JPH0916888A - Reception equipment for information on the outside of vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To decide classifications of installed beacons to select an optimum reception circuit by installing beacons, which present the traffic information to vehicles, so that their classifications correspond to classifications of roads where they are installed. SOLUTION: The present position of a vehicle is detected by what is called the map matching system, and the classification of the road where it is running is decided. A signal processing part 4c selects a radio beacon receiver 4a or an optical beacon receiver 4b in accordance with the discriminated road classification and takes in only limited signals to perform the reception processing. Since the reception processing is performed based on only limited signals, an influence of noise or erroneous reception processing of signals from beacons of other classifications installed on adjacent roads are prevented.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is used in combination with an in-vehicle navigation device to limit the signals of only external communication devices installed on roads of the road type by knowing the type of the road on which the vehicle is running. The present invention relates to an outside-vehicle information receiving device that can be received and processed.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, by providing traffic information including traffic regulation information and traffic congestion information to a vehicle traveling on a road, the flow of traffic is smoothed and the vehicle position is detected by an in-vehicle device. A traffic information providing system that facilitates route guidance is being studied, and its practical application is urgently needed.

In the traffic information providing system, as a communication means from the ground system to the vehicle, an optical beacon using near infrared rays, a radio wave beacon using microwaves, or F
FM multiplex broadcasting in which data is multiplexed on M broadcast waves is considered. For example, one-way communication using radio beacons is considered for providing traffic information on expressways, and two-way communication using optical beacons is considered for providing traffic information on general roads. Is.

[0004]

If one type of in-vehicle device, for example, a radio beacon receiver is prepared, the vehicle is traveling on a road of a type in which the radio beacon is unlikely to be installed. However, since the receiver of the radio wave beacon is working, the vehicle-mounted device has a problem of receiving unnecessary noise.

Further, not only an on-vehicle device having one type of receiver but also an on-vehicle device having a plurality of types of receivers always ready for reception (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-251289)
However, the following problems may occur. If two types of in-vehicle devices are prepared, for example, a radio beacon receiver and an optical beacon receiver, the transmission range of the radio beacon is so wide that it seems unlikely that the vehicle will install the radio beacon. Even if you are traveling on different types of roads, you will receive beacon signals leaking from radio beacons installed on elevated roads and other types of roads running in parallel, and the in-vehicle device will capture the traffic information. There is a risk that it will come out. Also, while the beacon signal leaking from the radio beacon is being received, the signal of the optical beacon that should be originally received cannot be received even when passing by the optical beacon, and the necessary traffic information can be obtained. There is also the problem that it cannot be done.

For this reason, the type of road on which the vehicle is currently traveling is manually input to the in-vehicle device so that the in-vehicle device does not receive the information of the unrelated type of road or discards it. However, manual input is extremely troublesome. The present invention provides a vehicle exterior information receiving device capable of preventing reception processing from a communication device other than a communication device used on a road of any type when traveling on any type of road. The purpose is to provide.

Further, according to the present invention, when a radio wave beacon receiver and an optical beacon receiver are prepared, when both signals are received at the same time, one signal can be preferentially processed for reception. It is an object of the present invention to provide an extra-vehicle information receiving device.

[0008]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vehicle exterior information receiving device which is applied to an in-vehicle navigation device capable of detecting a current position of a vehicle by a so-called map matching method. A vehicle exterior information receiving device, which is a receiving unit that receives a signal from an external communication device, a road type determining unit that determines a road type of a road on which a vehicle is traveling through a vehicle position detecting unit, and a road type determining unit. According to the road type determined by
Limiting means for limiting the signal received by the receiving means, and the receiving means performs a receiving process based on the signal limited by the limiting means (claim 1).

Generally, an external communication device for providing traffic information to a vehicle is installed according to the type of road on which it is installed. Therefore, for the vehicle side, if the type of the road on which the vehicle is traveling is known, the type of the installed communication device can be determined. On the other hand, the vehicle-mounted navigation device can detect the current position while the vehicle is traveling and identify which road is traveling by the map matching method.

According to the vehicle exterior information receiving device of the first aspect, if the road on which the vehicle is traveling can be identified, the type of the road can be known by the road type determining means. Therefore, the limiting means can limit the signal from the external communication device to be received according to the road type.Therefore, if the receiving process is performed only on the basis of the limited signal, the signal is affected by noise. It is also possible to prevent erroneous reception processing of a signal from another communication device installed on a nearby road.

