JPH07129878A - Vehicle data gathering system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To surely grasp a lap time and a travel state on each lap by measuring the lap time by using an ultrasonic wave, and transferring it in real time by radio to a base station side together with engine water temperature data. CONSTITUTION:Once a racing car 3 passes before an ultrasonic wave transmitter 102 installed by a course, an on-vehicle ultrasonic wave receiver 201 receives the ultrasonic wave and sends its detection output to a lap time measurement part 202 to calculate the lap time on the lap, which is displayed on an LCD display 203 and also sent to a sent data processing part 206. The sent data processing part 206 converts current water temperature data on the engine into sent data each time to obtain the lap time data, and then sends the data to the base station device 1 through a radio transmitter 207 and an antenna 208. Once the radio receiver 105 of the base station device 1 receives the sent radio wave, a received data processing part 106 decodes the respective data, which are printed out on a corresponding printer.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vehicle data collecting system, and more particularly to a vehicle data collecting system suitable for use in a vehicle such as a racing car or a test car traveling around.

[0002]

[Prior Art] For racing cars and test cars,
In order to analyze the running situation and running performance, various running data of the running vehicle, for example, engine coolant temperature, running speed, engine speed, longitudinal acceleration, lateral acceleration, shift position, accelerator It is necessary to collect the opening.

Various vehicle data collection systems for collecting these traveling data have been proposed in the past. In the conventional vehicle data collection system, various sensors and a recording device are mounted on the vehicle, and each sensor detects them. In general, various traveling data are recorded on a desired recording medium such as a memory card by a recording device, and are taken out for analysis / totalization after traveling is completed.

By the way, when analyzing and totalizing running data, the lap time for each lap is extremely important information as a time reference. The most primitive method of measuring lap time is for the pit crew to manually measure the stopwatch every lap, but in the case of this manual timekeeping, the lap time data is collected as data that is completely independent of the running data. It is necessary to match the data with the lap time data.

Further, in the case of manual timing, in order to inform the driver of the measured lap time, there is no choice but to take a method such as writing on a bulletin board or the like and posting from the side of the course.
Reading the characters written on the bulletin board from a racing car that runs at ultra-high speed imposes a heavy burden on the driver and is not preferable from the standpoint of vehicle safety.

[0006]

In order to solve the above problems, a vehicle data collection system capable of measuring a lap time has been conventionally proposed, but in the conventional system, the lap time is measured by using infrared rays. Most of them require skill and time to set the measurement distance and focus the beam, and there is also the problem that the lap time cannot be measured if the infrared rays are blocked by other traveling vehicles. It was Further, in the conventional vehicle data collection system, the traveling data including the lap time is simply collected by the base station, and the driver has not been notified directly and in real time.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above problems, and its purpose is to make it possible to accurately measure a lap time under any running condition,
The measured lap time can be displayed directly to the driver in real time, and this lap time data can be wirelessly transferred to the base station in real time together with the most important engine cooling water temperature data in the driving information. It is to provide a collection system.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, a vehicle data collection system of the present invention comprises a base station device installed on the ground side and an on-vehicle device installed in a traveling vehicle. The station device is installed at an appropriate position beside the traveling course and emits ultrasonic waves toward the traveling course, an ultrasonic wave transmitting means, a wireless receiving means for receiving radio waves transmitted from the vehicle-mounted device, and the wireless receiving means Reception data processing means for decoding lap time data and water temperature data sent on the radio wave, and data output means for outputting the lap time data and water temperature data decoded by the reception data processing means by a predetermined method. The on-vehicle device is attached to a predetermined position of the vehicle, and receives ultrasonic waves emitted from the ultrasonic wave transmitting device of the base station device; The lap time measuring means for calculating the lap time from the reception interval of the ultrasonic waves received by the wave receiving means, the water temperature sensor for detecting the water temperature of the engine cooling water of the vehicle, and the lap time obtained by the lap time measuring means visually for the driver. Display means for displaying, transmission data processing means for converting lap time data measured by the lap time measuring means and water temperature data detected by the water temperature sensor into transmission data having a predetermined transmission format, and the transmission data processing And a wireless transmission means for transmitting the transmission data converted by the means to a radio wave and transmitting the transmission data to the base station device.

