JPH0735567A - Car navigation device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To enhance the efficiency of display screens and the transmission of information to a driver by separately forming the display screen for map graphic and that for letters and figures. CONSTITUTION: A CPU 11 selects a scan circuit 6A to sense which key has been pressed from a keyboard 6. Serial communications with a GPS receiver 8 are made, and the receiver 8 processes signals from an antenna 7 and imparts the current vehicle position to the CPU 11. In this case, if a map retrieval key 33 is being pushed the CPU 11 controls a CD-ROM driver 10 to input map (wide-area map) data to display a wide-area map on a map display screen 5A. If a zoom-out (-in) key 35 (34) is being pressed, a lower-level (upper-level) map is displayed on the display screen, and if a direction key 30 is being pressed a cursor frame 36 corresponding to one screen for the upper-level map is displayed on the display screen. Each time the frame 36 is moved by these continuous operations on the key 30, corresponding letter or figure information is displayed on a letter display screen 5B.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a car navigation device for displaying the current position of a vehicle, a road map, information necessary for driving, and more specifically, a display device for recognizing the position of the vehicle. The present invention relates to a car navigation device which is separated into a map display screen showing a road map for and a supplementary display screen showing a region name where the vehicle is located and various information.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, a car navigation system detects a current position of a vehicle and requires a current map of the vehicle and a road map on a display device provided on the vehicle and a region name associated with the map and a road map when driving. Information (for example, surrounding accommodation information, lubrication station, entertainment facility, etc.) is displayed. Then, the road map, the area name related to the map, and the letters and numbers for representing various information are displayed on one screen.

Since the display device of the car navigation device is mounted in the vehicle, a small display device of about 4 to 6 inches is usually used, and a map at a scale of 1 / 100,000 is displayed on the display device. In this case, when the vehicle travels at a speed of 60 km / h, the current traveling position on the display device moves at a rate of 1 cm for 1 minute.

FIG. 7 shows an example of a conventional car navigation device (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 60-24412). According to this, when the vehicle is traveling at high speed, the time for displaying the current position of the vehicle on the display screen is short, and when the usage time of the map data is short, the update speed of the map data is slow and the vehicle currently travels on the display screen. In order to compensate for the disadvantage that the position is not displayed and the function of the navigator cannot be fulfilled to move to the next screen, the timing of map update start is variable according to the speed of the vehicle It is a thing. The signal processing device 3 arithmetically processes the signals detected by the traveling distance detector 1 and the first and second traveling direction detectors 2A and 2B to calculate an accurate current traveling position of the vehicle, and the map data is stored. The map data corresponding to the current traveling position is received from the stored storage device 4. Then, the signal processing device 3 compares the current traveling position with the information in the storage device 4, and overlays the road map, the accurate current traveling position of the vehicle on the road map, and other road information on the screen of the display device 5. To display.

FIG. 8 shows another example of a conventional car navigation device, in which the signal processing device 3 is a GPS (Global Po
(Sitioning System) After receiving the signal from the antenna 7 to obtain the current position of the vehicle, a road map related to the current position is retrieved from the storage device 4 and data is input to the graphic generation circuit 9. The graphic generation circuit 9 converts this into an analog signal of a graphic and a hue corresponding to the screen and displays it on the screen of the display device 5. Similarly, characters and numbers also take data from the storage device 4 and display it on the screen. It is converted to the corresponding graphic and displayed by superimposing it on the map graphic already displayed on the screen. Here, the GPS antenna 7 and the GPS receiver 8 are sensors for detecting the position of the own vehicle. The GPS antenna 7 and the GPS receiver 8 receive signals from GPS satellites and process them to obtain data such as the position, speed and traveling direction of the own vehicle in the own vehicle. The data is stored in a storage device, and data is stored in the signal processing device 3 in response to a request from the signal processing device 3.
Supply to.

[0006]

However, in the former device, the road map and the area name are simultaneously displayed on one screen, so that it is very difficult for the driver to accurately grasp them while driving. It was

In the latter device, the road map and letters or numbers are superimposed on a small screen, and the display screen becomes complicated and there is a limit in displaying complicated roads. However, it was very difficult to accurately recognize the road map and the letters or numbers on the small display screen. Furthermore, since various service information cannot be displayed on the screen at the same time, pressing the service function key on the keyboard will display the corresponding service information on the map on the screen, and pressing the operation key again will display the service information on the map. Is displayed, and when you press an additional operation key, the corresponding details will be displayed, so you can not get the desired information unless you perform many operations, and the displayed information is the map graphic screen. At the same time, it could not be displayed. Then, when the detailed area name where the own vehicle is located is superimposed and displayed on the map graphic,
Since the screen became complicated and it was difficult to understand, it was inconvenient because the driver could not know the area where the vehicle was located because the detailed area name could not be displayed.

Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above conventional problems, and an object thereof is to provide a car navigation device in which the efficiency of the display screen and the transmission of information to the driver are greatly improved. To do.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, the car navigation device of the present invention separates the display screen of the device into two screens and displays a road map on one screen to display the The position of the current vehicle is displayed on the other screen at the same time, and the service information of the surrounding area is displayed on the other screen.

That is, in the car navigation system, a screen for displaying map graphics and a screen for displaying characters and numbers are separately configured, and the road map is displayed on the map display screen and the corresponding text such as characters and numbers is displayed. Is displayed on the character display screen.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a car navigation system of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an overall system configuration of the present invention, which is mounted on a console of an automobile and has a display device 5 including a map display screen 5A and a character display screen 5B, and for controlling the display device 5. A signal processing device 3, a GPS antenna 7 for receiving GPS satellite signals, and a CD-ROM driver 10 for driving map data.
It consists of and.

FIG. 2 is a detailed block diagram of the signal processing device 3 of FIG. 1, in which the CP for controlling each block is controlled.
U11 and the CPU11 connected to the CPU11
A ROM (ROM) 12 in which programs for various control operations and arithmetic processing operations are stored, and a RAM that is connected to the CPU 11 and is used to temporarily store data while the CPU 11 performs arithmetic and control operations. (RAM) 1
3, the CPU 11 and the CD-ROM driver 1
0, which is used to interface the CD-ROM driver 10 and the CPU 11 with a SCSI (Small C
omputer System Interface) 14 and the CPU 11 and GP through the RS-232C driver 15
UART (Universal Asy) for serial communication with the S receiver 8
ncronousReceiver Transmitter) 16 and the CPU 1
Video processor 18 which is connected to 1 and synthesizes a map graphic screen and outputs it as a composite signal
A video RAM 19 which is connected to the video processor 18 and temporarily stores graphic data synthesized by the video processor 18; and a composite signal from the video processor 18 which is connected to the video processor 18 and is displayed as a map. Screen (TFT (T
(Hin Film Transistor) LCD (liquid crystal display device) 5A drive signals are converted into R, G, B signals and the map display screen 5
Video encoder 20 displaying map graphic on A
And a decoder 21 connected to the CPU 11 and selecting a specific block according to a control signal from the CPU 11,
A key scan circuit 6A which is connected to the CPU 11 and detects pressing of various keys on the keyboard 6, and the CPU 1
1 and the decoder circuit 21 to display characters and numbers on a character display screen (STN (Super Twisted Nematic)
(LCD) 5B and an LCD driver 22 for displaying. Here, reference numeral 17 is an oscillator connected to the UART 16.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a display device. On the right and left sides of the display screen, direction keys 30 for determining and moving the direction of the cursor frame, an adjacent map key 31 for displaying an adjacent map, GPS key 32, map search key 33 for map search, and zoom-in
And zoom-out keys 34 and 35. Here, 36 is a cursor frame (Cur
Since it is a sor frame) and the character display screen can be configured separately from the map display screen, it is not shown. The various operation keys located on the display device 5 are the keyboard 6 of FIG.
It is the same key that is located at. That is, in FIG. 2, the various keys on the keyboard 6 are originally operation keys for various navigation on the display device 5, but are displayed on the keyboard 6 for explaining the signal processing in FIG.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a display screen according to the present invention, where a on the map display screen 5A is a position display cursor indicating the current position of the vehicle on the road map, and on the character display screen 5B. Indicates the area name, service information, road number, etc.

FIG. 5 shows another example of the structure of the display screen, which is an example in which a window is created in the map display screen 5A to form the character display screen 5B.

In the present invention thus constituted, the signal processing device 3 drives the CD-ROM driver 10 to synthesize the map graphic and the text information, and the map graphic is displayed on the map display screen 5A and the text information is displayed in characters. After the signal is displayed on the screen 5B and the signal processing device 3 receives the signal from the GPS antenna 7 to obtain the position of the own vehicle, the position of the own vehicle is superposed on the map of the map display screen 5A as a position display cursor. First, the CPU 11
Controls all block functions and performs signal processing, and the decoder 21 should select each block when the CPU 11 controls the block.
When the address data is input to the decoder 21, the decoder 21 decodes the address input from the CPU 11 and selects a specific block corresponding to the address. From this time, the CPU 11 writes or reads data in the selected specific block. become. In this way, each block can be connected to process a signal.

The hardware operation of the present invention will be described in accordance with the flow of signals for detecting the position of the vehicle.

