JP6623082B2 - Vehicle control device - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a vehicle control device that performs lateral control of a host vehicle when the driving and driving states of a preceding vehicle and the host vehicle satisfy a predetermined condition during traveling.

  In recent years, there is a technique for controlling a vehicle so that when a preceding vehicle is present in front of the host vehicle, the preceding vehicle is not shaded and a traffic light enters a blind spot and cannot be recognized.

  Patent Document 1 describes a technique for controlling the speed of the own vehicle so that the traffic signal can be recognized from the positional relationship between the own vehicle and the traffic signal, the own vehicle and the preceding vehicle, and the height of the preceding vehicle.

JP 2009-1245 A

  However, in the technique described in Patent Document 1, in order to recognize the traffic signal when the height of the preceding vehicle is high, the higher the preceding vehicle, the wider the distance between the preceding vehicle and the driving. Give the person a sense of incongruity In addition, the driver of the vehicle following the host vehicle may be uncomfortable and the traffic situation may be disturbed.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle control device that can recognize a traffic light while reducing a driver's uncomfortable feeling.

  The present invention provides a vehicle control device that controls the lateral position of the host vehicle, detecting a preceding vehicle of the host vehicle, and detecting or calculating a distance between the host vehicle and the preceding vehicle and a height of the preceding vehicle; A detection unit that detects or calculates a distance between the vehicle and the traffic signal and a height of the traffic signal, and a control unit that performs lateral position control based on the detection state. To do.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the vehicle control apparatus which enables recognition of a traffic signal can be provided, reducing a driver | operator's discomfort.

The vehicle block diagram of the vehicle control apparatus by one Embodiment of this invention. The functional block diagram which shows the principal part of the vehicle control apparatus shown in FIG. The flowchart which shows operation | movement of the vehicle control apparatus by one Embodiment of this invention. The flowchart which shows the detailed control content in the horizontal direction control calculation part of the vehicle control apparatus by one Embodiment of this invention. Explanatory drawing of the operation | movement aspect by the vehicle control apparatus by one Embodiment of this invention. Explanatory drawing of the operation | movement aspect by the vehicle control apparatus by one Embodiment of this invention. The figure of the vehicle model which the vehicle control apparatus by one Embodiment of this invention uses The graph which showed the example of control of the vehicle control device by one embodiment of the present invention

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of a vehicle control device according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a vehicle configuration diagram of an embodiment of a vehicle control device according to the present embodiment, and FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram showing a main part of the vehicle control device shown in FIG.

  In the configuration diagram of the vehicle in FIG. 1, the illustrated vehicle 1 includes, for example, an in-cylinder injection gasoline engine 11 as a driving power source, an automatic transmission 13 that can contact and separate from the engine 11, a propeller shaft 15, and a differential. This is a rear wheel drive vehicle having a general configuration including a gear 16, a drive shaft 17, four wheels 18, a hydraulic brake 23 having a wheel speed sensor, and an electric power steering 26.

  The vehicle 1 includes a vehicle integrated control unit 28 that constitutes a main part of the vehicle control device 20 according to the present invention that controls integrated control of devices, actuators, and devices mounted on the vehicle 1, and an engine control unit 12 that controls engine control. Each control unit with a built-in microcomputer, such as a transmission control unit 14 that controls transmission control, an electric power steering control unit 27 that controls electric power steering, a brake control unit 24 that controls brake control, and a navigation device 34, has predetermined parts. Is arranged. Devices, actuators, and devices including each control unit and sensors, which will be described later, can exchange signals and data through in-vehicle LAN and CAN communication.

  A stereo camera 19 is provided at the front of the vehicle 1. The stereo camera 19 constitutes a detection unit, and has a control unit part with a built-in microcomputer, and the control unit part detects the traveling state of the front obstacle based on the captured image. . Specifically, the height of the front obstacle, the relative speed between the front obstacle and the own vehicle, the distance between the front obstacle and the own vehicle, the degree of overlap with the front obstacle (hereinafter referred to as the lap rate), and the position of the own vehicle The horizontal position or the like of the front obstacle is detected or calculated and supplied to the vehicle integrated control unit 28.

  The navigation device 34 constitutes a detection unit, sequentially calculates the distance to the traffic signal ahead, and supplies it to the vehicle integrated control unit 28 together with the traffic signal height information and the traffic signal lateral position information.

