JPH0269617A - Vehicle travelling guidance device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make the driver of a vehicle to confirm proper running by driving a sound producing means when the vehicle passes plural set points provided on a guiding route. CONSTITUTION:When a desired area is designated from an operating device 4, the map data of the area are sent from a disk reproducing device 5 to a display device 6 by which the map data are displayed. When the driver of a vehicle provided with this guiding device operates a cursor and keys, guiding route is selected from a signal processor 1 and displayed together with the current position of the vehicle. Then intersections on the guiding route are identified and stored in a RAM in the processor 1 as passing points of the vehicle. Thereafter, the movement of the vehicle is detected by means of an azimuth sensor 2 and distance sensor 3 and integrated to the current position information. As the vehicle passes the set passing points in order, the points are detected by the processor 1 and sounds are outputted from a sound producer 7 in accordance with the detection.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to an improvement in a vehicle travel guidance device for guiding a vehicle to a destination location.

(I)) Prior Art In recent years, standards and development have been made for vehicle travel guidance devices that guide a vehicle to a desired location. According to such a device, a map of the driving area, the route to the destination position, and the driving position of the vehicle are displayed on the CRT display installed in the car, so the driver can view the screen of the CRT display. By referring to this, you can quickly reach the target position. In such a device, map information is stored on a compact disk for each region, and when displaying a map, the map information for a specified region is read out from the disk, played back, and displayed on the CRT.
depicted on the screen.

In addition, the route to the destination position is achieved by inputting the vehicle's current position and destination position on a map drawn on the CRT screen by moving a cursor, and the device side re-enters the route in response to such input. The shortest road is selected from among the roads connecting the locations, and this road is displayed by changing its color, for example. The traveling position of the vehicle during vehicle guidance is determined by adding the traveling direction and traveling distance to the current position input by the cursor movement using a direction sensor that detects the traveling direction of the vehicle and a distance sensor that detects the traveling distance of the vehicle. This is determined by updating the vehicle's current position from time to time.

+A+Problems to be Solved by the Invention However, in the above-mentioned conventional technology, since the detection of the traveling position is performed by accumulating the direction and distance by the sensor,
An accumulated error occurs in the display of the driving position, which may cause a deviation between the position of the vehicle displayed on the CRT screen and the actual position of the vehicle. Furthermore, since the driver cannot always keep an eye on the CRT screen while driving, he or she will drive along the guidance route based on speculation to some extent. Under these circumstances, drivers are constantly worried about whether the route they are traveling on is the correct guidance route.
As a result, there is a risk that the driver's mental state may become unstable and he may not be able to drive properly.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle travel guidance device that allows a driver to recognize whether or not the vehicle is traveling on a correct guidance route.

(d) Means for Solving the Problems In view of the above-mentioned problems, the present invention sets a plurality of passing points on the guidance route, provides a storage means for storing the passing points, and further provides a storage means for storing the passing points when the vehicle passes through such passing points. Then, a structure was adopted in which a sounding means was arranged to generate sounds in response to this.

(n) Effect When the vehicle passes a passing point on the guidance route, a sound is emitted by the sound generation means. By listening to the sound, the driver can confirm that he/she is correctly passing along the guidance route.

(f) Example Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described using the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a circuit block diagram showing the basic circuit configuration of the present invention. (1) is a signal processing device consisting of a computer, (
2) is a direction sensor that detects the direction of travel of the vehicle using geomagnetism, (3) is a distance sensor that measures the distance traveled by the vehicle from the number of rotations of the wheels, and (4) is a cursor movement on the CRT screen.
Or an operating device for switching map screens, etc. (5
) is a disc playback device that reads and plays desired map data from a compact disc storing map information in response to commands from the operating device; (6) is a disc playback device that reads and plays desired map data on a CRT screen based on such map data; display device,
(7) is a sound generator. When a desired area is specified by operating the operating device (4), the map data of the area is searched and played back by the disk playback device, and the map data for the area is searched and played back by the display device (6).
) A map of the designated area is drawn on the CRT screen as shown in FIG.

After the map is drawn in this way, when the driver operates the operating device to move the cursor to the destination and departure point and presses the input key each time, the signal processing device Guide routes from the starting point to the destination are selected and displayed on the map by changing colors (indicated by diagonal lines in FIG. 2). At the same time, the current position of the vehicle is displayed with a symbol (-).

Once the guidance route is determined in this way, the intersections (■ ~ Φ) that exist on this guidance route are then identified, and the acuity and latitude information (x, ,
, y, ,) is in the signal processing device (1) as the passing point of the vehicle.
It is stored in the internal RAM.

Incidentally, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the passing points to be stored as A, to A4, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the state of the RAM in which the passing points are stored.