Further, the receiving means receives signals from two or more kinds of external communication devices, and the limiting means is either one of the receiving means according to the road type determined by the road type determining means. It may be limited to a signal from an external communication device (claim 2). According to this configuration, the signal is limited to the signal from any external communication device according to the road type determined by the road type determination means, so that from another type of external communication device not installed on the road. It is possible to prevent erroneous acquisition of received traffic information.

According to another aspect of the vehicle information receiving device of the present invention, the receiving means receives and processes signals from a plurality of types of external communication devices with one processing circuit (claim 3). . With this configuration, since the limiting means limits the signal from the external communication device to be received to any one, a plurality of signals will not collide in the subsequent reception processing. Therefore, the subsequent processing of the signal can be collectively performed by one processing circuit.

The road map storage means of the vehicle-mounted navigation device stores at least the types of highway links and general road links as road map data, and the road type determination means uses the vehicle position detection means. The position of the detected vehicle is to determine whether the highway link or the general road link, the receiving means,
It receives and processes signals of a radio wave beacon and an optical beacon as an external communication device (claim 4).

According to this structure, a radio information beacon or an optical beacon is transmitted from the radio beacon or the optical beacon according to the determined road type in correspondence with the traffic information providing system in which the radio beacon is installed on the expressway and the optical beacon is installed on the general road. Since it can be limited to signals, it is possible to prevent erroneous capture of traffic information received from other types of beacons that are not installed on the road.

The receiving means receives a signal from one type of external communication device, and the limiting means uses the receiving means according to the road type determined by the road type determining means. The received signal may be placed in a reception processable state or an incapable state (claim 5). With this configuration, it is possible to determine whether or not it is necessary to perform the receiving process according to the road type determined by the road type determining means. Therefore, the signal received by the receiving means is received according to the traveling road. Set to the processable or impossible state. Therefore, it is possible to prevent malfunction due to disturbance noise by making the state impossible when traveling on a road where information cannot be input from an external communication device.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an extra-vehicle information receiving device having a receiving means for receiving and processing signals of a radio wave beacon and an optical beacon, wherein the receiving means outputs the radio wave beacon and the optical beacon signal. When received at the same time, it has a priority means for giving priority to the signal of the optical beacon, and when the priority means is functioning, the reception means performs reception processing based on the signal prioritized by the priority means. (Claim 6).

As a result, the service area of the radio beacon (about 120 m) and the service area of the optical beacon (5
(about m) overlaps with each other, generally, the signal of the optical beacon having a narrow service area is preferentially received, so that the information race condition can be avoided.

[0018]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the vehicle exterior information receiving device applied to the navigation device. The navigation device 1 is mounted on a vehicle and is used to assist the traveling of the vehicle. The navigation device 1 includes a wheel speed sensor 6a as a distance sensor, a gyro 6b as an orientation sensor, and a GPS receiver 6c as a position sensor. Is equipped with.

As the wheel speed sensor 6a, for example, the one used for ABS (anti-lock brake system) can be used. As the gyro 6b, for example, an optical fiber gyro or a vibration gyro can be used. These detection outputs are given to the vehicle position detection unit 2. The vehicle position detection unit 2 detects the azimuth information detected by the gyro 6b, the distance information based on the wheel speed signal from the wheel speed sensor 6a, and the GP.
Using the position information of the S receiver 6c, the vehicle position is calculated based on comparison with a road pattern stored in the map-dedicated disk D (so-called map matching method, see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 64-53112). To do. At the same time, the vehicle position detection unit 2 outputs a road type code of the road on which the vehicle is traveling.

More specifically, the vehicle position detecting section 2 reads out road map data and the like of an area including the estimated position of the vehicle from the loaded map-dedicated disk D through the memory control section 3d of the controller 3 and the CD drive 7. The road map data stored in the map-dedicated disk D includes road map data for vehicle position detection, road map data for display,
There are road map data for route calculation and road map data for intersection guidance. Here, road map data for vehicle position detection relevant to the implementation of the invention will be described.

The road map data for vehicle position detection includes road maps (highway national roads, motorways, other national roads,
Includes prefectural roads, city roads of designated cities, and other living roads. ) Is divided into meshes, and a route consisting of a combination of nodes and links is stored for each mesh together with road types. Here, “road type” refers to a type of a highway (a highway national road and a motorway) or a general road (a road other than a highway), but it is not limited to this and is generally Any road type may be used as long as different communication devices are installed. For example, if the beacon is installed only on the road in a certain area and the beacon is not installed on the road in another area, it may be the type of whether or not the road is in the area.