  The vehicle integrated control unit 28 includes four wheel speed sensors 23 that detect the rotational speed of each wheel 18, an accelerator pedal sensor 29 (not shown) that detects the opening (depression amount) of the accelerator pedal 21, and a brake pedal 22. A brake sensor 30 (not shown) for detecting the depression amount of the vehicle, a steering angle sensor 31 (not shown) for detecting the steering angle of the steering wheel 25, a gyro sensor 32 (not shown) for detecting the acceleration of the vehicle, etc. A pressing signal of the direction indicator 33 and a determination signal from the driver's voice recognition unit 35 are also supplied.

  Further, the depression amount of the brake pedal 22 is detected not only by the brake sensor 30 but also by a hydraulic pressure sensor (not shown) for detecting the brake hydraulic pressure in the control system of the brake 23.

  The illustrated vehicle 1 is an example of a vehicle to which the present invention can be applied, and the present invention does not limit the configuration of the applicable vehicle. For example, a vehicle that employs a continuously variable transmission (CVT) instead of the automatic transmission 13 may be used, or a laser radar, millimeter wave radar, inter-vehicle communication (C2C) It is configured using one or more combinations of C2X communication such as inter-infrastructure communication (C2I), mono camera, etc., and the running state of the preceding vehicle, that is, the relative speed with respect to the preceding vehicle, the inter-vehicle distance, the height, etc. You may make it ask. Further, instead of the navigation device, the distance to the traffic light and the height may be acquired using C2X communication such as inter-infrastructure communication (C2I).

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.
First, the contents of control in the vehicle integrated control unit 20 used in the vehicle control apparatus according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the control contents in the vehicle integrated control unit 20 used in the steering control device according to the embodiment of the present invention.
First, in step S10, the vehicle integrated control unit 20 determines the height hp of the preceding vehicle 2 detected by the stereo camera 19, the length lp of the preceding vehicle 2, and the preceding vehicle 2 as shown in FIGS. The speed vp, the preceding vehicle lateral position tp, the inter-vehicle distance dp between the own vehicle 1 and the preceding vehicle 2, the distance dSIC from the position of the own vehicle 1 detected by the navigation device 34 to the vehicle traffic light 4, and the side of the own vehicle 1 The lateral position tSIC of the pedestrian traffic light 3 and the height hSIG of the vehicle traffic light 4 when the position is used as a reference are read.

  Next, in step S20, the wheel speed sensor 23 calculates the traveling speed vo of the host vehicle 1 from the wheel rotation speed read in step S10.

Next, the process in step S30 will be described with reference to FIG. Signal detectable determining section 51, from a height ha from ground cameras Toritsui the height hp and the vehicle 1 of the distance dSIG and headway distance dp between the preceding vehicle to read the traffic signal at step S10, the vehicle with the camera The height hCAM necessary for recognizing the color of the traffic signal 4 is calculated. Here, the height hCAM necessary for recognizing the color of the vehicle traffic signal 4 by the camera can be obtained by the following equation (1). Here, tan φ = (hp−ha) / dp).
hCAM = dSIG · tanφ (1)
Next, in step S40, the lateral direction control calculation unit 52 calculates the lateral movement amount x and the target movement time tSTOP based on the information read in step S10 and the information calculated in steps S20 and S30. . The calculation of the target lateral movement amount x and the target movement time tSTOP will be described again in the description of the flowchart of step S40 with reference to FIG.

  Next, in step S50, the command value calculation unit 54 calculates a target lateral position in order to achieve the lateral control instruction in step S40.

  Next, in step S60, the command value calculation unit 54 calculates the target turning amount so as to be the target lateral position set in step S50.

  Next, in step S70, the command value calculation unit 54 calculates the target steer torque and instructs the steering control unit 27 to achieve the target turning amount set in step S60.

  The vehicle integrated control unit 20 repeatedly performs this series of processing shown in FIG. 2 at a prescribed control cycle.

Next, details of the control by the lateral control calculation unit 52 in the vehicle control apparatus according to the present embodiment, that is, the control in step S40 in FIG. 3 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing detailed control contents of the control by the lateral control calculation unit 52 in the vehicle control apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention.
First, if there is an obstacle in front of the host vehicle with the stereo camera 19, it is determined whether the vehicle is a preceding vehicle that can be controlled (step S401).

