JPH03136197A - System for inputting restart intersection on set course in car navigation device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable restart on a set course by selecting a restart intersection on the set course and easily inputting the intersection when it is recognized that a car is out of the course. CONSTITUTION:There is two cases that detecting means 11 and 12 for detecting out-of-course from the set course detects the out-of-course and that a driver judges the out-of-course and inputs return to the set source from an input means 13 or 40, for example. At such a time, the intersection where the out-of-course occurs, or, the intersection on the set course before or behind the intersection as a center for the starting point or ending point of a road on a road train to, to which the current estimated position on the set course belongs at the time of input from the input means 13 or 40, is selectively displayed in a display part 8. When the car is returned to any one of those intersections, navigation for following-up the current spot can be started again. Thus, when the out-of- course is recognized, the restart on the set course can be executed.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Field of Application] The present invention provides settings for a vehicle navigation device that outputs course guidance information for going to a destination and provides course guidance when a deviation from the course is recognized. Concerning the input method for restart intersections on the course.

[Conventional technology]

Vehicle navigation devices provide route guidance to destinations for drivers who are unfamiliar with geography, and in recent years,
Development of this navigation device is actively underway.

Conventional navigation devices use a route matching method in which a course is set in advance from the starting point to the destination before driving, and the course guidance is provided according to the set course. case,
A map is displayed on the CRT screen and the course is superimposed on it. Further, when indicating the intersection to turn next according to a preset course, the distance to the intersection to turn next is displayed numerically or graphically. In such a navigation device, when turning at an intersection, the driver looks at the course displayed on the map to determine the next intersection to turn, or looks at the numbers or graphs displayed to guide the driver to the intersection at which he or she should turn. Knowing the distance and determining the intersection.

If the driver deviates from the set course, he or she can either return to the original course at any intersection on the course or enter a new starting intersection to reset the course. The present applicant previously proposed a vehicle navigation device equipped with a help function in Japanese Patent Application No. 62-333056.
When the driver determines that the vehicle has deviated from the planned route,
By pressing the help key and inputting the code number of the intersection with the intersection name, the restart intersection was determined, the route was reset, and course guidance was provided.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

In current vehicle navigation devices, deviation from the course is mainly detected using a distance sensor and a direction sensor, but in reality, the detection error is large, making it difficult to accurately judge deviation from the course, and detecting off-course intersections. The location may not be known.

In such a case, the navigation device's electronic control unit (ECU) itself does not detect that the vehicle has deviated from the course and does not know the point where the vehicle has deviated from the course, so it is impossible to make a U-turn and return to the original course. .

In addition, in the prior application described above, an intersection code number is used to input the restart intersection, so an intersection without an intersection name cannot be used as a restart point.
Furthermore, there is a problem in that input must be made by searching an intersection code number table, which is time consuming.

Therefore, the present invention has been made to solve these problems, and provides a vehicle that can easily select and input a restart intersection on a set course when it recognizes that it has gone off course. The purpose of this invention is to provide a method for inputting a restart intersection on a set course in a navigation device for use in a car.

[Means to solve the problem]

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and includes:
Setting a vehicle navigation device that searches for a route from a specified starting point and destination, sets a course, tracks the current location on the set course, and provides driving guidance.In the restart intersection input method on the course. , a detection means for detecting a deviation from the set course, and an input means (40) for returning to the set course when the driver recognizes the deviation from the course, for example, as shown in FIG. 6, and further, as shown in FIG. A display means as shown is provided, and the display means is configured such that when the detection means detects a deviation from the course or when an input is received from the input means (40), the detection means detects the deviation from the course. 13, centering on the intersection on the set course that was entered, or the intersection before or after the estimated current position on the set course at the time of the input from the input means. For example, the intersections in the vicinity can be selectively displayed, and current position tracking and travel guidance on the set course can be restarted from any of the selected intersections. ) is characterized in that it is provided with a second input means such as.

