from the schedule or the like. These are situations related to attributes, objectives, constraints, etc. that are the background of the user's behavior and serve as guidelines for the user's behavior, and can be said to be “social situations”.

  In addition to the situation shown in FIG. 2, it is also preferable to acquire a situation related to the user's body and spirit. Regarding physical condition, driving skills, equipment literacy, age, etc. are included. The mental state includes arousal level (sleepiness), health level, positive emotions (relief, calmness, fun, etc.) or negative emotions (anxiety, impatience, tension, etc.).

<Information provision form / timing determination process>
Hereinafter, a process for determining which information stored in the provision information queue 105 is to be provided in what provision form and at what timing will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, the future situation is predicted to predict the load for each sensory organ (S41). Then, for each piece of information stored in the provision information queue 105, the information provision form and information provision timing are determined in consideration of the load for each sensory organ (S42).

[Situation Prediction Department]
First, the load prediction for each sensory organ in step S41 will be described. The situation prediction unit 106 predicts future information from information obtained from the map information DB 102 and the situation acquisition unit 103. For example, using route information and traffic jam information, predict what kind of situation is expected at a specific time in the future or a specific point on the future route, and load for each sensory organ such as visual, tactile, and auditory senses. Predict.

  For example, it can be predicted that various sensory load increases at the timing of entering an intersection or a narrow road. On the other hand, it can be predicted that a sensory load is not so much applied on a road that can be stably traveled, such as a wide and free road, or on the contrary, traveling that is slow and congested. In this way, the situation prediction unit 106 obtains a sensory load corresponding to each situation. FIG. 5B shows an example of a predicted load change for each sensory organ.

[Information provision form / timing decision processing section]
Next, details of the information provision form and information provision timing determination process in step S42 will be described. The information provision form / timing determination unit 107 is appropriate for the burden on each sensory organ of the user detected or predicted based on the situation given by the situation prediction unit 106 with the attribute information stored in the provision information queue 105 Information provision form and information provision timing determined to be determined. Then, using the determined information providing form, information is provided to the user via the information providing device 108 at the determined information providing timing.

  The load on the user's sensory organs may be mainly visual, tactile, or auditory, but it is loaded with a psychological burden, such as `` Pay attention to pedestrians while driving on narrow streets. '' May be taken into account.

The appropriateness for each information provision form and provision timing can be calculated by a timing appropriateness evaluation function given to the provision information. This evaluation function f can be formalized by the following equation.
f (load of sensory organs, priority, provision form, time / position)
This evaluation function f is a function that gives an appropriate degree when information is presented in an information provision form given by an argument. Thus, since the provision form is taken as an argument, the timing appropriateness evaluation function f is defined for each provision information and for each information provision form. It should be noted that the provision form includes “the degree of suitability of information with respect to the information provision form” as shown in Table 2.

  An appropriate timing for providing information is basically determined by time or position regardless of sensory load. Therefore, the evaluation function f depends on this basic timing appropriateness. For example, route guidance (right / left turn instructions, etc.), store guidance, etc. are meaningless unless information is provided before reaching the point, and schedule guidance is meaningless if information is provided after the scheduled time. . On the other hand, too early information guidance is not very useful. Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 5A, the basic appropriateness changes so as to take a maximum value at a time point before the final provision timing.

Based on this basic timing appropriateness, the evaluation function f has a larger value as the sensory load is smaller, a larger value as the information priority is higher, and a larger value as the fitness of the information with respect to the information provision form is higher for each information provision form. Define to take. Note that it is not necessary to consider all the sensory loads as the sensory load. For example, in the case of a visual information providing form, only the visual load or mainly the visual load may be considered.

For example, the evaluation function for visually providing certain information is
f = (basic appropriateness) × (information priority) × (form conformity) / (1 + visual load)
Can be given as. Of course, this evaluation function is only an example, and may be defined as a non-linear function for each parameter. Moreover, you may define as a function which does not depend only on one sensory load (here visual load) but depends on several sensory load.