  If the preceding vehicle 2 is not detected by the stereo camera 19 (step S401: No), the lateral control calculation unit 52 sets the target lateral movement amount x to zero, and the vehicle control device according to the present embodiment does not perform steering control. (Step S407).

If the preceding vehicle 2 is detected by the stereo camera 19 (step S401: Yes), it is subsequently determined whether the distance dSIG to the vehicle traffic signal 4 is equal to or less than a predetermined value (step S402). In this example, this certain specified value is defined as “distance dLIM at which the camera recognition device can recognize a traffic light (hereinafter, traffic light recognition limit distance)”.
If the distance dSIG to the vehicle traffic signal 4 is greater than the traffic signal recognition limit distance dLIM (step S402: No), the lateral control calculation unit 52 sets the target lateral movement amount x to zero, and the vehicle control device according to the present embodiment. Does not perform steering control (step S407).

If the distance dSIG to the vehicle traffic signal 4 is equal to or less than the traffic signal recognition limit distance dLIM in step S402 (step S402: Yes), the lateral control calculation unit 52 can recognize the color of the vehicle traffic signal 4 with the stereo camera 19. The height hCAM is compared with a value obtained by subtracting the height ha of the host vehicle 1 from the height hSIG of the vehicle traffic light 4 (step S403).

As shown in FIG. 5, hCAM is necessary for recognizing the color of the vehicle traffic light 4 from the stereo camera 19 on which the vehicle 1 is mounted, which is obtained from the positional relationship of the host vehicle 1, the preceding vehicle 2, and the vehicle traffic signal. This is the height of the vehicle traffic signal 4 .

If the value of hCAM is larger than the value obtained by subtracting the height ha of the host vehicle 1 from the height hsig of the vehicle traffic light 4 (No in step S403), the lateral control calculation unit 52 causes the stereo camera 19 to change the color of the vehicle traffic light 4 . The lateral direction control calculation unit 52 calculates the target lateral movement amount x and the target movement time tSTOP (step S404), and calculates the target lateral movement amount x and the target movement time tSTOP. The calculation method will be described with reference to FIG.

If the value of hCAM is larger than the value obtained by subtracting the height ha of the host vehicle 1 from the height hsig of the vehicle traffic signal 4 (step S403: Yes), the lateral control calculation unit 52 sets the target lateral movement amount x to zero, The vehicle control apparatus according to the present embodiment does not perform steering control (step S407).

  In step S405 and step S406, the control cancellation determination in the horizontal direction is performed. In step S405, when the target lateral movement amount x is not less than the maximum left lateral movement amount xLIML or the target lateral movement amount x is not more than the maximum right lateral movement amount xLIMR (step S405: No), the target lateral movement amount x is set to zero. Then, the lateral control is canceled (step S407). xLIML and xLIMR are calculated according to the road width and the travelable area of the host vehicle.

  When the target lateral movement amount x is smaller than the maximum left lateral movement amount xLIML or when the target lateral movement amount x is larger than the maximum right lateral movement amount xLIMR (step S405: Yes), the process proceeds to step S406.

  In step S406, if the yaw rate θ 'of the host vehicle 1 is greater than or equal to a predetermined value YawLIM (step S406: No), the target lateral movement amount x is set to zero and the lateral control is canceled (step S407).

  When the yaw rate θ ′ of the host vehicle 1 is smaller than the predetermined value YawLIM (step S406: Yes), the target lateral movement amount x and the target movement time tSTOP calculated in step S404 are output to the command value calculation unit 53 (step S408). ). The explanation of the flowchart shown in FIG.

A method for calculating the target lateral movement amount x and the target movement time tSTOP calculated in step S404 will be described with reference to FIG. The target lateral movement amount x is a lateral movement amount necessary for recognizing the pedestrian signal 3 by the stereo camera 19. The target lateral movement amount x is the distance dSIG between the host vehicle 1 and the pedestrian traffic light 3, the inter-vehicle distance dp between the host vehicle 1 and the preceding vehicle 2, and the side of the pedestrian traffic signal 3 when the lateral position of the host vehicle is used as a reference. Using the position tSIG, the lateral position tp of the preceding vehicle 2, and the width wp of the preceding vehicle,
x = tSIG−s · IG / (dSIG−dp)
However,
s = tSIG-tp-wp / 2
And
A positive direction of x is a lateral movement amount leftward with respect to the traveling direction of the host vehicle 1.