First, when the CPU 11 supplies the address data already determined to the decoder 21, the decoder 2
1 decodes the input address and selects the UART 16, and from this time, the CPU 11 and the UART 16 communicate with each other. For example, the CPU 11 drives the RS-232C driver 15 through the UART 16, and the GPS
It communicates with the receiver 8 and requests data such as the position, direction, and speed of the vehicle processed by the GPS receiver 8. Then, the GPS receiver 8 processes the result data into RS-2.
CP through 32C driver 15 and UART 16
Data will be given to U11.

As a result, the CPU 11 receives and processes this data, and if this data is position data, first the position data received from the GPS receiver 8 is coordinate-converted according to the map graphic coordinates on the screen. become. When the CD-ROM driver 10 is driven to process map data, it is determined that the keyboard 6 needs to bring the map data, and the CPU 11 gives the decoder 21 an address required when the SCSI 14 is selected. The decoder 21 will decode the address and select the SCS 114. On the other hand, when the CPU 11 directly drives the CD-ROM driver 10, the map data recorded in the CD-ROM is read by the SCSI 14.

The SCSI 14 converts the map data serially input from the CD-ROM driver 10 into the C data.
The data is converted into parallel data suitable for the data bus of the PU 11 and input to the CPU 11. Then, the CPU 11 temporarily stores the map data in the RAM 13, converts the map data into data that matches the input characteristics of the video processor 18, and inputs the data to the video processor 18.

Thus, the video processor 18
Converts the map data received from the CPU 11 into graphic data, temporarily stores the data in the video RAM 19, converts it into a composite signal for displaying again on the screen, and inputs this signal into the video encoder 20. The encoder 20 sends this signal back to the TFT
The map signals are converted into R, G, B signals which are LCD drive signals and a map graphic is displayed on the map display screen 5A.

The character display and the number display are displayed on the character display screen 5B when the CPU 11 takes in the character or number data previously stored in the ROM 12 and inputs it to the LCD driver 22.

The present invention will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, when power is applied and the CPU 11 operates (see step 100 in FIG. 6, only step numbers will be described below), the CPU 11 causes various devices 6A, 13, 14, 16, 18 connected to the CPU 11 to operate. Two
2 etc. are initialized (110), the CPU 11 controls the decoder 21 to select the key scan circuit 6A, and then performs a key scan on the depression of a key (that is, various keys in FIG. 3) from the key matrix 6. , Sense which key was pressed (120) and also control UART 16 to R
The S-232C driver 15 is driven to serially communicate with the GPS receiver 8. At this time, the GPS receiver 8 is G
The GPS signal is received from the PS antenna 7, processed, the current position of the own vehicle is calculated and stored, and when the serial communication starts, the position of the own vehicle and the GPS status information are given to the CPU 11.

Therefore, the CPU 11 obtains the position of the vehicle (130), grasps whether the map search key 33 is pressed (140), and if it is pressed, the CD-R.
The OM driver 10 is controlled to input the level 1 map data through the SCSI 14, and the video processor 1
After being stored in the video RAM 19 through 8, the composite signal is processed to be input to the video encoder 20, and a map of level 1 is displayed on the map display screen 5A (150).

Then, it is sensed whether the zoom-in or zoom-out keys 34, 35 are pressed, and the zoom-
If the out key 35 is pressed, the lower level map is displayed (170), if the zoom in key 34 is pressed, the upper level map is displayed (180), and the direction key 3 is again displayed.
It is detected whether 0 is pressed (190), and if the direction key 30 is pressed, a cursor frame 36 corresponding to one screen of the upper level map is displayed on the displayed map (20).
0), when a continuous directional key is operated, the cursor frame 36 corresponding to it is moved and displayed.

Also, every time the cursor frame 36 moves, the corresponding character and numeral information, that is, the text is displayed on the character display screen 5B (210) and it is sensed whether the adjacent map key 31 is pressed (220). If it is pressed, the adjacent map is driven and displayed (230), and if the direction key 30 or the adjacent key 31 is not pressed, the scan state 120 is restored again.

Meanwhile, in step 140, the map search key 33
If is not pressed, it senses whether the GPS key 31 is pressed (240), and if the GPS key is pressed, the GPS receiver 8 now receives the signal of the GPS satellite and determines the position of the vehicle. It is confirmed whether it can be calculated and output (260). At this time, the zoom-in or zoom-out keys 34 and 35 are displayed.
It is confirmed again whether is pressed (280).

If the zoom-in key 34 is pressed, the upper level map is driven and displayed (29
0), if the zoom-out 35 is pressed, the lower level map is driven and displayed (300).

