JPH03292511A - Running control method for traveling object - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To omit the waiting required for other traveling objects at the positions before an intersection when a time margin is ensured by holding the transmission of the entry grant information for a period of time equal to the value obtained by subtracting the time equivalent to a prescribed time from the passed time when the prescribed time is shorter than the time during which a certain traveling object enters the present section and passes it. CONSTITUTION:A traveling object 2 enters a new section and sends the present section information to a central controller 1, and the controller 1 transmits a section into which the object 2 can enter within a prescribed time as the entry grant information. At the same time, the output of the entry grant information on the subsequent sections is held for a period of time equal to the value obtained by subtracting the time equivalent to a prescribed time from the passed time when the prescribed time is shorter than the passed time of the present section. Thus the lengths of sections where the entry of the object 2 is granted are set at an approximately constant value. Furthermore an interim stop of the object 2 is possible for the output holding period of the entry grant information and other traveling objects can enter the subsequent sections.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a method for controlling the running of a plurality of moving objects through bidirectional communication between a central control device such as a ground station and the moving objects.

[Prior Art] Exchange of information between a mobile object moving along a travel route consisting of a plurality of sections and a ground station, which is a central control device that controls the movement of the mobile object, is performed, for example, by intersection control, etc., which controls traffic at an intersection. Used for driving control.

That is, based on the current section information indicating the position of the moving object sent from the moving object, the ground station side knows the passing section from the position of the moving object. Based on this, the ground station calculates entry permission information for each mobile object to each section, and transmits the information to each mobile object, thereby controlling the travel of each mobile object. Conventionally,
This entry permission information was limited to a certain range of sections. For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-307504, a certain range is defined as three sections (zones).

Here, if the number of approach permission sections is less than necessary, the mobile object will pass through the approach permission section before the next approach permission information is output due to communication delays caused by communication with other moving objects and communication errors. It wilts and stops, making it impossible for the moving object to operate smoothly. Furthermore, section information indicating the section in which the mobile object is currently traveling is always past information.
Since communication between the mobile unit and the ground station is asynchronous, there is a lag between when the mobile unit itself updates its current section and when the ground station learns of it. I can't tell if it's running or not. In other words, once entry permission information has been given, it is not possible to stop midway within the section, and it cannot be canceled. Therefore, if the number of sections for which permission is granted is longer than necessary, it will not be possible to cancel the permission, making it impossible to respond to mid-stop operations due to transport requests that occur after permission is granted. For this reason, the sections for which entry permission is granted are limited to a certain range.

In addition, the entry permission information is used to determine the range in which stopping is prohibited, as described above, and to determine the priority of entry at an intersection. That is, since the section to which entry is permitted is within a certain range in the direction of travel, a later scheduled moving object is prohibited from intervening at an intersection located within the section to which entry is permitted.

[Problem H to be solved by the invention] As mentioned above, conventional approach permission information has been issued for the same number of sections within a certain range, so if each section is approximately the same length, the range where it is not possible to stop midway and The time range in which each mobile unit secures priority is approximately the same. However, in a normal layout, the distance is different for each section, and if the approach permission is based on the same number of sections, if the section length (section distance) is long, it may not be possible to stop, even though it is possible to stop midway. At the same time, other moving vehicles were sometimes made to wait in the section before the intersection even though there was plenty of time to enter the intersection. These problems can be solved by making the section length constant as described above, but there are problems in that the number of unnecessary sections increases, the layout design becomes complicated, and the amount of data to be processed increases, resulting in an increase in design man-hours and processing time.

The present invention has been developed in view of the above circumstances, and by representing entry permission information as a section that a mobile object can enter within a predetermined time after entering the current section, it is possible to eliminate unnecessary sections to make the length constant. The section in which entry is permitted without any provision is set to a substantially constant length, and if the predetermined time is shorter than the passing time of the current section, the output of the entry permission information is suspended for a time equal to the predetermined time subtracted from the passing time. During this time, it is possible to stop on the way from the next section onward, eliminating the need for other moving vehicles to wait in front of the intersection when there is time, simplifying layout design, and reducing the amount of data processed. An object of the present invention is to provide a travel control method for a moving body that can reduce design man-hours and processing time.