  FIG. 5C is a diagram illustrating an example of the evaluation function value when the basic timing appropriateness of certain information is represented by FIG. 5A and the sensory load is represented by FIG. 5B. The provision by screen display (provision form 1) takes a peak when the visual load is small, and the provision by voice (provision form 2) takes a peak at a small auditory load. Here, since this information assumes that the provision of information by screen display is higher than the provision of information by voice, the evaluation value is generally larger in the provision form 1.

  The information provision form / timing determination unit 107 determines the information provision form and the information provision timing so that the sum of the evaluation functions f is maximized for each piece of information stored in the provision information queue 105.

  At this time, it is necessary to satisfy the following various constraints. For example, all the information stored in the provision information queue 105 has a restriction that information is provided only once in any provision form. However, information with low priority, for example, information other than priority 0, may not be provided. In addition, there is a restriction that a plurality of information is not provided at the same time, that is, another information is not provided during an information provision time of the information from the information provision timing of the information.

  Since the process of determining the information provision form and the information provision timing determined to be appropriate based on such various constraints can result in solving the so-called constraint satisfaction problem, if a solution search is applied by applying a backtracking method or the like. Good.

  In addition to the attributes shown in Table 1, the order and consistency between the information to be provided, the user's preference for the information to be provided, and the like may be eaten as attributes.

  This information provision form / information provision timing determination process is preferably executed every time the predicted situation changes or new information is stored in the provision information queue 105. Further, it may be executed periodically.

<Effect of this embodiment>
According to the information providing apparatus according to the present embodiment, it is possible to select the information providing form and the information providing timing in consideration of the load of each user's sensory organ, and thus it is possible to provide information more suitable for the situation.

101 Provided information DB
102 Map information DB
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 103 Status acquisition part 104 Information provision process part 105 Provision information queue 106 Situation prediction part 107 Information provision form and information provision timing determination part 108 Information presentation device

Claims (4)

An advertisement queue to store information that needs to be provided,
Status acquisition means for acquiring the status of the vehicle and the driver;
Information provision processing means for extracting information that needs to be provided to the driver based on the situation obtained from the situation acquisition means and storing the information in the provision information queue;
Based on the situation obtained from the situation acquisition means, a situation prediction means for predicting the future load of each sensory device of the driver;
An information provision form / timing determination means for determining an information provision form and information provision timing of information stored in the provision information queue;
With
Each of the information defines a plurality of information provision forms and the degree of conformity for each information provision form ,
An evaluation function that evaluates the appropriateness of provision timing is defined for each information provision form using sensory organ load and fitness as parameters.
The information provision form / timing determining means determines an information provision form and information provision timing of information stored in the provision information queue so that a sum of the evaluation functions for each information is maximized.
Information providing device. An information providing means for providing information in the determined information providing form when the determined timing arrives;
The information providing apparatus according to claim 1. A priority is defined for each of the information, and the evaluation function further evaluates the appropriateness of the provision timing as a parameter of the priority,
The information providing apparatus according to claim 1 or 2 . Information processing device
An information acquisition process for acquiring vehicle and driver status;
Based on the situation obtained in the situation acquisition step, information that needs to be provided to the driver is extracted and stored in the provision information queue; and
Based on the situation obtained from the situation acquisition step, a situation prediction step for predicting the load for each driver's sensory organs in the future,
An information provision form / timing determination step for determining an information provision form and information provision timing of information stored in the provision information queue;
Run
Each of the information defines a plurality of information provision forms and the degree of conformity for each information provision form ,
An evaluation function that evaluates the appropriateness of provision timing is defined for each information provision form using sensory organ load and fitness as parameters.
In the information provision form / timing determination step, the information provision form and information provision timing of the information stored in the provision information queue are determined so that the sum of the evaluation functions for each information is maximized.
Information provision method.

Images