JPH06119562A - Route guiding device for vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To guide a route from a searching destination up to a final destination when the searching destination is located before the set final destination. CONSTITUTION:This route guiding device is provided with an input device 14 for inputting a departure place, a destination and route guide executing information, a storage means for storing plotting map data 16 and route searching map data 17 and a processor 15 for searching a route from the departure place up to the destination by using the data 17. The processor 15 stores plotting map data from the searching destination up to the final destination of the searched and obtained route in a RAM 19, converts the stored data into route searching map data and searches the route from the searching destination up to the final destination by using the converted route searching map data.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vehicle route guidance device, and more particularly to route guidance from a search destination to a final destination.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there has been known a navigation system which displays a place name or the like near a current position of a vehicle on a display such as a CRT installed near the driver's seat of the vehicle and assists the vehicle in traveling to a destination. ing. In the navigation system, the driver sets the starting point and the destination, searches for the desired route from the pre-stored map data and displays it to the driver, but the map data for route search is converted into map data for drawing. Compared with this, there are few target roads from the viewpoint of processing time and data capacity, so the destination for route search (search destination) is different from the destination desired by the driver (final destination) (becomes before the final destination). ). Therefore, after arriving at the destination according to the route guidance, the driver must drive at his / her discretion while looking at the map display until reaching the true final destination. In some cases, this distance can reach several kilometers. I was there.

Therefore, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Sho 61-229197 discloses a route guidance device for a vehicle which, after reaching a search destination, displays the direction of the destination to the driver by means of eight-direction arrow segments.

[0004]

However, in such a configuration in which the direction of the destination is displayed by the arrow in this way, the road does not always exist even if one intends to proceed in the direction of the arrow. It is necessary to drive while looking at the map display, and in many cases the narrow street is not displayed from the viewpoint of improving the visibility of the screen while driving, and in this case there are also road candidates that can reach the destination. It disappeared from the display,
There was a problem that it was difficult to reach the destination.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems of the prior art, and an object thereof is to provide a route guide device for a vehicle that can guide a route from a search destination to a final destination desired by a driver. To do.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, a vehicle route guide device of the present invention is provided with a starting point, a destination,
And input means for inputting route guidance execution information, storage means for storing drawing map data and route searching map data, and searching a route from a starting point to a destination using the route searching map data. 1 calculation means, and conversion means for converting drawing map data from the search destination of the route obtained from the search to the final destination into route search map data,
The present invention is characterized by having a second calculation means for searching a route from the search destination to the final destination by using the route search map data obtained by the conversion, and an output means for outputting the searched route.

[0007]

[Operation] When the starting point and the destination are input from the input means,
The first calculating means searches the route from the departure place to the search destination using the route search map data and outputs it to the output means. Here, as described above, there are few target roads in the route search map data due to the processing time, and therefore the search destination often does not match the final destination.

Therefore, in order to provide route guidance from the search destination to the final destination, the conversion means converts the drawing map data including the search destination and the final destination into the route search map data, and the route search map is created. A route search is performed by the second calculation means using the data.

However, since the route search map data is generated from the drawing map data, the same route search as the normal route search cannot be performed. Therefore, a plurality of search results are obtained and displayed on the output means to guide the driver to the final destination.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A preferred embodiment of a vehicle route guide device according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of this embodiment. A distance sensor 11 such as a wheel speed sensor and a direction sensor 12 such as a geomagnetic sensor or a gyro are provided in the vehicle, and detection signals from both sensors are supplied to a processing device 15. On the other hand, a GPS receiver 13 that receives and demodulates radio waves from a GPS (Global Positioning System) satellite is also provided, and supplies the demodulated GPS signal to the processing device 15. The processing device 15 integrates the detection signal from the distance sensor 11 to obtain integrated distance data and the azimuth sensor 1.
The current position is located based on the azimuth data from 2 (dead reckoning), and matching with the drawing map data stored in advance in the storage device is performed. Alternatively, the treatment device is G
The range of the current position based on the PS signal is specified, and the map matching is performed only in this specified range to determine the current position.