[Means to solve the problem]

A travel control method for a mobile object according to the present invention receives from each mobile object section information indicating which section the plurality of mobile objects is currently traveling in among a plurality of sections formed by dividing the travel route. , in a method for controlling the travel of a mobile object by a central control device that transmits entry permission information to a section of current section information indicated by section information to each moving object, the approach permission section indicated by the approach permission information is: If the received current section is a section that can be entered within a predetermined time after the mobile object enters the current section, and the predetermined time is shorter than the passage time required for the mobile object to pass after entering the current section, then The present invention is characterized in that transmission of the entry permission information is suspended for a time period obtained by subtracting a time corresponding to the predetermined time from the time.

[Effect]

In the present invention, when a moving object enters a new section and sends current section information to the central control device, the central control device transmits the section that can be entered within a predetermined time as entry permission information, and also sends the section that can be entered within a predetermined time as entry permission information. is shorter than the passing time of the current section, the output of entry permission information for the next section and subsequent sections is suspended from the passing time until the time corresponding to the predetermined time expires. For example, the passing time of the first and second sections is each 1
0°15 seconds and the predetermined time is 12 seconds, the first entry permission information for the first section is transmitted immediately because the passing time is shorter than the predetermined time, and entry permission to the second section is granted. Next, when a moving object enters the second section from the first section, the passing time is longer than the predetermined time, so the transmission of the entry permission information is suspended for 3 seconds, which is the difference between the passing time and the predetermined time. It becomes possible to move the moving object and input a stop command to the moving object. That is, as a result, the length of the section where the vehicle is permitted to enter becomes substantially constant, and it becomes possible to stop the vehicle midway while the vehicle is being held and to allow other moving objects to enter the next section or later.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained based on drawings showing embodiments thereof.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a travel route of an unmanned vehicle, which is a moving body, on which the method for controlling the travel of a moving body according to the present invention is implemented, and the unmanned vehicle, a central control device, and the like.

The travel route on which the unmanned vehicle 2 shown in FIG. 1 travels is divided into 10 sections with step names 5 tep 1 to 10 as a whole, of which 4 sections with step names 5 tep to 4 are illustrated. Although not particularly shown, there are several other unmanned vehicles moving along the travel path.

For example, the unmanned vehicle 2 drives a motor using a battery installed in itself, uses this driving force to rotate both left and right drive wheels, and travels by rotating the left and right drive wheels at different speeds. The vehicle is configured to be able to change its direction from side to side, and also detects its own travel distance by counting the number of rotations of the driving wheels, and constantly monitors its current position, that is, which section of each section it is located in. It has equipment for wirelessly transmitting current section information indicating its own current section to a central control unit W1, which will be described later.

Furthermore, as will be described later, the driving control of the unmanned vehicle 2 is performed according to the driving route name and entry permission information wirelessly transmitted from the central control device 1.

Based on the current section information transmitted from each unmanned vehicle by wireless communication, the central control device 1 determines the driving route (current location) of each unmanned vehicle in order to satisfy the unmanned vehicle dispatch request input from the outside. The system determines the order of sections to be passed through from Each unmanned vehicle controls its own driving according to the driving route given by the central control device (of course, including the destination, i.e., the end point) and the information on whether or not each section included in the driving route is passable. It is something.

The central control device 1 uses a microcomputer system, and its memory stores, for example, the passage of the unmanned vehicle 2 for each step of each traveling route as shown in Table 1 for the first traveling route. The communication time tx with the central control unit per unmanned vehicle as shown in the step passing time table and Table 2 showing the time Tr, and the number N of unmanned vehicles on the entire traveling route.

Maximum coasting time td of unmanned vehicle and maximum − of unmanned vehicle
A condition table indicating the point passing time ti is stored in advance.

Here, the passing time tr is defined as, for example, regarding the section of step 2, from the point Ha at which the rear end of the unmanned vehicle is fully entered into the section of step 2, to the point Wd when the rear end of the unmanned vehicle is fully entered into the section of step 3. It shows the time required to travel up to Further, the maximum coasting time td means, for example, step 2
This is the time that indicates at least how far in advance the vehicle should be checked in order to stop at the end of step 1c, ie, the end of step 2, while traveling in the section 2, and takes the maximum value for all sections. Furthermore, the maximum point passing time ti is, for example, the time from when the leading edge of the unmanned vehicle reaches the boundary between step 2 and step 3 until the trailing edge finishes passing through the boundary, for the entire section. The maximum value is taken. Further, based on the above data, the next permission hold time th and the next permission step name n5tep are generated for each step (section) in the generation routine described later, and the generated data is stored in the memory as shown in Table 3. is stored in.