[Action and effect of invention]

In the restart intersection input method on the set course of the present invention, when the detection means for detecting off-course from the set course detects off-course, or when the driver determines that the off-course has occurred, for example, the sixth Diagram input method (
40) If you input to return to the set course, the intersection where you deviated from the course, or the end point of the road on the road row to which the estimated current position on the set course at the time of input from input means (40) belongs. Centering around the starting point intersection, the intersections before and after it on the set course are selectively displayed, and when the vehicle returns to any of those intersections, the current location tracking navigation can be restarted again. , even when the driver has veered off course, or when the driver has determined to do so, the intersections before and after the intersection at which the veer veered off course are displayed are displayed, so that the driver can avoid either of these intersections under his own power. This allows you to return to the course.

Therefore, the present invention is an effective input method when the driver knows one of the intersections on the course near which the driver has deviated from the course.

Note that the symbols in parentheses and the names in square brackets correspond to those in the drawings, but do not limit the structure of the present invention in any way.

〔Example〕

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining an embodiment of a restart intersection input method on a set course in a vehicle navigation device according to the present invention; in the figure, 11 is a distance meter;
13 is an input section, 14 is an input decoding section, 15 is an input decoding table, I6 is a data processing control section, 17 is an image output control section, 18 is a display section, and 21 to 22 are files.

The distance meter 11 measures the distance traveled by the vehicle.
For example, it may be a method that detects and counts the rotation of a wheel or a method that detects acceleration and integrates it twice, but other measurement means may also be used.

The steering angle gauge 12 detects whether or not the vehicle has turned at an intersection. For example, an optical rotation sensor attached to the rotating part of the steering wheel or a rotating resistance volume can be used. An attached angle sensor may also be used.

The input unit 13 is a joystick, keys, touch panel, or is combined with the screen of the display unit 18, displays keys and menus on the screen, and inputs from the screen.

The input decoding unit 14 decodes the data input from the input unit 13 while referring to the input decoding table 15. For example, when setting a route, the starting point (current location) and destination are determined by phone number. Alternatively, when the data is input using a code, menu, or other mode, conversion into departure point data or destination data is performed by referring to the input decoding table 15 according to the mode. Further, in the case of inputting help or other instructions other than inputting a position such as a departure point or a destination, corresponding processing is performed. Therefore, the input decoding table 15 is set in accordance with the type of input given from the input unit 13 and the input data.

When the destination and departure point are input from the input unit 13, the data processing control unit 16 searches for and sets a route connecting these two points from the road data, and executes a navigation program for that route stored in the file 2I. Call and execute. Furthermore, once the route is set, in response to a user's request, drawn map data is selected and drawn from the route data, and the route is displayed on it. The navigation program displays a guide map on the screen of the display unit 18 along the driving route, displays characteristic photographs at intersections and along the route, shows the remaining distance to the intersection, and the direction of travel at the next intersection. and other guidance information. The file 22 stores such map data, and the image output control section 17 controls the output of images to the display section 18.

The data in the map data file 22 is, for example, as shown in Figure 2 (
If there is a road network consisting of intersection numbers I~■ and road numbers ■~■ as shown in a), the intersection data will be as shown in Figure (b),
The road data has a data structure as shown in FIG. 3(C), and the node data has a data structure as shown in FIG. 2(d).

As shown in Figure (b), the intersection data corresponds to the intersection numbers ■ to ■, and includes at least the smallest road number among the roads where the intersection is the starting point, and the road where the intersection is the ending point. It has information on the smallest road number among them, the location of the intersection (east longitude, north latitude), and intersection name.

In addition, as shown in FIG. 3(c), the road data includes at least the next road number among roads that have the same starting point, the next road number among roads that have the same end point, corresponding to the road numbers ■ to ■, Start point, end point, node string pointer by intersection number,
It has information on road length. As is clear from the figure, the next road number among roads with the same starting point and the next road number among roads with the same end point are generated by searching for the same number from the starting point and 1 ending point using the intersection number. be able to. Furthermore, the road length can also be determined by integrating the position information of the next node string data.

Then, the node string data is as shown in (d) of the same figure.
The number of nodes is at the beginning of the road data that the node string pointer points to, followed by node position (east longitude, north latitude) information for nodes corresponding to that number. In other words, a node string is configured for each road data. The illustrated example shows node strings of road numbers ■ and ■.

