JPH06247393A - Automatic airship control device with automated obstacle avoidance device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enhance stability of a device which effects automatic navigation based on a preinputted navigation program by preferring automatic obstacle avoidance control to the automatic navigation program if an obstacle is detected on course. CONSTITUTION:An obstacle detecting device comprises ultrasonic sensors 2a-7a each of which has directivity and transmits and receives ultrasonic waves, and provided respectively at the front and rear portions, right and left middle portions, and upper and lower portions of an airship, and distance measuring circuits 2b-7b each of which calculates the distance to an obstacle from the time from transmission to reception at each sensor. The detection results of the detecting system are inputted to a control unit 9 and compared at comparison circuits with the dangerous distance to the obstacle which is prestored in a storage device, and a judging circuit for the direction of escape determines the direction of escape from the comparison results. A signal for preferring automatic airship control is outputted to a CPU according to the judgment result and an input method is changed, and a control portion A comprising a pusher 9 and a bow 10 is controlled so that the airship takes escaping action.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an improvement in unmanned airship maneuvering technology, and in particular, in an airship maneuvering based on a navigation program stored in a computer, an obstacle is detected by using an ultrasonic sensor to detect an obstacle. It enables unmanned automatic marine vessel maneuvering by giving priority to the navigation program and taking avoidance action when an object exists.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a conventional unmanned airship maneuvering technique, a mobile radio station is placed on the ground, the operator transmits to the radio station of the airship, and the operating unit is operated based on the transmission signal to turn the airship to the right, A radio-controlled marine vessel maneuvering technique for flying by turning left, ascending or descending is known.

[0003]

However, in the case of such a conventional wireless marine vessel maneuvering system, since it is always intended to board an airship and the airship must be controlled by radio, the radio operator is extremely tense. It was not suitable for a long flight to give. In addition, since it is necessary to judge and respond to various situations in order to carry out wireless flight, considerable training is required to train wireless pilot operators. Further, in a flight in an urban area, skyscrapers and the like are lined up, and various radio waves travel over the ground, so that there is a risk that the ship may be temporarily unmaneuverable due to radio interference or radio interference, or may contact ground structures. Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the drawbacks of the prior art,
It is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic ship maneuvering device for an airship that does not require operator training and can safely fly even if there is interference or radio interference.

[0004]

That is, the present invention relates to an airship configured to automatically navigate based on a navigation program input to a computer, and is installed on the hull of the airship up, down, front and back, left and right, and is always subjected to ultrasonic waves. From a detection device including an ultrasonic sensor that transmits a sound and a reflected sound wave from an obstacle and a distance measurement circuit, and a control device that instructs the operation unit to perform an avoidance action based on a detection signal from the detection device. The above object is achieved by an automatic ship maneuvering device with an automatic obstacle avoidance device for an airship, wherein the detection device is configured to send a detection signal to a control device when the airship approaches within a predetermined distance from an obstacle. .

[0005]

That is, when there are no obstacles on the front, rear, left, right, and top and bottom of the airship, the control unit operates the ship in accordance with the navigation program previously input to the computer. If there are obstacles near the path of the airship (front, back, left, right, top and bottom), the detection devices provided at the 6 front, back, left, right, top and bottom of the airship will detect if the obstacle is within a predetermined distance (dangerous distance). As a result, when there is an obstacle within the predetermined distance, the detection device sends a detection signal to the control device, and the control device operates the operation unit based on the detection signal to give priority to the navigation program. The left and right, up and down, etc. are avoided according to the position of the obstacle. As a result, the airship can fly safely while avoiding obstacles without an operator while flying unmanned, and can navigate safely even if there is a radio interference.

[0006]

The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the illustrated embodiments. As an unmanned airship, one that allows navigation while checking indoor coordinates (indoor coordinate system), one that allows navigation while checking earth coordinates (earth coordinate system), and make a demonstration flight with a radio control etc. in advance, speed, rudder angle, time, etc. There are things that are stored in memory and navigate based on that memory (demo system), and those that operate by manipulating the operating unit of an airship such as a radio-controlled model from the ground (radio system). The indoor coordinate system is a type in which one or more beacon transmitters are three-dimensionally installed on the ground, and the radio waves from the beacon transmitters are received to obtain spatial coordinates and inclination while navigating. Used to navigate. The earth coordinate system allows an airship to navigate while correcting the flight course based on plane coordinates, altitude, and tilt obtained from a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver, and is suitable for outdoor navigation.