An input device 14 is installed near the driver's seat so that the driver can make desired settings and supply setting data to the processing device 15. The input device 14 includes a switch provided on the navigation display device 20 or a touch switch displayed on the screen. When the driver uses the input device 14 to set a desired setting, that is, a departure place, a destination, a waypoint, etc., the processing device searches for an optimum route using the route search database 17 stored in the storage device. The information is displayed on the display device 20, and guidance is given by voice through the speaker 21 as appropriate.

Here, the storage device for storing the drawing / matching database 16 and the route searching database 17 is composed of a large-capacity storage medium such as a CD-ROM, and the drawing / matching database 16 is a narrow street having a width of about 3 m. The road search database 17 stores a road network including trunk roads such as national roads and prefectural roads.

FIG. 2 shows an example of these databases. The database is a mesh of a predetermined size (for example, a secondary mesh system defined by the Digital Map Association)
It is configured for each. In the figure, “node” represents a so-called intersection, and includes simple nodes, intersection nodes, road edge nodes, boundary nodes, and the like.

The drawing / matching data consists of drawing node data, intersection data, and road data. The structure of the drawing node data is shown in FIG. 3, the structure of the intersection data is shown in FIG. 4, and FIG. Shows the structure of road data. The drawing node data stores intersections, characteristic change points such as road widths, interpolation points for expressing curves, coordinates of mesh boundary points, and the like. The node attribute indicates an intersection node, a simple node, a road end node, or the like. Further, the intersection data is data showing connection relations of the intersections, and the road data shows road constituent nodes. Here, the road attributes of FIG. 5 are road types (highway, national road,
Prefectural roads, etc.) and codes indicating the width of roads are stored and used to change the roads drawn according to the scale of the map. For example, when drawing a map with a scale of 1 / 10,000, roads with a width of less than 5.5 m are deleted during traveling.

On the other hand, the route search data comprises search node data and search link data. The structure of the search node data is shown in FIG. 6 and the structure of the search link data is shown in FIG. The search node data has the points where the main roads above the main local road intersect, and the intersections and the adjacent mesh boundary points as the components. Further, the search link data stores the traffic cost of links between nodes and the traffic regulation of roads (one-way traffic regulation and prohibition of entry into the designated direction). This provides a recommended route that matches the actual traffic conditions.

FIG. 8 shows a processing flowchart of the processing device 15 in this embodiment. First, the current position input by the driver via the input device 14 or the detected current position is fetched (S301). Next, the driver inputs the destination input by the input device 14 (S302). The driver's input is specified by, for example, calling a map near the destination from a place name index or the like and moving the cursor.
Then, from the search node candidates stored in the route search database 17, the starting point (search start point) and the destination (search target point) for performing the search are selected (S303,
S304). For example, when selecting a search target node,
All search node candidates in the vicinity of the designated destination are extracted, and an appropriate node whose direction is on the current side (that is, on the front side) is selected so as not to be a U-turn route.

After the search start point and the search target point are selected, the shortest cost route from the search start point to the search target point is searched by applying a route search algorithm such as the Dijkstra method (S305). Here, as the travel cost, the shortest required time route may be obtained using the link transit time,
Further, the optimum route may be obtained in consideration of the distance, the charge, and the like.
The Dijkstra method is described in detail in Japanese Patent Application No. 3-43229 previously proposed by the present applicant.
The search process will be described using. In FIG. 9, “” represents a search node, and “a” to “e” represent search links. Search is progressing from the side of, and the next step is to expand. At this time, the node data for the first is opened, and the number of link connections = 4 and the pointer of the link c which is the first connection link are read. Next, open the link data for c, start point, end point, traffic cost of link c,
And a pointer to d which is the next link at the same start point. Here, since the end point of the link c is not expanded but the connection source node, the passage flag is not read. Thereafter, similarly, data regarding the link d, the link c, the link b, and the four connection links are sequentially read. next,
Labels of other connection destination nodes, such as, are updated, but if the passage flag is set to "not progress" at this time, the process is not performed for that link. For example, when the traffic flag for the left turn direction of --- is set to prohibit passage (for example, 1 bit stores 1 for passage and 0 for passage, 0 is stored), no label processing is performed. . Note that the processing is the same when the database is updated for each layer according to the road type and mesh area in order to speed up the search processing, and information regarding the hierarchical connection points is stored in the node data so as to correspond. To