The above-mentioned node is generally a coordinate position for identifying an intersection or a bend of a road. A node representing the intersection is an intersection node, and a node representing a bend (excluding the intersection) of the road. Is called an interpolation point node. A link connects intersection nodes and intersection nodes, and can be understood as a polygonal line with directions along the shape of a road.
The data that stores the coordinates of the nodes (including the interpolation point node) that form the link is called link shape data, and this link is called a shape link or simply a link.

It is to be noted that, ignoring the shape of the polygonal line, cost (passage time or distance) information when passing through the link,
Data that is stored by compressing only the information indicating the connection status with other compression links is called link compression data. This link compressed data belongs to the road map data for route calculation and is useful for shortening the calculation time when the route is calculated.

The map matching method in the vehicle position detecting section 2 is performed on the assumption that the vehicle travels on the road, and estimates the vehicle detected by the gyro 6b, the wheel speed sensor 6a, the GPS receiver 6c and the like. It is a technique for correcting the position on the road. More specifically, the linear distance from the estimated position of the vehicle to each link within a certain range is obtained, and among the links whose linear distance is within the threshold, the road corresponding to the link with the shortest linear distance is selected. Use as the road on which the vehicle travels. Since this calculation is performed at regular intervals (for example, 1.2 seconds), the vehicle position will be updated at this cycle as the vehicle travels.

The data representing the current position of the vehicle and the road type data of the running link detected by the vehicle position detecting unit 2 are given to the controller 3 in the main body of the navigation device 1 through the bus. The controller 3 includes a CPU 3a, SRAM, DR that controls the entire navigation device.
The CPU 3a includes an AM and the like, and functions as a limiting unit that limits a signal from an external communication device to be received according to the road type data. To do this, the DRAM
As shown in Table 1, a correspondence table between road types and receivers is stored.

[0026]

[Table 1]

The CPU 3a is connected to a display controller 3b, an input controller 3c and a memory controller 3d provided in the controller 3. The display control unit 3b creates a display image signal such as a road map or a vehicle mark, and supplies this signal to the liquid crystal display 5 provided inside the vehicle. The input control section 3c is connected to a remote control key 8 having a plurality of mechanical switches.

On the other hand, the controller 3 includes a signal processing unit 4
Signals from the radio wave beacon receiver 4a and the optical beacon receiver 4b are input through c. FIG.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a main configuration of an external information receiving device. The radio beacon receiver 4a mainly receives transmission radio waves of radio beacons installed on highways, and its schematic configuration is, as shown in FIG. 1, a bandpass filter 41 for obtaining a signal of a desired frequency, The amplification unit 42, the first frequency conversion unit 43, the second frequency conversion unit 44, and the detection unit 45 for extracting the signal component are provided.

The optical beacon receiver 4b mainly receives transmission radio waves of an optical beacon installed on a general road, and its schematic configuration is, as shown in FIG. 1, a form of an electric signal received by an optical sensor. An amplifier 46 for amplifying the converted optical signal, a comparator 47 for binarizing the waveform, and a Manchester demodulator 48 for extracting the signal component are provided. The signal processing unit 4c selects and fetches and decodes either the radio beacon signal (64 kbps) or the optical beacon signal (1 Mbps). The signal processing unit 4c performs an error check by obtaining bit synchronization and frame synchronization of the demodulated signals received from the radio beacon receiver 4a and the optical beacon receiver 4b, and performs an S / P conversion unit 49 for converting from serial to parallel.
a, 49b, a memory 51 for storing data, and a CPU 50 for decoding the data.

The CPU 50 takes in the received data of the radio wave beacon and the received data of the optical beacon. The decision as to which data is taken in is made by the table shown in Table 1 above, which is the discrimination of the receivers (this information is It is sent from the CPU 3a). Specifically, when the road type is highway, interrupt ports other than the interrupt port related to the radio beacon receiver 4a are masked in order to receive the radio beacon signal in a limited manner, and when the road type is general road , The interrupt ports other than the interrupt port related to the optical beacon receiver 4b are masked in order to receive the signal of the optical beacon in a limited manner. As a result, only interruption of the signal from the beacon to be received can be permitted according to the road type of the road on which the vehicle is traveling, so that the receiving process can be performed based on only this limited signal.

