JP7234889B2 - vehicle controller - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a vehicle control device, and more particularly to a technical field of a vehicle control device capable of automatically changing lanes.

As a device of this type, for example, the vehicle to be controlled contacts another vehicle based on the positions and running states of the vehicle to be controlled and the other vehicle, which are recognized from the information detected by a vehicle condition detection system installed on the road. A device has been proposed that controls the running state of a vehicle to be controlled so as to change lanes without the need to change lanes (see Patent Document 1).

JP-A-10-105239

With the technique described in Patent Document 1, even if the vehicle to be controlled is traveling on a relatively long merging road, for example, there is a possibility that the lane will be changed immediately if the main road is empty. In this case, the driver of the vehicle to be controlled may be given the impression that the automatic driving system is "impatient" or "amateur", and the driver may feel uncomfortable or uncomfortable. In other words, the technique described in Patent Document 1 has room for improvement.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle control device that can change lanes from a merging road to a main road while suppressing discomfort and discomfort given to the driver. do.

A vehicle control device according to one aspect of the present invention is a vehicle control device capable of executing lane change control for automatically changing lanes from a merging lane to a main lane when a vehicle is traveling in a merging lane. an acquiring means for acquiring a length of a part of the merging lane corresponding to a part after the soft nose as a merging path length based on map information; and the lane change control according to the acquired merging path length. and a control means for executing the lane change control after the vehicle has passed through the prohibited area.

1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a vehicle control device according to a first embodiment; FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing the operation of the vehicle control device according to the first embodiment; FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram showing the concept of an LC start-disabled region; 8 is a flow chart showing the operation of the vehicle control device according to the second embodiment;

A vehicle control device according to an embodiment will be described. It is assumed that the vehicle equipped with the vehicle control device (that is, the own vehicle) is configured to be capable of automatic operation.

<Overview>
A vehicle control device according to an embodiment can execute lane change control that automatically changes lanes from a merging lane to a main lane (that is, merging with the main line) when the own vehicle is traveling in the merging lane. It is configured. This lane change control may be executed while the host vehicle is traveling by automatic driving.

The vehicle control device comprises acquisition means, setting means, and control means. The acquiring means acquires the length of the part of the merging lane corresponding to the part after the soft nose as the merging road length based on map information including information for each road lane, such as a high-precision map. A "soft nose" means the tip of a section on a road where merging is not allowed (that is, the end on the front side in the traveling direction of the own vehicle).

The setting means sets a prohibited area, which is an area in which the lane change control cannot be executed, according to the merged path length acquired by the acquiring means. The setting means sets the impermissible area to be larger when the combined channel length is longer than when the combined channel length is short. The setting means may set the impermissible area to "zero" (that is, there may be no impermissible area) when the confluence path length is relatively short. The "impossible area" may be expressed in units of length such as meters, or may be expressed in units of time such as seconds.

The control means executes lane change control after the host vehicle passes through the prohibited area. As a result, the own vehicle merges with the main line after passing through the prohibited area set as the merging lane. As described above, when the merging path length is long, the impermissible area becomes larger than when the merging path length is short. The timing of merging with is delayed.

Of the lane change control, for basic control related to lane change, such as speed control (or acceleration/deceleration control) and steering control, various existing modes can be applied. omitted.

Therefore, according to the vehicle control device, the lane can be changed appropriately according to the length of the merging lane (that is, the length of the merging path) (for example, in the same way as when the driver manually merges into the main line). can be made In other words, according to the vehicle control device, it is possible to change the lane from the merging lane to the main lane while suppressing the sense of incongruity and discomfort given to the driver.

<First embodiment>
A vehicle control device 10 as one specific example of the vehicle control device according to the embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 3. FIG.

The vehicle control device 10 is mounted on the vehicle 1 corresponding to the own vehicle described above. As shown in FIG. 1, the vehicle control device 10 includes an information acquisition unit 11, a setting unit 12, and a control unit 13 as processing blocks that are logically implemented therein or processing circuits that are physically implemented therein. have The "information acquisition unit 11", "setting unit 12" and "control unit 13" correspond to examples of the above-described "acquisition means", "setting means" and "control means", respectively.

The information acquisition unit 11 obtains information (for example, information indicating other vehicles) related to the surrounding situation of the vehicle 1 based on detection results obtained by, for example, an on-board camera, radar, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), for example, detection results obtained by a speed sensor or the like. Information related to the state of the vehicle 1 based on the map information 20, information included in the map information 20, and the like are acquired.

The setting unit 12 sets an "LC (Lane Change) start prohibited area" corresponding to the aforementioned prohibited area. A specific method for setting the LC start-disabled area will be described later. The control unit 13 is configured to be capable of automatically driving the vehicle 1 and capable of executing lane change control.

Here, the operation of the vehicle control device 10 when the lane is changed from the merging lane to the main lane while the vehicle 1 is traveling in the merging lane due to automatic operation will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. explain.

In FIG. 2, when the vehicle 1 is traveling in a merging lane (for example, a ramp on a highway) by automatic driving, the information acquisition unit 11 detects a soft nose (hereinafter referred to as a soft nose) in the merging lane based on the map information 20. The length of the portion corresponding to "SN" as appropriate) is acquired as the confluence path length (step S101).