[0009]

When the traveling vehicle passes in front of the ultrasonic wave transmitting means of the base station device, the ultrasonic wave receiving means mounted on the vehicle receives the ultrasonic wave. The on-vehicle lap time measuring means calculates the lap time of the lap from the current and previous reception time intervals of this ultrasonic wave, and displays the obtained lap time on the display means provided in the driver's seat of the traveling vehicle. This allows the driver to know the lap time for each lap directly and in real time.

On the other hand, the calculated lap time data and the water temperature data of the engine cooling water at that time detected by the water temperature sensor are sent to the transmission data processing means, and are transmitted by the transmission data processing means in a predetermined transmission format. It is converted into data and transmitted to the base station device through the wireless transmission means.

The radio receiving means of the base station device receives the radio wave transmitted from the radio transmitting means of the in-vehicle device, and the lap time data and the water temperature data included in the radio signal are decoded by the reception data processing means. Then, it is output through a predetermined output means. This allows the base station to collect and monitor the lap time of each traveling vehicle and the water temperature at that time in real time.

Further, in the case of the present invention, since the lap time is measured by using the ultrasonic wave having high diffusivity, the ultrasonic wave can be surely received even when the vehicle runs in parallel with another vehicle.

[0013]

EXAMPLES Examples of the present invention will be described below by taking the case of application to a racing car as an example. FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an embodiment of a vehicle data collection system of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a base station device installed in a pit or the like of a racetrack, and 2 is an in-vehicle device mounted in a racing car.

The base station device 1 includes a high frequency oscillator 101, an ultrasonic transmitter 102, an antenna 104, and a radio receiver 10.
5, reception data processing unit 106, printers 107 ₁ to 10
It consists of 7 _j . The in-vehicle device 2 also includes an ultrasonic receiver 201, a lap time measuring unit 202, a liquid crystal display (LCD) 203, and various sensors 204 _{1 to} 20.
4 _n , a sensor control unit 205, a transmission data processing unit 206, a wireless transmitter 207, and an antenna 208.

The high frequency oscillator 101 of the base station apparatus 1 is an electric oscillator as an ultrasonic wave source, and its transmission output (for example, 40 KHz) is constantly supplied to the ultrasonic wave transmitter 102. The ultrasonic transmitter 102 is an electro-acoustic conversion element made of piezoelectric ceramics or the like for converting a high frequency signal provided from the oscillator 101 into ultrasonic waves. As illustrated in FIG. 2, the ultrasonic transmitter 102 is located at a side of a running course of a racetrack consisting of a circular course or the like, and is installed at a position where the running course is looked down obliquely from above.
As shown in FIG. 2, a plurality of racing cars 3A, 3B
Even when running side by side, it is devised so that it can be reliably received in combination with the diffusivity of ultrasonic waves.

The radio receiver 105 is an FM receiver for receiving radio waves from the vehicle-mounted device 2. In the case of this embodiment, j reception channels having different frequencies are prepared in order to simultaneously receive FM radio waves from j racing cars.

The reception data processing unit 106 is used for the radio receiver 1.
Decode the car number, lap time data and water temperature data sent on the radio wave received in 05,
This is a circuit that converts the original numerical data. The reception data processing unit 106 is composed of a microcomputer and the like.

The printers 107 _{1 to} 107 _j are printing devices for printing and outputting the lap time data and the water temperature data of the racing car of the corresponding car number in a predetermined format.