(Margin below) Table 1 Table 2 shows the next permission holding time th of each steering knob on the travel route shown in Table 3, which is determined before the travel control which is the gist of the present invention. 12 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure for generating a next permitted step name ns step.

First, in step 1110, the step name step is set to 1, and in the next step #11, it is determined whether the step name steρ is final, that is, whether it is the final section of the travel route. In the case of the final section, the next permission hold time th (s step) of this step name step is set to O, and the next permission step name ns step (s step) is set to 5 steps (step #23).

If it is not the final section, the route occupancy permission time tk is the passage time tr of the step name step (s step)
It is determined whether the value is smaller than that (step #12). Here, the route occupancy permission time tk will be explained. In FIG. 1, it is at point ga that the unmanned vehicle 2 updates its current section from step name 1 to step name 2 while it is traveling. However, since the central control unit 1 performs similar communication with other moving objects in the system, the central control unit t+ is connected to the unmanned vehicle 2.
In the worst case, that is, in the case of the longest delay, the current section of is recognized as step name 2 after a delay of one cycle of communication monitoring, that is, Lx-N seconds, and during that time, the unmanned vehicle 2 does not continue to drive. Since it continues, the current position is usually considered to have changed from position a. By the way, when the unmanned vehicle 2 is not permitted to enter step name 3,
It must start decelerating at position C and stop at position C, which is the end of step name 3. That is, if permission to enter the vehicle has not been granted since step number 3, the unmanned vehicle 2 must start decelerating already. The position of unmanned vehicle 2 is position C.
This is the closest position to the end where the vehicle can stop, and it is necessary to give permission to proceed to the next step. In other words, in order to smoothly enter from step name 2 to step name 3 without decelerating and stopping when permission is given to enter step name 3 and subsequent steps, unmanned vehicle 2 must enter step name 3 before reaching position zb. You must receive permission from Yichen to enter. The distance zb is from the starting position d of step name 3 to (ti+td
) seconds back, and this is also from ia to tr
(ti + td) seconds have passed, but as mentioned above, the central controller 1 has not confirmed the current section until tx.
- Since there is a delay of N seconds, the reference number is the time when the update of step name 2 is confirmed to the central controller 1 via communication.
tr (ti+td
+tx・N) seconds later. The value in parentheses is the route occupancy permission time tk (Lk=ti-1-td+tx-N), and the time corresponding to this G is the area where the unmanned vehicle 2 cannot stop in order to run smoothly. However, the interruption of other unmanned vehicles such as force 1 is not permitted (1 degree. In this example, from Table 2, tk = 2 + 5 + lX5
= 12 seconds.

When tk < tr (s step) in step #12, next permission hold time th (s step) = tr
(step) - Set up with tk Step #13
), and conversely, when tk≧tr (s step), the next permission hold time th (s step) is set to 0 and sent (step #14).

After setting the next permission hold time th (step) in this way, the process moves to setting the next permission step name ns step in step 1115. Next permission step name ns
tep must be after the next step in the current section, and must be within a range that allows deceleration and stopping. If the range is too short to decelerate and stop, the unmanned vehicle will overrun the entry permission step, making it impractical. However, on the contrary, the next permission step name n
If the range of 5 tep is long, there will be an inconvenience that an unmanned vehicle cannot stop midway and cannot enter an unmanned vehicle that is scheduled later. Therefore, in this embodiment, the range of the next permitted step name is set to the route occupancy permission time tk, and entry permission is granted only to step names (sections) within the minimum forward range.

In step #15, the range n of the next permitted step is set to the route occupancy permission time tk, the step name is incremented, and it is set to i (step #16). Next, we need to determine whether i (next step) is the final step or not. Step #1
7) If it is not the final step, subtract the passing time tr(i) of the next step j from the range n, and set it as a new range n (step 1118).

Increment step i and repeat steps 1119 and 1120) until this range n becomes negative. When range n becomes negative, step i is changed to the next permitted step name n5te.
Step 121), step name s to
Increment p, return to step 11, and obtain the next permission hold time th and the next permission step name n until the final step.
Generate 5tep.