As is clear from the above data structure, the road number unit consists of a plurality of nodes. In other words, node string data is a collection of data related to one point on a road, and if the connection between nodes is called an arc, a road is expressed by connecting each of multiple node strings with an arc. . For example, regarding the road number ■, 8000 of the node string data can be accessed from the node string pointer of the road data, and it can be recognized that the road number ■ consists of 215 nodes.

For example, when focusing on an intersection number pair ■, for a course starting from this point, first, the road number ■ is determined from the information of the road where the intersection data appears, and then the next road data with the same starting point is The road number ■ is searched from the information of ``road number''. Then, from similar information regarding the road number ■, road number 0 is searched, followed by road number ■. Since the road number ■ is the first road number, it can be determined that there are no surrounding roads with other road numbers.

This also applies to the end point. By using the intersection data and road data in this way, it is possible to search for the road number for entering and exiting each intersection, and it is also possible to find the distance of the route connecting each intersection.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the main flow of the restart intersection input method on the set course in the vehicle navigation device of the present invention. , when the current location is input, a route search is performed in step 31. There are various methods for this route search, but
A representative example is the method proposed in Japanese Patent Application No. 333039/1983, in which weighting information is set in road data, and courses are weighted based on this information to search for an optimal course. As proposed in No. 63-207762,
There is a method in which map data is organized into a hierarchical structure, each layer is divided into blocks, and each block is connected from the lower level to the higher level intersection to search from the starting point to the destination. Step 3
When a course is set in step 1, data of a guide road sequence ``GROAD'' indicating the set course as shown in FIG. 4 is stored in the RAM. Then, in step 32, the distance meter 11
, the current location of the vehicle on the guide road line is tracked based on data from the steering angle gauge 12. In step 33, as a result of tracking the current location, if deviation from the set course is detected by detecting the steering angle from the steering angle meter 12, the process branches to a course deviation processing subroutine 36, which will be described later, and after that process returns to step 32 of tracking the current location. If no deviation from the course is detected in step 33, driving guidance is provided in step 34, similar to a normal navigation device, and then in step 35 it is determined whether or not the destination has been reached. If not, the process returns to step 32 for tracking the current location, and the above processing is continued until the destination is reached.

In addition to the main flow shown in FIG. 3, an interrupt routine as shown in FIG. 5 is provided. This routine prevents the electronic control unit (ECU) from detecting off-course.
This is used when the driver recognizes that he is off course, and interrupts by turning on the help switch. When the driver turns on the help switch, a help screen as shown in FIG. 6, for example, is displayed in step 37. This screen displays help items, and selection of help items can be directly input by touch from the screen. In step 38, a touch panel input is made, and in step 39, when the driver recognizes that he is off course and selects the help item 40 of ``Get back on course'' in FIG. 6, the process shifts to off-course processing subroutine 36. Step 3
If "Return to course" is not selected in step 9, other help items are selected and the process proceeds to step 41.
It will be held in

FIG. 7 shows the main flow of the off-course processing subroutine 36 in FIGS. 3 and 5. In step 42, the ECU makes a conditional judgment as to whether or not the ECU has detected off-course. If detected, flag f is set to 1 in step 44, and if the ECU does not detect off-course, flag f is set to O in step 45 when "return to course" is input via the touch panel in step 43. Set.

When the flag f is set to 1 or O, the current position setting subroutine of step 46 is entered, the current position is estimated,
After that, in the surrounding intersection list subroutine of step 47, the names of intersections surrounding the position where you deviated from the course are displayed in a list, and the restart intersection on the course is entered by clicking one item on the restart intersection name screen input display. Then, the item will be displayed (Fig. 13).

As shown in FIG. 8, in the current position setting subroutine 46, in step 48, the flag f is determined to be 1.0, and if flag f-1, that is, the ECU detects that the ECU is off course, in step 49, If the coordinates of the intersection where the steering angle gauge 12 detects a deviation from the course are set as the current position, and the flag f=0, that is, if the deviation from the course ("return to the course") is input using the touch panel, in step 50, the touch panel is pressed. The coordinates of the estimated position on the course at the time of the accident (the position assuming that the vehicle did not deviate from the course) are the current position.