The setting unit 12 sets the LC start-disabled area in the portion after the SN in the merging lane according to the acquired merging path length (step S102). Here, the LC start-disabled area is expressed in units of length. Therefore, the setting unit 12 sets the LC start-disabled area by determining the length of the LC start-disabled area in the process of step S102.

The setting unit 12 may have a map that defines the relationship between the confluence path length and the LC start-disabled region length, as shown in FIG. 3A, for example. In the process of step S102, the setting unit 12 may determine the length of the LC start-disabled region from the obtained merged path length and the map. As can be seen from FIG. 3(a), when the combined path length is relatively short, the length of the LC start prohibited region is "zero".

When the setting unit 12 sets the length of the LC start-disabled region to “zero” (that is, when the combined path length is relatively short), for example, as shown in FIG. It does not appear. In this case, lane change control becomes possible immediately after the vehicle 1 passes the SN. On the other hand, when the confluence path length is relatively long, an LC start-disabled area set according to the confluence path length appears, as shown in FIG. 3(c), for example. In this case, lane change control is not performed until the vehicle 1 passes through the LC start prohibited area.

Returning to FIG. 2, after the process of step S102, the control unit 13 causes the vehicle 1 to change lanes from the merging lane to the main lane by lane change control on the condition that the vehicle 1 has passed through the LC start prohibited area, Thus, the vehicle 1 is merged with the main line (step S103). As described above, when the setting unit 12 sets the length of the LC start prohibited region to "zero", the control unit 13 causes the vehicle 1 from the merging lane to the main lane.

(technical effect)
In the vehicle control device 10, an LC start-disabled area is set according to the confluence path length. Specifically, when the length of the merging path is relatively long, the length of the LC start-disabled region is set to be relatively long (in other words, the LC start-disabled region is relatively large), so that the vehicle 1 can set the SN. It is possible to realize a lane change at a relatively late timing after passing. On the other hand, when the combined path length is relatively short, the length of the LC start-disabled region is set relatively short (in other words, the LC start-disabled region is relatively small) or is set to "zero". Therefore, it is possible to realize a lane change at a relatively early timing after the vehicle 1 has passed the SN. That is, according to the vehicle control device 10, it is possible to realize an appropriate lane change according to the merging scene.

<Second embodiment>
In the above-described first embodiment, the LC start-disabled region is expressed in units of length, but a mode in which the LC start-disabled region is expressed in units of time will be described with reference to FIG. Other parts are the same as those of the above-described first embodiment. Therefore, for the second embodiment, description overlapping with the first embodiment will be omitted, common parts on the drawings will be indicated by the same reference numerals, and only fundamentally different points will be described with reference to FIG. explain.

In FIG. 4, after the process of step S101, the setting unit 12 acquires the speed of the vehicle 1 (that is, the own vehicle speed) from the information acquisition unit 11. FIG. The setting unit 12 calculates the TTC (Time to Collision) for the end of the merging lane based on the merging path length obtained by the process of step S101 and the speed of the vehicle 1 (step S201).

Next, the setting unit 12 determines a time during which the lane change control cannot be executed after the vehicle 1 has passed the SN (hereinafter referred to as “LC start-disabled time” as appropriate) according to the calculated TTC. (step S202). Determining the LC start-disabled time is synonymous with setting the LC start-disabled region having a length corresponding to the distance traveled by the vehicle 1 during the LC start-disabled time.

The setting unit 12 may have a map that defines the relationship between the TTC and the LC start-disabled time, similar to the map shown in FIG. 3A, for example. If the TTC is relatively small, the LC not start time may be "zero". In the process of step S202, the setting unit 12 may determine the LC start disabled time from the calculated TTC and the map.

After the process of step S202, the control unit 13 causes the vehicle 1 to change from the merging lane to the main lane by lane change control on condition that the LC start prohibition time has elapsed after the vehicle 1 has passed the SN. , so that the vehicle 1 joins the main line (step S203). When the setting unit 12 sets the LC start prohibition time to "zero", the control unit 13 performs lane change control to move the vehicle 1 from the merging lane to the main lane on the condition that the vehicle 1 has passed the SN. change.

Various aspects of the invention derived from the embodiments described above are described below.

A vehicle control device according to one aspect of the present invention is a vehicle control device capable of executing lane change control for automatically changing lanes from a merging lane to a main lane when the own vehicle is traveling in the merging lane. acquiring means for acquiring, as a merging path length, a length of a portion of the merging lane that corresponds to after the soft nose, based on map information; A setting means for setting an impossibility area, which is an area in which execution is impossible, and a control means for executing the lane change control after the vehicle passes through the impossibility area.

The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and can be modified as appropriate within the scope of the invention that can be read from the scope of claims and the entire specification, or is not contrary to the spirit of the invention. is also included in the technical scope of the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Vehicle, 10... Vehicle control apparatus, 11... Information acquisition part, 12... Setting part, 13... Control part, 20... Map information

Claims (1)

A vehicle control device capable of executing lane change control for automatically changing lanes from the merging lane to the main lane when the host vehicle is traveling in the merging lane,
acquisition means for acquiring a length of a portion of the merging lane that corresponds to after the soft nose as a merging path length based on map information;
setting means for setting an impermissible area, which is an area in which the lane change control cannot be executed, according to the acquired confluence path length;
a control means for executing the lane change control after the own vehicle has passed through the impermissible area;
A vehicle control device comprising:

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