JPH09196695A - Navigation guidance apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain a navigation guidance apparatus in which a voice guidance operation such as 'Turn to the right at a crossing 300 meters ahead.' is performed so as to comply with the actual sense of a driver. SOLUTION: A navigation guidance apparatus is provided with a control device 1 which generates a voice guidance operation before a definite time approaching a guidance point in which a branch point and a crossing are contained. The average speed of a running vehicle is found in a point prior to a point in which a voice guidance operation before the guidance point is generated. The required time up to the guidance point is estimated on the basis of a distance up to the guidance point from the present position of a vehicle and on the basis of the found average speed. Then, a voice guidance operation is generated at a point of time in which the estimated required time agrees with the preset voice guidance starting time. The voice guidance starting time can be set arbitrarily so as to become the time which is most suitable for a driver himself.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Conventionally, in this type of apparatus, as shown in Japanese Patent Publication No. 61-20199 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-18775, for example, "○○○" is provided at a point before the intersection. It is set to provide voice guidance such as "Met ahead, turn right at the intersection". In such voice guidance, the timing of triggering the guidance is based on the distance, such as how many meters before the intersection, the distance is easily converted from the map data.

[0002]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, "○○
○ There are problems as described below in the guidance method based on distance such as “meter ahead, intersection at right”. First, when the conventional navigation is operated from the perspective of the driver, the main operator, there are inconveniences that do not match the actual driving situation, and we realize that improvements are desired. That is, in driving the vehicle itself, along with the operation of the steering wheel,
Keeping an eye on the road outside the car, looking at the instruments of the vehicle, and constantly moving the line of sight, the driver's physical and mental burden is heavy. In this busy driving operation, guidance such as "right turn", "left turn", "straight ahead" etc. is issued before the intersection, for example, the intersection is actually the timing of guidance is issued for each intersection It is inconvenient and often inconvenient for busy driving operations. For example, if the guidance is issued far before the intersection, it may pass through another intersection before reaching the intersection, and it is difficult to determine which is the correct intersection. In addition, even if there is too much time after being guided until reaching an intersection, even the person who is being guided may forget about it. However, there is a new problem that the driver is too busy immediately before approaching the intersection, and he / she has to drive. In this way, it is confusing if the timing of giving guidance at each intersection is different, so as a solution to this, in the past, the driver often checked the range finder on the dashboard and picked up the guided distance. The reality is that the driver keeps driving while confirming that they are approaching the intersection. Human machine
The interface problem is that the distance decreases as the vehicle approaches the intersection, but it increases on the contrary with the range finder, so the driver is forced to perform the inverse calculation instantly, which imposes a heavy burden on the driver. Will be forced.

As described above, although the conventional voice guidance method aims to reduce the burden on the driver, the problem still remains unsolved. In addition to the problem that the system is not easy to use, it has a big problem that may be an obstacle to safety.

The present invention solves such a conventional problem, and not only improves the function of the product but also solves the problem of ergonomics and human-machine interface, that is, human driving. It is an object of the present invention to provide a navigation guide device which is easy to use and has high safety by making a wide range of improvements including problem solving concerning exchange of information and inducing actions while performing work.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, the present invention does not use the conventional timing of issuing voice guidance as a reference for the required distance to an intersection, but rather the time required to reach the intersection. It is a standard. It is an important factor that determines the ease of use of the system when the voice guidance is issued at which point in time the vehicle is running, and it is desirable that a person's behavior be triggered in advance before a certain time. By paying attention to the general principle, the navigation driver will always be guided by a voice guidance before a certain time before approaching the intersection regardless of the congestion situation on the road, regardless of the congestion situation on the road, regardless of whether the traveling speed is fast or slow. You will always be able to understand your activities in a timely manner, and it will be easier to drive safely. Further, by making the timing of issuing the voice guidance variable in the initial setting of the system, it is possible to set an optimal timing for oneself and improve usability.