That is, for example, when two roads intersect as shown in FIG. It is possible to detect deviation from the course, and the intersection of the circles on the diagram can be taken as the current position. On the other hand, in the case of a Y-junction as shown in FIG. 9B, if you deviate from the original route set by the thick line and proceed to the road on the right side as indicated by the dotted line arrow, the steering angle meter 12 will not be able to detect the deviation from the course. It happens sometimes. In this case, the ECU recognizes the position of the circle in Figure B as the current position. At the position of the dotted line arrow, if the driver touches and inputs that the driver is off course, the screen shown in Figure B will appear.
The position of the circle mark is the current position.

After processing the current position setting subroutine 46, the process moves to a nearby intersection list subroutine 47 shown in FIG. In this subroutine, first, in step 51, areas of intersections listed are set. For example, the 8th
An area of 2 km square is set around the current position set by the current position setting subroutine shown in the figure. Then, in step 52, the intersection data is read one by one regardless of the presence or absence of the intersection name (see FIG. 2(b)), and then in step 53, the data of the previous step
It is determined whether the intersection read in step 2 is located within the set area, and as a result, it is determined in step 54 whether or not there is an intersection name even if it is within the area.
In step 55, a list of intersection numbers, intersection names, and distances from the current location as shown in FIG. 11 is created. If the above steps 51 to 55 are processed for all intersections and it is determined in step 56 that these processes have been completed, in step 57 a maximum of 25 intersections near the current location are displayed on the help screen in Figure 6. Displays the intersections closest to the current location. Note that the upward and downward arrows in FIG. 6 are keys for proceeding to the previous page and the next page, and the numbers between the arrows are page numbers. The next step 58 is a step in which one of the intersections displayed in this way is selected and a restart intersection is determined, and this is not the step of inputting the restart intersection on the set course of the present invention. There is no direct relationship. Step 58
In step 5, do not determine the restart intersection point, but instead check in step 5 whether "Return to course" 40 in Figure 6 has been selected.
If the judgment is made with 9 and 40 is entered to “return to course”,
The process advances to subroutine 60 for inputting intersections on the course.

FIG. 12 shows flow 9- of this intersection input subroutine, where gp is a pointer indicating the intersection number on the guide road sequence groad indicating the set course shown in FIG. In the position setting subroutine, if flag f = 1, it indicates the intersection where you veered off course, and if f = 0, the current position and the estimated position indicate the intersection at the end of the road you are riding on. (It may also point to the starting point intersection.) Step 61
In step 62, the above-mentioned intersection is set as an off-course intersection, and in the next step 62, a mode is selected to display the section shown in the upper part of FIG. 13, unless there is a command to change the mode in step 63. , step 6
4, a section map as shown in FIG. 13 centered at the intersection GP where the driver deviated from the course is displayed, and a circle mark is displayed at the intersection GP.

Then, in step 65, the set course is displayed, for example, in red on the displayed section map. And step 68
, a menu such as ``Forward'', ``OK'', ``Back'', and ``Zoom'' is displayed as shown in FIG. At step 70, for example, because the driver cannot return to the intersection where he or she deviated from the course, the user attempts to display the next intersection and return to the set course from there, and "proceed" is touched.
In step 71, the pointer gp is advanced by one (i.e., to the next intersection on the course), and the process returns to step 63, and in the same manner as above, the pointer gp is advanced one intersection as shown in the section diagram on the upper right side of Figure 13. A circle mark is displayed to indicate that you have proceeded to .

