JPH06288730A - Automatic measuring device of vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To automatically measure an irradiated state in a region on the side of a vehicle by light from a light source arranged on a specified portion of the vehicle. CONSTITUTION:A line of optical sensors S installed on a sensor pole 1 extending in the vertical direction on the side of a vehicle W, a turn table 2 placing the vehicle W on it and rotating it at specified angular velocity and a light source P positioned at an eye point of a driver seated in a car room of the vehicle are furnished. A measurement control device to compute an irradiated state by light from the light source in a region on the side of the vehicle, that is, a range of a field of view of the driver in accordance with measurement information at the time of sequentially measuring a light receiving state of light from the light source of a line of the optical sensors S while rotating the vehicle and rotational drive information from the turn table 2 is furnished.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic measuring device for a vehicle, and more specifically, for automatically measuring the irradiation state in the lateral region of the vehicle by the light from a light source arranged at a predetermined portion of the vehicle. Automatic measuring device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a vehicle such as an automobile, for example, when the optical axis of a headlight is adjusted, a screen is provided in front of the vehicle and the optical axis is measured from the irradiation state of the light of the headlight on the screen. A method for adjusting the optical axis based on the measurement result is known (see, for example, JP-A-60-22641). In this way, when measuring the irradiation state in the vehicle lateral region by the light from the light source arranged in a predetermined portion of the vehicle, a screen is provided in the vehicle lateral region to be measured, and the light on the screen is It is common to examine the irradiation state.

By the way, when designing the vehicle body of a vehicle such as an automobile, it is important for safe operation of the vehicle to secure as wide a field of view as possible for an occupant (especially the driver) seated in the vehicle compartment. For this reason, generally, at the time of designing a vehicle body, the field of view of the basic model is measured.
When measuring this view range, conventionally, a light source is arranged at a position corresponding to the driver's eye point in the vehicle compartment, and a screen is provided, for example, in front of the vehicle, and the screen is irradiated with light from the light source. This is done by taking a picture of the state with a camera and creating a view map based on this photographic information.

[0004]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional method, manual work is required when the view map is created and the area of the view range is calculated, and particularly, the irradiation angle of the light from the light source and the body member are required. There is a problem that the calculation work becomes complicated due to the fact that it is necessary to consider the obstruction angle and the like due to the fact that it takes a lot of man-hours to calculate the area. Further, even in the above-mentioned optical axis adjustment of the headlight, it is very convenient if the irradiation state can be automatically measured.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an automatic measuring device for a vehicle capable of automatically measuring the irradiation state in the lateral region of the vehicle by the light from a light source arranged at a predetermined portion of the vehicle. It was made as.

[0006]

Therefore, the automatic measuring device for a vehicle according to the first invention of the present application is provided with a series of optical sensors arranged in the vertical direction at the side of the vehicle, the optical sensor and the vehicle. And a light source positioned at a predetermined portion of the vehicle, the rotation driving means for relatively rotating the and at a predetermined angular velocity, while rotating the vehicle, the light from the light source of the series of optical sensors Based on the measurement information at the time of sequentially measuring the light receiving state and the rotation driving information from the rotation driving means, a calculation means for calculating the irradiation state of the light from the light source in the vehicle lateral region is provided. is there.

A second invention of the present application is the automatic measuring device for a vehicle according to the first invention, wherein the light source is located at an eye point of an occupant seated in the passenger compartment of the vehicle. The calculating means is characterized by calculating a view range from the passenger compartment of the occupant.

[0008]

According to the first invention of the present application, since the rotation driving means is provided, it is possible to relatively rotate the vehicle and the optical sensor. The light receiving state of the sensor from the light source can be sequentially measured. Since the calculation means is provided, the irradiation state of the light from the light source in the vehicle lateral region can be automatically calculated based on the measurement information of the optical sensor and the rotation drive information of the rotation drive means. The measurement of the irradiation state or the light irradiation area can be performed efficiently and promptly.

According to the second invention of the present application, basically, the same effect as that of the first invention can be obtained. In particular, since the light source is provided at the eye point position of the occupant seated in the passenger compartment, the visual range of the occupant can be automatically calculated by the calculation means, compared to the case where the calculation is manually performed in the past. The man-hours can be significantly reduced.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings, in the case of being applied to, for example, a measuring device for measuring a visual range of an occupant seated in a vehicle compartment. FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram schematically showing the measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment. As shown in this figure, the above-mentioned measuring device is provided with a turntable 2 on which a vehicle W to be measured is mounted.
And a table control board 4 for rotationally controlling the turntable 2 at a predetermined angular velocity via a rotation drive device 3. The table control board 4 sends and receives a signal to a measurement control device 5 which will be described in detail later. Connected possible. Also,
A sensor pole 1 extending in the vertical direction is erected on the side of the vehicle mounted on the turntable 2, and a series of optical sensors S are provided on the sensor pole 1 along the longitudinal direction (vertical direction) thereof. It is installed. The sensor pole 1 is electrically connected to the measurement control device 5.

The turntable 2 is controlled by turning on the table control board 4 to drive and control the rotation driving device 3.
(That is, the vehicle W) is rotated at a predetermined angular velocity, the light receiving state of the light from the light source P of the series of optical sensors S is sequentially measured. And this measurement information and the table control panel 4
The rotation drive information from the above is input to the measurement control device 5. The measurement control device 5 is configured by, for example, a microcomputer as a main part, and based on each of the above information, the irradiation state by the light from the light source P in the side area of the vehicle W, in other words, sitting in the vehicle interior. The visual range of the occupant is calculated, and the calculation result is output by the plotter 6.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the field of view output by the plotter 6. The field of view between the front window 31 and the left and right side windows 32L, 32R is blocked by front pillars 35L, 35R, respectively, and the field of view of the left and right side windows 32L, 32R is narrowed by door mirrors 37L, 37R. Further, the upper part of the front window 31 is partially blocked by the center rearview mirror 36. The measurement control device 5 takes in the light reception signal of the optical sensor S on the sensor pole 1 in synchronization with the rotation of the turntable 2,
By rotating the turntable 2 by 360 degrees, the distribution of shadows around the outer circumference of the vehicle can be taken in, and the visibility range can be measured over the entire circumference of the vehicle.