The on-vehicle device 2 is used by being mounted on a racing car 3 as illustrated in FIG. The ultrasonic receiver 201 is a receiving device for receiving the ultrasonic waves radiated from the ultrasonic transmitter 102 of the base station device 1 on the vehicle. For example, as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, The ultrasonic transmitter 102, which is located on the zenith portion of the roll bar or the like and is installed on the ground side, is attached.

A concrete circuit example of the ultrasonic receiver 201 is shown in FIG. The ultrasonic receiver 201 shown in FIG. 4 includes an ultrasonic receiving element 210, an ultrasonic receiving amplification circuit 211, a pulse counting circuit 212, a timer circuit 213, and a flip-flop 214. The ultrasonic wave receiving and amplifying circuit 211 amplifies and shapes the sound wave signal, and then the pulse counting circuit 212 counts it. The reception of ultrasonic waves is detected without malfunction by setting the flip-flop 214 when the pulse count circuit 212 counts a prescribed number of pulses before being reset by the reset pulse given from the timer circuit 213 at regular intervals. It was done like this.

The lap time measuring unit 202 calculates the lap time of one round of the course from the current and previous reception intervals of the ultrasonic waves received by the ultrasonic receiver 201, and the result is displayed on the LCD.
It is sent to the display 203 and the transmission data processing unit 206. The LCD display 203 is a liquid crystal display unit for displaying the lap time calculated by the lap time measuring unit 202 to the driver, and is provided at a position where the driver in the driver's seat can easily see it.

The sensors 204 _{1 to} 204 _n are various sensors attached to each part of the racing car. For example, the temperature of the engine cooling water, the running speed, the engine speed, the longitudinal acceleration, and the lateral acceleration. Various data such as, shift position, accelerator opening, etc. are detected.

The sensor control unit 205 is for sequentially fetching the detection outputs of the sensors 204 _{1 to} 204 _n at a predetermined sampling period according to their characteristics, converting them into digital data, and sending them to the transmission data processing unit 206. Circuit. For example, the water temperature data that changes slowly is sampled once every 20 seconds, and other data is collected according to the characteristics.
Sampling is performed once every 0.01 sec, 0.1 sec, 0.5 sec, 1.0 sec.

The transmission data processing unit 206 stores various running data sent from the sensor control unit 205 and lap time data sent from the lap time measuring unit 202 in a predetermined format in a built-in memory and Of the stored data, the lap time data and the water temperature data indicating the temperature of the engine cooling water are converted into transmission data according to a predetermined transmission format as shown in FIG. 5, and sent to the wireless transmitter 207. The transmission data processing unit 206 is composed of a microcomputer and the like.

The wireless transmitter 207 is a transmission data processing unit 2
Put the transmission data sent from 06 on the FM radio wave,
It is a wireless device for transmitting to the base station device 1 through the antenna 208. The wireless transmitter 207 is provided with transmission channels having different frequencies for each racing car.

As shown in FIG. 6, the connector 209 connects the connector 5 such as the laptop computer 4 to the transmission data processing section 20 after the race is completed.
6 is a connection terminal for taking out all the data collected and stored in the memory.

In the above structure, when the racing car 3 passes in front of the ultrasonic transmitter 102 installed on the side of the course, the ultrasonic receiver 201 mounted on the vehicle receives it, and the detection output of ultrasonic reception is measured for the lap time. Send to section 202. The lap time measuring unit 202 calculates the lap time in the lap from the time interval between the reception of the current ultrasonic wave and the reception of the previous ultrasonic wave, displays it on the LCD display 203, and sends it to the transmission data processing unit 206.

The transmission data processing unit 206 stores the lap time data sent from the lap time measuring unit 202,
Various traveling data sent from the sensor control unit 205 are stored in a built-in memory one after another in a predetermined storage format. At the same time, this transmission data processing unit 206
Each time the lap time data is obtained, the lap time data and the water temperature data of the engine cooling water at that time are read out from the memory, and these two data are shown in FIG.
After being converted into predetermined transmission data according to the transmission format of No. 1, the data is transmitted to the base station device 1 through the wireless transmitter 207 and the antenna 208.