Also, if you touch "Return" when trying to return to the course from the previous intersection, in the next step 72,
It is determined that "Go back" has been touched, and in step 73 the pointer gp is moved back one place (i.e. to the previous intersection on the course), and the process is returned to step 63, where the upper left section in the upper part of FIG. As shown in the figure, a circle mark is displayed as if the intersection had been moved back one place. Further, if it is determined in step 74 that the "enlarge" touch panel has been pressed, a mode change command is sent in step 75 to step 6.
3, and in response to the command, the display mode is switched to intersection display in step 63, and in step 66, a display like the intermediate intersection diagram in FIG. 13 centered on the current GP intersection is displayed, and in the next step 67 , displays an arrow indicating the course on the intersection map. After that, in steps 68 to 75, the menu display and touch panel input are performed as described above, and the touch panel displays "
Determine whether "Forward" or "Back" is pressed, and
Switch the display as shown in the intersection diagram in Figure 3. In this case, the menu display is not "enlarge" but "reduce", and if it is determined in step 74 that this touch panel has been pressed, the display is changed to the section map display mode again in step 63. In this way, the start screen display centered on the selected intersection gp is selected in step 76, and when "OK" is pressed on the touch panel, an intersection map as shown in the lower part of Figure 13 is displayed, and the screen When the user presses "Start" 77 above, the current location tracking in step 32 of FIG. 3 resumes from that intersection on the set course, and the navigation device starts operating normally.

As explained above, in the present invention, when the ECU detects that the driver has deviated from the course, or when the driver determines that the driver has deviated from the course and inputs on the touch panel to return to the set course, the intersection where the deviate from the course occurred, or , Centering on the intersection at the end or start point of the road on the road row to which the estimated current position on the set course at the time of the touch input belongs, selectively displays the intersections before and after it on the set course, and displays those intersections. When the vehicle returns to any intersection, navigation for tracking the current location can be restarted again. Even when the vehicle veers off course, or when the driver determines so, the course at the intersection where the deviation occurred can be restarted. The idea is that by displaying the preceding and following intersections above, the driver can return to the course from one of these intersections on his or her own.

Note that when you try to return to the original course by pressing HELP on the touch panel, the display near the location that the ECU has determined to be your current location and the scenery near the actual route where you deviated from the course overlap (in other words, the ECU displays The input method of the present invention is effective when the driver can actually discern the geography of the vicinity of the current location.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining an embodiment of the restart intersection input method on a set course in a vehicle navigation device according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the data structure in a map data file. , FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the main flow of the restart intersection input method on the set course in the vehicle navigation device of the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining the structure of guide road sequence data indicating the set course. FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining the interrupt routine using the help switch. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of the help screen. FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining the off-course processing subroutine. Figure 9 is a diagram to explain the current position setting subroutine, Figure 9 is a diagram to explain going off course at an intersection, Figure 10 is a diagram to explain the nearby intersection list subroutine, and Figure 11 is a diagram to explain the intersection point. A diagram explaining the list of numbers, intersection names, and distances from the current position, Figure 12 is a diagram explaining the flow of the intersection input subroutine, and Figure 13 is a display screen displayed by the intersection input subroutine. It is a figure showing an example. 11: Distance meter, 12: Rudder angle meter, 13: Input section, 14: Input decoding section, 15: Input decoding table, 16: Data processing control section, 17: Image output control section, 18: Display section, 21-
22: File, 40: Touch panel display for inputting "Return to course", 77: Touch panel display for inputting "Start" Applicant: Aisin AW Co., Ltd. (1 other person)

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) Set up a vehicle navigation device that searches for a route from the specified starting point and destination, sets a course, tracks the current location on the set course, and provides driving guidance Restart intersection on the course In the input method, a detection means for detecting deviation from the set course, an input means for returning to the set course when the driver recognizes the deviation from the course, and a display means are provided, and the display means is configured to detect the deviation from the set course. the intersection on the set course at which the detection means detected the deviation from the course when the means detected the deviation from the course, or when there was an input from the input means, or the setting course when the input means received the input from the input means; Centering around the intersection before or after the estimated current position above, intersections in the vicinity of the intersection on the set course can be selectively displayed, and the current position can be tracked and driven on the set course from any of the selected and displayed intersections. A method for inputting a restart intersection on a set course in a vehicle navigation device, characterized in that a second input means is provided so that guidance can be restarted. (2) The display means is configured so that intersections near the intersection on the set course can be selectively displayed in the order in which the intersections are arranged on the set course or vice versa. A method for inputting a restart intersection on a set course in a vehicle navigation system according to claim 1. (3) The display means is configured so that the selection display of the intersection near the intersection on the set course can be selected between an enlarged display of the selected intersection and a set course display in which the selected intersection is highlighted. A method for inputting a restart intersection on a set course in a vehicle navigation system according to claim 1 or 2.