When the vehicle subsequently moves, this movement causes the orientation sensor (2
) and the distance sensor (3), and are accumulated in the current position information (latitude and longitude information). Therefore, the current position information of the vehicle is sometimes advanced as the vehicle moves, and the symbol (-) indicating the current position of the vehicle is moved on the map as the current position information advances eastward.

In the above state, when the vehicle passes passing points A and A4 in order, this is detected by the signal processing device, and a sound is output from the sound generator (7) in response to this. Such a sound may be, for example, an oscillating sound such as "bee", or may be an audio output of words such as "I have passed the passing point". Note that passing through a passing point is detected when the latitude and longitude information of the passing point and the current position of the vehicle match.

Next, the sounding operation during vehicle guidance will be explained according to the flowchart of FIG. 5.

When vehicle guided travel is started, n=1 is set in step 1. The variable n indicates the address of waypoint information stored in the RAM. In this way, the variable n is n=
If it is set to 1, then in step 2 it is determined whether the variable n exceeds the number of intersections on the guidance route. If the determination in step 2 is No, then in step 3 the current position information of the vehicle is input to the signal processing device (1). Then, this current position information and the address n in the RAM
The latitude and latitude information stored at address 1, in this case, the latitude and longitude information stored at address 1, are compared in the signal processing device (1), and it is determined whether or not they match (step 4>).

If the determination result in step 4 is No, the process returns to step 2 again and the same program operation as above is executed. In this case, only the current position information of the vehicle in step 3 changes from moment to moment.

When the vehicle passes the intersection ■ shown in Figure 2 along the guidance route, the vehicle's current position information and the passing point information of address 1 match, and this is detected in step 4, and the In step 5, a buzzer sound is generated from the sound generator (7) for several seconds.

When the buzzer sound is emitted in this way, in step 6
After calculating =n+1, the process returns to step 2 and the same program operation as above is executed.

According to this program operation, since the RAM address n to be compared with the vehicle's current position value in step 4 is n=2, it is determined whether the vehicle has passed through point A2 or not, and the vehicle When the vehicle passes through the passing point A2, a buzzer sound is emitted in step 5.

After passing the passing point A2 as described above, the RAM address n of the passing point to be compared in step 4 is set to n=3 by the calculation of n=n+1 in step 6. n=4, and the vehicle reaches the passing point A1. It is determined whether or not A4 has been passed in order.

In this way, the vehicle turns right at the last intersection ■ and passes through point A4.
When n=5 is set by the calculation in step 6, YES is determined in step 2, and the program operation according to the above flowchart is completed.

As explained above, according to this embodiment, a buzzer sound is emitted when the vehicle correctly passes an intersection on the guidance route, so the driver can use the buzzer sound to confirm that the vehicle is traveling correctly. This allows you to drive the vehicle with peace of mind.

In the above embodiment, the passing point is the latitude and longitude information of the center of the road, but in this case, if a cumulative error occurs in the current position value of the vehicle while the vehicle is traveling, the actual current position of the vehicle may become the same as the passing point. However, the accumulated current position information of the vehicle may deviate in the road width direction from the longitude and latitude information of the passing point, and a match between the one-vehicle information may not be detected. Therefore, in order to eliminate this inconvenience, the number of latitude and longitude information of passing points to be stored is increased in the road width direction and stored in the RAM, and the current position information of the vehicle is compared with the information of all these passing points. By doing so, it is possible to reliably detect the passing of a vehicle. Furthermore, even for roads with wide roads such as arterial roads, if a plurality of pieces of latitude and latitude information are stored in the road width direction as passing point information in the same manner as described above, it is possible to eliminate errors in detecting vehicle passing.

(G) Effects of the Invention As described above, according to the vehicle travel guidance device of the present invention, when the vehicle correctly passes a predetermined passing point on the guidance route, a sound is emitted, so that the driver can listen to this sound. It is possible to confirm that the vehicle is running correctly, and therefore to perform guided driving to the destination with peace of mind.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Each of the figures shows an embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 1 is a circuit block diagram, Fig. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a map drawn on a CRT screen, and Fig. 3 is a set position of passing points. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the state in the RAM, and FIG. 5 is a flowchart for executing the running determination operation. (1) Signal processing device (storage means and discrimination means) (7
) Sound generator (pronunciation means).

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) A storage medium for storing map information, a reading means for reading the map information from the storage medium, a display means for displaying the map information read by the reading means on a screen, and displaying the map information in this manner. a guide route setting means for setting a guide route to a destination on the map, a position detecting means for detecting the current position of the vehicle, and a current position display means for displaying the current position of the vehicle on the map. In the vehicle travel guidance device, a storage means for storing passing points on the guidance route, and a determining means for determining whether the vehicle has passed through the passing points based on position information from the storage means and the position detection means. and a sounding means for outputting a sound when the determining means determines that the vehicle has correctly passed through the passing point. (2) The vehicle travel guidance system according to claim 1, wherein the passing point is an intersection on the guidance route.