Specifically, the first. In the example shown in Table 2, step name 1 has tr=10. Since tk=12, step #12=
No, the next permission hold time th(1)=O, i=2 in step 1116, n=12 in step #18.
Since -15=-3 and the result is NO, the process advances to step 121 and the next permitted step name n5tep(1)=2 is set. Similarly, in step 2, in step #13, th
=15-12=3. When i=3, it becomes neo, and when j=4, it becomes n<0, so at step 1121, n5tep (2)
= 4 is set. By repeating this, values as shown in Table 3 are set. As a result, the range of the section permitted by the next permission step name, that is, the entry permission information, is within the predetermined time (route occupancy permission time tk), and the entry permission section can be made the minimum section that does not impede smooth travel.

The central control bag W1 then monitors each unmanned vehicle, receives the current section information, and transmits entry permission information based on the set next permission hold time th and next permission step name n5tep.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the processing procedure for controlling entry permission for each unmanned vehicle in the central control bag Wl, and FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the contents of the timer interrupt processing after the next permission hold time. First, in step #30, set the number W of the unmanned vehicle to 1, and then check whether it exceeds the maximum value or not.
That is, it is determined whether monitoring has been completed for all unmanned vehicles (step #31). If it has not been completed, monitoring is performed and current section information is received from the unmanned vehicle (step #32). Based on the result, update the current section and judge whether or not it has entered the next section (step +133); if it has not entered the next section, skip the following steps and proceed to step #37, and increment the number W by 1. , the process returns to step #31 to move on to monitoring the next numbered unmanned vehicle. If the next section is entered, the timer interrupt of the unmanned vehicle with number W is reset, the interrupt is prohibited (step l34), and the next permission step name n5te is set as the interrupt data of the unmanned vehicle with number W.
cent p based on the contents of table 3 (step 113
5). Next, the timer interrupt time of the unmanned vehicle with number W is set to the next permission hold time th (step #36), the process proceeds to step 37, the number W is incremented, and the process returns to step #31.

Further, when the next permission hold time th is set, the timer interrupt of the unmanned vehicle W is permitted, and a timer interrupt occurs for each unmanned vehicle after the next permission hold time th. That is, in the timer interrupt processing routine, the timer interrupt of the unmanned vehicle with number W is reset and prohibited (step #40), and the next permission step name n5tep is set as entry permission information of the unmanned vehicle with number W (step #40). 41). The ground station transmits entry permission information to the unmanned vehicle based on the next permission step name n5tep.

In this way, when the passing time t'' of the current section is longer than the route occupancy permission time tk, there is time leeway, so the entry permission information for the next step and subsequent steps is held and transmitted for the next permission hold time th.

In this embodiment, the predetermined time is set as the route occupancy permission time, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the predetermined time may be longer than the route occupancy permission time.

〔effect〕

As explained above, in the present invention, the approach permission section information indicated by the entry permission information is a section that can be entered within a predetermined time after entering the current section, and the length of the section for which entry is permitted is set to be approximately a constant distance. This eliminates the need for a section for this purpose, simplifies the layout design, reduces the amount of data to be processed, and if the permitted section does not exceed the current section, the next section and subsequent sections are By suspending the transmission of entry permission information, the moving object can stop and other moving objects can enter during that time, reducing the waiting time and number of intersections for other moving objects, and reducing the processing time during travel control. It has excellent effects such as shortening the length.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an example of a traveling route of an unmanned vehicle, which is a moving body, on which the traveling control method for a moving body according to the present invention is implemented, a schematic diagram showing the unmanned vehicle, a central control device, etc., and FIG.
The figure is a flowchart showing the procedure for generating the next permission hold time and next permission step name for each step, Figure 3 is a flowchart showing the processing procedure for controlling entry permission for each unmanned vehicle in the central control unit, and Figure 4 is the next permission It is a flowchart which shows the content of timer interrupt processing after the suspension time has elapsed.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. Receiving section information from each moving object indicating which section of the plurality of sections the plurality of moving objects are currently traveling through, and In a method for controlling the traveling of a mobile object by a central control device that transmits information on permission to enter a section after the current section indicated by the section information, the permission section indicated by the approach permission information is the received current section. is a section that can be entered within a predetermined time after a mobile object enters the current section, and when the predetermined time is shorter than the passing time required from the time the moving object enters the current section until the moving object passes through the section, from the passing time to the predetermined time. A traveling control method for a mobile object, characterized in that transmission of the entry permission information is suspended for a time period obtained by subtracting a time period corresponding to the time period.