When the radio receiver 105 of the base station device 1 receives the radio wave transmitted from the vehicle-mounted device 2 on a predetermined channel, the reception data processing unit 106 carries the car number and the lap time data sent on the reception radio wave. And by decoding the water temperature data and transferring it to the printer corresponding to the car number in the printers 107 _{1 to} 107 j,
It is printed out in a predetermined format from the corresponding printer. As a result, the pit crew can measure the lap time for each lap measured on the side of the running vehicle and the water temperature data at that time.
You can know in real time with the driver.

When the race is over, as shown in FIG.
The connector 5 of the laptop computer 4 or the like is connected to the connector 209 of the vehicle-mounted device 2 and all the data collected and stored in the built-in memory of the transmission data processing unit 206 in the vehicle-mounted device 2 is taken out. Then, the extracted data is totalized and analyzed by the analysis program, and the totalization and analysis results are output from the printer 6. This makes it possible to accurately compare and refer to the analysis results of the data for each lap after the race.

[0031]

As described above, according to the vehicle data acquisition system of the present invention, since the lap time is measured by using the ultrasonic wave having high diffusivity, it is possible to run in parallel with other vehicles. Even in such a case, the ultrasonic waves can be reliably received, and the lap time for each lap can be reliably measured.

Since the obtained lap time is wirelessly transferred to the base station side in real time together with the water temperature data of the engine cooling water, which is the most important for vehicle traveling, it is possible to know the traveling state of the vehicle in real time. You can

Further, since the lap time data is displayed directly to the driver by the display means provided at an appropriate position in the vehicle, the driver can know the lap time for each lap directly and in real time, and the running condition of the driver. It is possible to accurately grasp the pit crew and free the pit crew from the work of measuring the lap time.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an installation example of an ultrasonic transmitter and a receiver.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of mounting an in-vehicle device on a racing car.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a specific example of an ultrasonic receiver.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a transmission format.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a connection state between an in-vehicle device and a laptop computer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Base Station Device 2 In-vehicle Device 3 Racing Car (Vehicle) 101 High Frequency Oscillator 102 Ultrasonic Transmitter 104 Antenna 105 Wireless Receiver 106 Received Data Processing Unit 107 Printer 201 Ultrasonic Receiver 202 Lap Time Measuring Unit 203 LCD Display 204 Various Sensors 205 sensor control unit 206 transmission data processing unit 207 wireless transmitter 208 antenna 209 connector (Centronics)

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A base station device installed on the ground side and an in-vehicle device mounted on a traveling vehicle, wherein the base station device is installed at an appropriate position beside a traveling course, and is installed toward a traveling course. Ultrasonic wave transmitting means for irradiating sound waves, wireless receiving means for receiving transmitted radio waves from the vehicle-mounted device, and received data for decoding lap time data and water temperature data sent on the electric waves received by the wireless receiving means A data output unit for outputting the lap time data and the water temperature data decoded by the received data processing unit by a predetermined method, wherein the vehicle-mounted device is attached to a predetermined position of the vehicle, and the base station device is provided. Ultrasonic receiving means for receiving the ultrasonic waves emitted from the ultrasonic transmitting means, and a lap time for calculating the lap time from the receiving intervals of the ultrasonic waves received by the ultrasonic receiving means. Time measuring means, a water temperature sensor for detecting the water temperature of the engine cooling water of the vehicle, a display means for visually displaying to the driver the lap time obtained by the lap time measuring means, and lap time data measured by the lap time measuring means And a transmission data processing unit that converts the water temperature data detected by the water temperature sensor into transmission data having a predetermined transmission format; and the base station by transmitting the transmission data converted by the transmission data processing unit on a radio wave. A vehicle data collection system comprising: a wireless transmission unit that transmits the data to the device.