[0006]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The invention according to claim 1 of the present invention is a navigation guidance device having a control means for generating voice guidance a predetermined time before reaching a guidance point including a branch point and an intersection. Since it is possible to intuitively understand how many seconds later it will reach the guidance point, the usability of the device will be greatly improved and it will not be necessary to look at the distance meter as in the past, contributing to safe driving. can do.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the navigation guidance device according to the first aspect, the average speed of the traveling vehicle is calculated before the point where the voice guidance before the guidance point is generated, A feature is that the time required to reach the guide point is predicted from the distance from the current position to the guide point and the obtained average speed, and voice guidance is generated at the time when this estimated time matches the preset voice guide start time. It is possible to match the set voice guidance start time with the distance to the guidance point at that time.

The invention according to claim 3 of the present invention is characterized in that, in the navigation guidance device according to claim 1 or 2, the voice guidance start time can be arbitrarily set. The voice guidance can be generated at the optimum timing.

(Embodiment) FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a navigation guide device according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 is a control device for controlling the entire navigation guidance device, and an input device 2, a storage device 3, a current position detection device 4, a wireless input device 5, a voice output device 6 and a display output device 7 are various interfaces. Connected through. An antenna 8 is connected to the wireless input device 5, a speaker 9 is connected to the audio output device 6, and a display 10 is connected to the display output device 7.

The control device 1 includes an input device 2, a storage device 3,
Based on various data from the current position detection device 4 and the wireless input device 5, a voice output device for searching a destination or a route, checking the traveling position of the vehicle, determining a route at various traveling positions, and giving a route instruction. 6 outputs audio data, outputs image data to the display output device 7, etc., and performs various processing therefor, and a ROM (read / write) connected to the CPU 11 by a bus line such as a data bus.
An on-memory) 12 and a RAM (random access memory) 13 are provided.

The input device 2 is used to input various menus such as destinations, instructions for reduction / enlargement, etc., and instructions for start time within voice in voice guidance, which will be described later. .

The storage device 3 is composed of a storage medium typified by a CD-ROM, and stores road data, a destination list, voice data for voice route guidance, and the like.
The voice data is, for example, data for voice guidance such as "300 meters ahead, turn right at an intersection",
It is stored separately as a voice that guides a distance of "300 meters ahead" and a direction instruction voice that indicates a direction of "intersection to the right". The distance guidance voice is output as a predetermined voice guidance synthesized by the voice output device 6.

The present position detecting device 4 includes a GPS receiver 41 for receiving radio waves from GPS satellites, an azimuth sensor 42, a running distance sensor 43, a geomagnetic sensor 44, and a speed sensor for supplementing the present position detection by these. It is equipped with 45 etc. Further, it is provided with a calculation unit for calculating the absolute position of the vehicle from the data received by the GPS receiver 41 and the detection data of various sensors.

The wireless input device 5 is provided with a transmitting / receiving device for transmitting and receiving a beacon of a wireless sign installed along a road and a communication radio wave through the antenna 8. Audio output device 6
Includes a voice control circuit 61 and a voice synthesis circuit 62 for outputting voice from the speaker 9. The display output device 7 includes a display control circuit 71 that controls display by the display 10.

Next, the operation of this embodiment thus constructed will be described with reference to the flow chart of FIG. The CPU 11 of the control device 1 monitors whether or not the destination is input from the input device 2 (step S1).
When the destination is input (Yes in step S1), the control device 1 identifies the position of this destination on the road data stored in the storage device 3, and stores it in the RAM 1 as the destination data.
2 is stored. Next, when the current position detection device 4 detects the absolute position of the vehicle, the control device 1 confirms the current position (starting position) of the vehicle on the road data from the detected data (step S2). When the departure position is input from the input device 2, the control device 1 confirms the current position from the input data. Then, based on the confirmed current position data, the destination data stored in the RAM 12, the road data in the storage device 3, etc., the control device 1 searches for a route to the destination based on a predetermined program stored in the ROM 13 ( Step S3). The data of the searched route is stored in the RAM 13. When the vehicle starts moving, the control device 1 confirms the road and the position where the vehicle is currently traveling from the coordinate data detected by the current position detection device 4, the road data in the storage device 3, and the like (step S4). Although not shown in the flow chart of FIG. 2, the confirmation of the current position is subsequently performed by the coordinate data or the like from the current position detection device 4 sent every predetermined time thereafter.