The decoding timing of the CPU 50 is S / S when the signal from the radio wave beacon is input.
Since the reception interrupt command from the P conversion unit 49a is input, if the signal from the optical beacon is input at that time, S / P
Since a reception interrupt command from the conversion unit 49b is input, it is performed at that time. As described above, since it is possible to determine which of the beacon receivers the interrupt port is to be opened according to the type of road on which the vehicle is traveling, signals from both beacon receivers do not interrupt at the same time. Therefore,
The decoding performed by the CPU 50 need only be performed on any type of signal at all times, and it is not necessary to perform decoding on both signals in parallel, and it is necessary to prioritize interrupts on either signal. Nor. Therefore, CP
One processor provided in U50 can be shared, and one processor can receive and process signals from a plurality of types of external communication devices. Therefore, the circuit can be simplified and the cost can be reduced.

The code decoded in this way is sent to the CPU 3a of the navigation device 1 through the bus, where it is processed according to the purpose. For example, by using traffic jam information and traffic regulation information received from a radio beacon or an optical beacon, a traffic jam road display and a traffic regulation display may be displayed on a map screen (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-65287), or a destination may be displayed. The shortest path can be calculated.

The above is a description of one embodiment according to the present invention, but the present invention is not limited to the above. In the above example, two types of beacon receivers are connected to the navigation device and one of the beacon receivers is selected according to the road type of the road on which the vehicle is traveling. Connect only the machine (either radio wave or light), determine whether the road on which the vehicle is traveling is the road providing the traffic information provision service by the beacon, and provide the traffic information by the beacon Only when the road is serving, the beacon receiver may be used to process the signal.

For example, if you have a radio beacon receiver,
Assuming that the traffic information providing service by the radio beacon is provided only on the highway, the configuration of the outside-vehicle information receiving apparatus is as shown in FIG.
Only a and the signal processing unit 4c. C of controller 3
The PU 3a uses the vehicle position detection unit 2 and a table similar to the table of Table 1 above to determine whether or not to receive a radio wave beacon, and if it is determined to receive a radio wave beacon, the CPU 50 of the signal processing unit 4c. Issue a command to that effect. In response to this instruction, the CPU 50 of the signal processing unit 4c opens the interrupt port and accepts the signal from the S / P conversion unit 49a only when receiving the signal of the radio wave beacon. As a result, the signal from the radio beacon receiver 4a does not enter the CPU 50 when the vehicle is traveling on a road where the traffic information providing service by the radio beacon is not provided and the signal of the radio beacon does not need to be received. , It will not malfunction due to the influence of unnecessary noise.

In each of the above-mentioned examples, the signal from the external communication device to be received may or may not be limited by opening / closing the interrupt port of the CPU 50. However, in addition to this, the switch may be turned on / off. Alternatively, an amplifier may be provided on the way to perform an operation such as reducing the amplification factor of the amplifier. Furthermore, as another example (corresponding to claim 6),
When the CPU 50 detects the presence of the reception data of the radio beacon and the reception data of the optical beacon at the same time through the two interrupt ports, it gives priority to the signal of the optical beacon by prioritizing the interrupts. May be.

In other words, the radio beacon and the optical beacon should not be received at the same time because they are installed at different locations, but in rare cases, both communication areas overlap under a highway or near a ramp road. There is. At this time, the purpose is to preferentially process the information from the optical beacon. The priority processing algorithm is as follows. C
When the PU 50 receives the reception interrupt of the signal of the optical beacon during the single reception of the signal of the radio beacon, the PU 50 ignores the reception signal from the radio beacon receiver 4a, opens the interrupt port for receiving the optical beacon, and outputs the optical signal. Transition to beacon reception mode. After the signal of the optical beacon is cut off, it shifts to the non-reception state. At this time, if the signal of the radio beacon is still continuing, the interrupt port for radio beacon reception is opened and the radio beacon reception mode is restored.

In each of the above examples, circuit examples assuming radio wave beacons and optical beacons are shown, but in addition to these, any one or a plurality of types of communication devices used in the traffic information providing system are assumed. It is possible to carry out the present invention. Various other changes can be made without changing the gist of the present invention.