Next, the details of the structure and measurement control of the optical sensor system (sensor pole 1) will be described. A large number (for example, 224) of optical sensors S are attached to the sensor pole 1 in the vertical direction, and more preferably, these optical sensors S are divided into a plurality of (for example, 14) blocks,
The optical sensor S of each block constitutes a sensor portion of the sensor pole unit 10 (see FIG. 3). Each sensor pole unit 10 includes 16 optical sensors S, an A / D converter 11 for A / D (analog / digital) converting the received light data of each optical sensor S, and the data after A / D conversion once. FI as a kind of buffer memory for storing
A sensor that sequentially outputs the FO memory 12 and the data input to the memory to the measurement control device 5 side, and receives the measurement timing (sampling) command from the measurement control device 5 to control the sampling cycle by the optical sensor S. And a controller 15.

In this embodiment, more preferably, 14 sensor pole units 10 are provided, and each sensor pole unit 10 is connected in parallel to the measurement control device 5. Thus, by dividing the optical sensor S into blocks and providing the sensor pole units 10 in parallel, the data of a large number (224) of optical sensors S can be divided into 14 circuits and processed in parallel. This is advantageous in ensuring the simultaneity of one row of data. Also, the optical sensor S
Also when A / D conversion is performed on the received light data, the sample hold is performed once until 16 pieces of data are gathered to ensure the simultaneity of the data in one vertical column in each sensor pole unit 10.

The data output from the sensor controller 15 is stored in the data memory map 17 of the measurement control device 5.
Stored in. The measurement control device 5 is composed of the data memory map 17 and the measurement control computer 16, and the measurement control computer 16 outputs a sampling command to the sensor controller 15 of the sensor pole unit 10 and Table control panel 4
In response, a control signal for setting the drive / stop of the turntable 2, the rotation direction, the rotation angular velocity, etc. is output. In this embodiment, for example, the rotation angle is defined according to the pulse signal, and the rotation position of the turntable 2 can be accurately known by this rotation pulse signal. A detection signal from an interference detection device 7 for preventing interference between the sensor pole 1 and the vehicle W during rotation is input to the table control panel 4, and the turntable 2 is responsive to the detection signal. Can be stopped in an emergency. Further, the measurement control computer 16 binarizes the data input to the data memory map 17 by a predetermined threshold value, calculates the visual field range based on the binarized data, and outputs the visual field map creation data to the plotter 6. It is designed to output to.

The flow of measurement control in the measuring device having the above configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. When the system starts, first, in step # 1, parameters are set. That is,
The rotational position of the turntable 2 at the start of measurement is input, and the rotational position of the turntable 2 at the end of measurement is set. Further, the rotation angle per pulse and the sampling interval are set. Next, after the rotation of the turntable 2 is started in step # 2,
The rotation pulse is continuously output (step # 3), and the turntable 2 rotates at a predetermined rotation angle per pulse. Then, measurement is performed at a predetermined sampling interval (step # 4), and when the rotational position reaches the measurement end angle.
(Step # 5: YES), the turntable 2 is stopped (Step # 6). After that, in step # 7, it is determined whether or not the data transfer from each sensor pole unit 10 is completed, and if this is YES, one measurement process is completed.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, while the vehicle W is rotated relative to the series of optical sensors S, the light receiving state of the optical sensors S from the light source P is sequentially measured. be able to. Then, the measurement control computer 16 automatically determines the irradiation state of the light from the light source P in the vehicle lateral area based on the measurement information of the optical sensor S and the rotation drive information of the turntable 2 from the table control board 4. And a view map of the vehicle W can be created. In other words, it is possible to efficiently and quickly measure the field of view of the occupant seated in the passenger compartment, and to automatically calculate the field of view, significantly reducing the number of steps compared to the conventional manual calculation. You can do it.

Although the above-mentioned embodiment is concerned with the case where the visibility range of the occupant seated in the passenger compartment is measured,
The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned case, and for example, when adjusting the optical axis of the headlight, measures the irradiation state or the irradiation area in the vehicle lateral area by the light from the light source arranged in a predetermined portion of the vehicle. It can be effectively applied to other cases.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration schematically showing a measuring apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a field of view output by a plotter of the measuring device.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the measuring device.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining measurement control in the measuring device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 ... Turntable 3 ... Rotation drive device 4 ... Table control panel 5 ... Measurement control device P ... Light source S ... Optical sensor W ... Vehicle

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A series of optical sensors arranged in a vertical direction on a side of a vehicle, a rotation driving means for relatively rotating the optical sensor and the vehicle at a predetermined angular velocity, and a predetermined portion of the vehicle. With the light source positioned, the measurement information when sequentially measuring the light receiving state of the light from the light source of the series of optical sensors while rotating the vehicle, and the rotation drive information from the rotation drive means. An automatic measuring device for a vehicle, comprising: a calculating means for calculating an irradiation state of light from the light source in the vehicle lateral region based on the above. 2. The automatic measuring device for a vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the light source is located at an eye point of an occupant seated in a vehicle compartment of the vehicle, and the computing means is the vehicle of the occupant. An automatic measuring device for a vehicle, which calculates a view range from a room.