In the following embodiment, the case of an airship in the earth coordinate system will be described. What is shown in the figure is a general airship, and the airship 1 has a front part, a rear part, a left abdomen, a right abdomen, an upper part and a lower part (preferably 30 ° to 90 °).
Ultrasonic sensor 2 that has directivity and transmits and receives ultrasonic waves
a, 3a, 4a, 5a, 6a, 7a and distance measuring circuits 2b, 3b, 4b, 5b, 6b, 7 for calculating the distance to the obstacle from the time from the transmission to the reception of the ultrasonic sensor
b is attached, and the detection result from the detection device is sent to the control device 8 as a detection signal (detection distance x ₁ ,
x ₂ , x ₃ , x ₄ , x ₅ , x ₆ ) are input. In addition, when the directivity of the ultrasonic sensor is set to 90 °, the detection points of the ultrasonic sensors are parallel because the measurement points in each ultrasonic sensor are different and do not react to the same object at the same time.

The control device 8 has previously stored in its storage device dangerous distances d ₁ , d ₂ , d ₃ , d ₄ , d ₅ , from the airship to obstacles.
d ₆ has been entered, and the dangerous distances d ₁ , d ₂ , d ₃ , d ₄ , d ₅ ,
d ₆ and the detection distances x ₁ , x ₂ , x ₃ , x ₄ , x ₅ , x ₆ are compared by a comparison circuit, and the comparison result is input to the avoidance direction determination circuit. And judge as shown in
A signal is issued to the PU so as to give priority to automatic marine vessel maneuvering, and the input method is switched. At the same time, the operating section A composed of the propulsion unit 9 and the rudder 10 is operated to take an avoidance action. This dangerous distance
_{d 1, d 2, d 3} , d 4, d 5, d 6 are separately common to set requires d _1, not most longer be set to the same distance.
In the control shown in the table in the present embodiment, the case of the permutation combination detected by up to two ultrasonic sensors among the six ultrasonic sensors provided has been described, but the present invention is not limited to this, and There are two types of sensors
Considering that (danger / safety) is performed, there are simply 2 ⁶ (64) ways of control, and these may be input to the control device 8 in advance. Actually, there are an infinite number of control methods, and the control method is appropriately selected according to the usage method.

[0009]

[Table 1]

A program (coordinates, time, etc.) such as the flight route and flight method of the airship is input to the internal computer (CPU) of the control device 8 in advance, and the control device 8 is installed in the airship 1. 4 for GPS receiver 12
Compare the longitude, latitude, altitude, and 3-axis attitude of the airship with the programmed data based on the analysis results of the received data of the radio waves transmitted from one or more GPS satellites, and operate the operation unit A to determine the position and attitude. It is configured to fly under control, and is further configured to increase or decrease the output of the propulsion unit 9 based on the calculated flight speed. In the control device 8 of the present embodiment, when a detection signal is received from each detection device during automatic navigation based on the navigation program, the operation unit A has an input switching circuit to prioritize the navigation program from the viewpoint of collision prevention. It is configured to take avoidance action according to an instruction from the avoidance direction determination circuit. Further, the control device 8 according to the present embodiment is equipped with a radio control receiver 16 and is configured to be able to instruct the control device 8 to change the flight path and maneuver the propulsion device 9 and the rudder 10 in a wireless manner. Has been done. Incidentally, 14 is a known altimeter for comparing with the altitude calculated by the GPS receiver 12, and 19 is a known three-axis gyro sensor for comparing with the attitude calculated by the GPS receiver 12. .

Further, in order to improve the accuracy for confirming the position of the flight route, the GPS receiver 12 is separately provided at the ground reference point whose longitude, latitude and altitude are measured by other means.
a is installed, the longitude, latitude, altitude, and the carrier of radio waves analyzed by the GPS receiver 12a are compared with the coordinates of the reference point to calculate the correction values of the respective measurement data, and the correction values are transmitted. The measurement value analyzed by the GPS receiver 12 of the airship 1 may be corrected by transmitting the data to the receiver 18 of the airship 1 via the aircraft and inputting it to the CPU from the receiver 18.