If the zoom-in or zoom-out keys 34 and 35 are not pressed, the default map determined by the system is displayed on the CD-ROM.
The driver 10 is driven to read and display a map of the surrounding area where the vehicle is currently located (310). At this time, the CPU 11
Converts the position of the vehicle acquired in the step (130) into map coordinates on the screen (320), creates the result with the position cursor (a in FIG. 4), and superimposes it on the map already displayed on the screen. Then, the position is displayed (330).

At this time, if the currently driven map is a level 3 map, the radius is 3 km with the current position as the center.
Search for text information within the area (region names (eg, Ichongun, Ichonbu) as shown in FIG. 4), service information (eg, Doechon, Sorbong Hot Springs), road number (eg, 99), etc., and display them on the character display screen 5B. If the map displayed on the screen is a level 4 map (340), text information within a radius of 1 km centering on the current position is displayed on the character display screen 5B (35).
0), at the same time, the area name for the currently displayed screen (see FIG. 4) is also displayed on the character display screen 5B (36).
0).

Meanwhile, at the step 240, the GP
If the S key 32 is not pressed, the logo (LOGO) screen displayed on the map display screen is driven and displayed (25
0), return to step 120, and perform GP at step 260.
If the GPS receiver 8 does not calculate the position of the vehicle while checking whether S is possible, the current GPS satellite status is displayed (270) and the process returns to step 120.
Here, GPS is not possible because the GPS receiver 8 cannot receive the signals of three or more GPS satellites, or the GPS antenna 7 is blocked by some obstacle and receives the signals of the GPS satellites. If not, it means displaying the state on the screen. That is, two or less GPS
The satellite signal is received or the satellite received signal is weak.

Levels 1 to 4 indicate the steps of displaying a map on a wide area or a detailed map when displaying the map on the car navigation system. Here, level 1 displays a wide area map in which the whole country is displayed when searching for a map, and then a map capable of displaying one region is designated and zoomed to become a level 2 map. That is, level 2 maps are collected to create a level 1 map. Level 3 is a detailed map of the Level 2 map,
Level 3 maps are assembled to form a Level 2 map.
That is, the level 3 map is an area that can represent one prefecture, and the level 4 is a detailed map level in which all roads are displayed.

Then, the present invention repeats such operations, and in addition to the map search, the map screen and the text screen of the map screen, that is, the area name and the service information are continuously displayed through the character display screen 5B in the navigation. Real-time display is performed.

[0036]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The display screen of the car navigation device is separated into a map screen showing a road map for grasping the position of the own vehicle and a character display screen showing the name of the area where the own vehicle is located and various information, thereby making it more complicated. The road can be represented, and the information around the road can be represented separately on the character display screen, so that more detailed information can be represented simultaneously. In addition, it is now possible to see detailed area names and service information around the vehicle without special key operations, and the driver can easily see this by separating only the character screen and mounting it near the driver. They can be seen so that they can also help safe operation.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an entire system of an embodiment of a car navigation device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a detailed block diagram of the signal processing device of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a drawing showing an example of a display device of an embodiment of the car navigation device of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen of an embodiment of the car navigation device of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram showing another example of the display screen of the embodiment of the car navigation device of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing an example of a conventional car navigation device.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing another example of a conventional car navigation device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 3 signal processing device 5 display device 5A map display screen 5B character display screen 6 keyboard 6A scan circuit 7 GPS antenna 10 CD-ROM driver 11 CPU 12 ROM 13 RAM 14 SCSI 15 RS-232C driver 16 UART 18 video processor 19 video RAM 20 Video encoder 21 Decoder 22 LCD driver 30 Direction keys 31 Adjacent map key 32 GPS key 33 Map search key 34 Zoom-in key 35 Zoom-out key 36 Cursor frame

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A position detecting means for receiving a signal from a GPS satellite to detect a position of a vehicle, a storing means for storing map data and text information, and map data from the position detecting means and the storing means. A car navigation apparatus comprising: a road map, a signal processing unit for outputting a current position and service information of the vehicle on the road map by combining the position information of the vehicle, and a display unit for displaying an output signal of the signal processing unit. The display means is composed of a map display screen for displaying a map graphic and a character display screen for displaying text information of characters and numbers corresponding to the map displayed on the map display screen. Car navigation device. 2. The car navigation system according to claim 1, wherein only information at a predetermined distance from the current position of the current vehicle as a center is displayed on the map display screen and the character display screen. apparatus. 3. The car navigation device according to claim 1, wherein at least one of a region name, service information, and a road number is displayed on the character display screen. 4. The map display screen and the character display screen are vertically arranged on an LCD, respectively.
The car navigation device described. 5. The car navigation device according to claim 1, wherein the map display screen and the character display screen are provided by vertically separating the same LCD screen.