[0038]

As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, if the road on which the vehicle is running can be identified, the type of the road can be known by the road type determining means, and the road type can be determined by the limiting means. Therefore, it is possible to limit the signals from external communication devices that are necessary, so if you perform reception processing based on only these limited signals, you will be affected by unnecessary noise and installed on nearby roads. It is possible to prevent the reception processing of a signal from another communication device that is in error. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the reception of irrelevant information and prevent a situation where an erroneous determination is made based on noise or other types of information.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, signals are limited to signals from any external communication device according to the road type determined by the road type determining means, so that other signals not installed on the road can be used. It is possible to prevent the capture of traffic information received from an external communication device of a type. Therefore,
It is possible to prevent a situation in which an erroneous decision is made based on information of unrelated types.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, since the signal from the external communication device to be received is limited to any one,
Subsequent signal processing can be collectively performed by one processing circuit. Therefore, the circuit can be shared, and a simple and inexpensive vehicle exterior information receiving device can be obtained. According to the invention of claim 4, in response to the traffic information providing system in which the radio beacon is installed on the expressway and the optical beacon is installed on the general road, the radio beacon or the optical beacon is selected according to the determined road type. Since it can be limited to traffic lights, it can prevent the acquisition of traffic information received from other types of beacons that are not installed on the road, and make a wrong decision based on information of unrelated types. Can be prevented.

According to the invention described in claim 5, in the case of having a vehicle-mounted device capable of supporting only "one type of external communication device", on a road where reception from another type of external communication device is considered. Since reception can be cut off, malfunction due to disturbance noise can be prevented. According to the invention of claim 6, when the signals of the radio beacon and the optical beacon are received at the same time, generally, the signal of the optical beacon having a narrow service area is preferentially received, and the signal processing unit is commonly used. It is possible to provide an inexpensive outside information receiving device. Further, it is possible to realize a simple exterior information receiving device that can be used in a vehicle equipped with an in-vehicle navigation device that does not adopt a so-called map matching method.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a main configuration of an external information receiving device.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration including a navigation device and two beacon receivers as an external information receiving device.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing another example of the outside-vehicle information receiving device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Navigation device 2 Vehicle position detection part 3 Controller 3a CPU 3b Display control part 3c Input control part 3d Memory control part 4a Radio wave beacon receiver 4b Optical beacon receiver 4c Signal processing part 5 Display 6a Wheel speed sensor 6b Gyro 6c GPS receiver 49a, 49b S / P converter 50 CPU D Map-dedicated disk

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification number Office reference number FI technical display location H04B 7/26 H04B 7/26 F 10/105 9/00 R 10/10 10/22

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A position estimating means for obtaining an estimated position of a vehicle based on signals from various sensors or receivers, a road map storing means for storing road map data, and the road map data for reading the position. When the estimated position of the vehicle is obtained by the estimating means, the road on which the vehicle is most likely to travel is specified based on the read road map data and the estimated position of the vehicle, and the vehicle on the road is identified. A vehicle exterior information receiving device applied to a vehicle-mounted navigation device comprising vehicle position detecting means for detecting a position, wherein the vehicle travels through the receiving means for receiving a signal from an external communication device and the vehicle position detecting means. The road type determination means for determining the road type of the existing road and the signal received by the receiving means are limited according to the road type determined by the road type determination means. And a limiting means, said receiving means, based on the limited signal by the limiting means, outside the information receiving apparatus and performs reception processing. 2. The receiving means receives signals from two or more types of external communication devices, and the limiting means is any one of the types according to the road type determined by the road type determining means. The external information receiving device according to claim 1, wherein the external information receiving device is limited to a signal from an external communication device. 3. The vehicle exterior information receiving device according to claim 2, wherein said receiving means can receive and process a signal from an external communication device with one processing circuit. 4. The road map storage means of the vehicle-mounted navigation device stores at least the types of highway links and general road links in the road map data, and the road type determination means sets the vehicle type of the vehicle. It is for determining whether the position of the vehicle detected through the position detecting means is on a highway link or on a general road link, and the receiving means receives signals of a radio wave beacon and an optical beacon as an external communication device. The external information receiving device according to claim 2, which is for processing. 5. The receiving means receives a signal from one type of external communication device, and the limiting means uses the receiving means according to the road type determined by the road type determining means. The vehicle exterior information receiving apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the received signal is set to a reception processing enable state or an reception disable state. 6. An outside-vehicle information receiving device having a receiving means for receiving and processing signals of a radio wave beacon and an optical beacon, wherein when the receiving means simultaneously receives the signals of the radio wave beacon and the optical beacon, The vehicle exterior information is characterized by having priority means for giving priority to a beacon signal, and the receiving means, when the priority means is functioning, performing reception processing based on the signal prioritized by the priority means. Receiver.