The automatic navigation based on the internal computer of the control unit 8 has been described with respect to the system using the GPS receiver 12, but the system is not limited to this. The operator first makes a predetermined flight route by wireless guidance. At the same time as making a demonstration flight, the angle and time of the rudder, the number of revolutions of the propulsion unit, etc. were stored in the storage device, and during the second and subsequent flights, the boat maneuvering device was operated based on the data stored in advance in the storage device. It may be used for a demo flight system that is designed to automatically navigate and an automatic navigation system for indoor coordinate systems. In the present embodiment, it is configured to turn to the right when there is an obstacle in front of the airship, but the present invention is not limited to this, and it may be configured to turn to the left, and as a turning angle, It is desirable that the angle is about 20 ° with respect to the direction. Further, although it is configured to stop when two detection signals from the detection device are overlapped (for example, left and right, up and down), the invention is not limited to this, and after stopping once, the vehicle is moved backward and the direction is changed vertically or horizontally. You may comprise so that it may be made.

In the apparatus according to the present embodiment having the above-described configuration, points P ₁ , P ₂ , P ₃ , P ₄ (longitude, latitude,
The altitude, speed, etc.) are stored in the storage device of the control device 8. Then, the airship 1 aims at each point when there are no obstacles, and the GPS receiver 12 uses the longitude, latitude,
The control device 8 operates the operation unit A such as the propulsion unit 9 and the rudder 10 while the altitude and speed and the inclination of the three axes are calculated, and compares the navigation data with the navigation data. When there is an obstacle in the traveling direction, the navigation program is switched to be prioritized, and the avoidance direction determination circuit operates the operation unit A as shown in Table 1 based on the detection signal from the detection device to operate the airship. At the time when there is no detection danger signal from the detection device (direction of danger distance d ₁ , d ₂ , d ₃ , d ₄ ,
When any of the detection distances x ₁ , x ₂ , x ₃ , x ₄ , x ₅ , x ₆ becomes longer than d ₅ , d ₆ ), switch to automatic navigation based on the navigation program again. Then, after passing through each point, the maneuvering will be aimed at the next point.

[0014]

As described above, in the device according to the present invention, an airship can be made to travel along a flight route stored in a computer in advance without any radio control, and an obstacle exists on the route. In this case, since it is configured to automatically avoid obstacles based on the detection signals from the detection devices installed at the front, rear, left, right, top and bottom of the airship in preference to the automatic navigation program, Since the training is not necessary and the operator only needs to monitor the operation, not the operation, the flight can be performed for a long time, and its utility value is greater than that of the conventional apparatus.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view of an airship equipped with a device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a track diagram showing a flight path and a flight path when an obstacle is avoided in an airship equipped with the ship manipulating apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the device according to the present invention in the earth coordinate system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Airship 2a, 3a, 4a, 5a, 6a, 7a Ultrasonic sensor 2b, 3b, 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b Distance measuring circuit 8 Control device 9 Propulsion device 10 Rudder 12 GPS receiver 14 Altimeter 16 Radio control receiver 18 Reception Machine 19 gyro sensor

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An airship configured to automatically navigate based on a navigation program input to a computer. The airship is attached to the top, bottom, front, back, left and right of the hull of the airship to constantly emit sound waves and reflected sound waves from obstacles. A detection device including an ultrasonic sensor and a distance measuring circuit for receiving the information, and a control device for instructing the operation unit to perform an avoidance action based on a detection signal from the detection device. An automatic vessel maneuvering device with an automatic obstacle avoidance device for an airship, which is configured to send a detection signal to a control device when the airship approaches within a distance. 2. The airship according to claim 1, wherein the control device causes the operation section to take the avoidance action in preference to the marine vessel maneuvering based on the navigation program, and switches to the program controlled marine vessel maneuver again when the detection signal disappears. Automatic ship handling system with automatic obstacle avoidance system.