The target travel time tSTOP is the time until the preceding vehicle 2 reaches the intersection where the vehicle signal 4 ahead is present. That is, in order for the own vehicle 1 to recognize the pedestrian traffic light 3 , it is necessary for the own vehicle 1 to move laterally to the target lateral movement amount x during the target movement time tSTOP. The distance between the preceding vehicle 2 and the pedestrian traffic light 3 uses the distance dSIG between the own vehicle 1 and the pedestrian traffic light 3 , the inter-vehicle distance dp between the own vehicle 1 and the preceding vehicle 2, and the length lp of the preceding vehicle 2. Since dSIG-lp-dp can be calculated, the target travel time tSTOP is calculated using the speed vp of the preceding vehicle 2,
tSTOP = (dSIG-lp-dp) / vp
It becomes.

The reason for the cancellation condition based on the yaw rate in step S406 is that a large yaw rate is generated by the lateral control and the driver does not feel danger. The yaw rate θ ′ is assumed to be a derivative with respect to time of the steering angle θ, and can be expressed by the following equation using the speed vo of the host vehicle 1.
θ ′ = d / dt (vom / vo)
The steering angle θ is the angle shown in FIG. 7, and vom is the speed component in the axle direction of the host vehicle speed vo.

  In summary, the vehicle control apparatus according to the present embodiment performs lateral control on the host vehicle 1 by the target lateral movement amount x by the target movement time tSTOP as shown in FIG. tSTOP. However, when the target lateral movement amount x does not fall within the maximum left lateral movement amount xLIML and the maximum right lateral movement amount xLIMR, the lateral direction control is not performed. Further, when the yaw rate generated in the vehicle exceeds the predetermined value YawLIM, that is, when the lateral movement speed x / tSTOP increases, the lateral control is not performed. Note that, as indicated by the alternate long and short dash line in FIG. 8, the lateral movement speed x / tSTOP does not have to be constant during the lateral control. For example, the rising of the yaw rate generated by the lateral control may be made faster or slower by uttering toward the driver's voice recognition device 35 and making the rising faster or slower. Further, the driver's steering operation may be used to grasp the driver's intention, and the yaw rate rise caused by the lateral control may be made faster or slower.

  As described above, in the vehicle control device according to the present embodiment, the calculation unit calculates the lateral movement amount necessary for recognizing the traffic light by the own vehicle, and performs lateral position control based on the lateral movement amount and the own vehicle lateral position. . Specifically, based on the width of the preceding vehicle, the lateral position of the preceding vehicle, the lateral position of the traffic signal, the distance between the host vehicle and the preceding vehicle, and the distance between the host vehicle and the traffic signal, the position where the traffic signal can be recognized by the traffic signal Control to move to. As described above, in the present embodiment, lateral control based on the driver's intention can be performed, so that traveling control for recognizing a traffic light can be achieved without a driver's uncomfortable feeling caused by traffic conditions.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 Engine 12 Engine control unit 13 Transmission 14 Transmission control unit 15 Propeller shaft 16 Differential gear 17 Drive shaft 18 Wheel 19 Stereo camera 20 Vehicle integrated control unit 21 Accelerator pedal 22 Brake pedal 23 Hydraulic brake 24 Brake control unit 25 Steering 26 Electric Power Steering 27 Electric Power Steering Control Unit 28 Vehicle Integrated Control Unit 29 Accelerator Pedal Sensor 30 Brake Sensor 31 Steering Angle Sensor 32 Gyro Sensor 33 Direction Indicator 34 Navigation Device 35 Voice Recognition Device 51 Signal Detectable Judgment Unit 52 Lateral Control Calculation Part 53 Command value calculation part

Claims (1)

In the vehicle control device that controls the lateral position of the host vehicle,
A detection unit that detects a preceding vehicle of the host vehicle, detects or calculates a distance between the host vehicle and the preceding vehicle, and a height of the preceding vehicle;
A detection unit that detects a vehicle signal and detects or calculates a distance between the vehicle and the vehicle signal, and a height of the vehicle signal;
A control unit that performs lateral position control for controlling the lateral position of the vehicle so that the vehicle moves to a position where the vehicle traffic light can be recognized based on the detection state. Vehicle control device.

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