The result obtained by the search in this way is stored in the RAM so that the traveling direction can be guided for each intersection (S306).

Regarding route guidance, first, it is judged whether or not it is within a predetermined distance from the search start point (S307), the direction is guided until the predetermined distance is reached (S308), and after reaching the search start point. Each time the intersection approaches, information such as the traveling direction at the intersection is notified to the driver by the display device 20 and the speaker 21 (S310-S311). This guidance continues until near the search target intersection (S309).

Next, guidance from the search target intersection to the designated final destination will be described. There is no route search database for non-main roads after the search target point, but since a drawing / matching database exists, this is taken into the processing RAM 19 (S312). Since the drawing database has the data format shown in FIGS. 2 to 5, it cannot be used for searching as it is, so the format is converted in the RAM (S313). Specifically, the intersection data is used as the search node data, and for each intersection node, a simple node is sequentially expanded until reaching the next intersection node. Consider a set of nodes as a single link. Since the traveling cost does not necessarily have to be an accurate value, the straight line distance between the coordinates of the intersection nodes may be used instead. However, the traffic flag at the intersection is assumed to be omnidirectional.

Next, the route search data (pseudo-search data) thus created is used to perform a route search from the search destination to the designated final destination (S314). If only one route is requested, the road may not be able to travel due to traffic restrictions, so multiple routes are requested and all of them are highlighted on the map drawing screen. Allow the route to be selected according to actual traffic rules. A k-th path algorithm, which is a modification of the Dijkstra method, is used to obtain a plurality of routes. Then, all the roads forming the shortest route up to the k-th obtained are set as route candidates (S315), and even the roads whose display is erased due to the width of the road while the road is traveling are displayed. It is displayed in a color that stands out from the road (S316). When the predetermined final destination is within the predetermined distance (S317), the fact that the destination is reached is notified (S318), and the route guidance is ended. FIG. 10 shows an example of the search result.

In this embodiment, the route search from the search target point is performed by parallel processing during traveling to reach the search target point, and information can be provided to the driver at the same time as reaching the vicinity of the search target point. To do so.

Further, in the present embodiment, the direction is indicated by the arrow from the current position to the search start point, but it is also possible to provide the information by performing the route search with the drawing data for this portion as well.

[0025]

As described above, according to the vehicle route guidance device of the present invention, the route guidance from the search destination to the final destination can be performed, so that the driver can reach the desired destination. You can definitely reach it.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a database according to the same embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of drawing node data according to the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of intersection data of the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram of road data according to the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a configuration diagram of search node data according to the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a configuration diagram of search link data according to the embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a processing flowchart of the embodiment.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram of a search process of the embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a route search result of the example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 11 Distance Sensor 12 Direction Sensor 13 GPS Receiver 14 Input Device 15 Processing Device 16 Drawing / Matching Database 17 Route Search Database 20 Display Device 21 Speaker

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A vehicle route guidance device which sets a route to a destination and guides along the route, an input means for inputting a departure place, a destination, and route guidance execution information, and a map for drawing. Storage means for storing data and map data for route search; first computing means for searching a route from a starting point to a destination using the map data for route search; and a purpose of searching for a route obtained by the search. A conversion means for converting the drawing map data from the ground to the final destination into the route search map data, and the route from the search destination to the final destination by using the route search map data obtained by the conversion. A route guidance device for a vehicle, comprising: a second calculation means for searching; and an output means for outputting a searched route.