Next, in order to guide the vehicle along the searched route, the control device 1 uses the route data stored in the RAM 12 and the current position data and the road data stored in the storage device 3 at the next intersection. Is determined (step S5). The determined direction is stored in the RAM 12. When determining the traveling direction, the control device 1
The voice guidance output process is started (step S6), and the driver is instructed in which direction to proceed. When the voice guidance output process is completed, it is determined whether or not the current position is the destination (step S7). If it is not the destination (No in step S7), the process returns to step S4, the processes in steps S4 to S7 are performed, and when the destination is reached (Yes in step S7), all the processes are ended.

Next, step S6 by the control device 1 described above.
Details of the voice guidance output process will be described. First, the premise that constitutes the idea of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. Considering the road traffic conditions, it can be considered that the traffic conditions in the almost limited section before and after the vehicle position on the traveling road are almost the same. Therefore, it can be considered that the time required for running may be considered to be substantially the same if a certain specific section that has been running up to now and a specific specific section running ahead have substantially the same distance. If the distance of this section is long, the accuracy becomes rough, and if the distance of this section is short, the accuracy becomes high. If the distance can be set arbitrarily, the accuracy can be corrected.

In FIG. 3, the current position of the vehicle is P1. The required time T1 from the passing point P2 to the vehicle position P1 and the traveling distance L1 are measured, and the average speed S required for traveling is obtained. If the right turn is the intersection A,
Let T be the set value of how many seconds before the A intersection the voice guidance is given. As the set value T, the driver inputs a numerical value that is most suitable for the driver from the input device 2. Then, if voice guidance is given at a point P0 that is a distance L2 before the intersection where the estimated required time T2 to the A intersection is equal to the set value T, the voice guidance will be given exactly T seconds before. The estimated required time T2 is calculated from S × distance L2. Here, as the distance L2, the distance data included in the map data is used. Voice guidance is the same as before, "○
"○ meters ahead, intersection is to the right", and for the distance of "○ meters," the value of L2 and the appropriate numerical value stored in the audio data should be collated and selected for output processing. .

FIG. 4 shows the overall flow of the voice guidance output process. In step S8, it is checked whether voice guidance has occurred. If it has occurred, voice guidance processing is performed in step S9, and in step S10 the purpose is Until you reach the ground
The voice guidance process at each intersection is repeated.

FIG. 5 shows the flow of the voice guidance processing in step S9. In step S11, the average speed from the passing point P2 to the current point P1 is calculated, and in step S12, the required time T2 from the current point P0 to the intersection A is predicted. Then, it is determined in step S13 whether or not the predicted required time T2 has reached the preset voice guidance start time T, and if they match (step S1
3), stored in the storage device 3 in step S14, for example, "300 meters ahead, crossing to right"
The following voice guidance is output.

[0021]

As described above, according to the present invention, even at an intersection on any road, guidance is provided with a certain amount of time in advance, so that an extra operation such as looking at a rangefinder is required. Without adding, the desired intersection can be found with the driver's actual driving feeling, so that it is possible to drive with a margin and contribute to safe driving. In addition, by configuring so that the timing of guidance can be changed according to the driver's will, individuals such as those who are comfortable with timely guidance and those who are immediately preceding are suitable. Differences can also be covered by this.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a navigation guidance device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the entire processing in the navigation guidance device.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing a basic concept of voice guidance in the navigation guidance device.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart of voice guidance output processing in the navigation guidance device.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of voice guidance processing in the navigation guidance device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Control Device 2 Input Device 3 Storage Device 4 Current Position Detection Device 5 Wireless Input Device 6 Voice Output Device 7 Display Output Device 8 Antenna 9 Speaker 10 Display 11 CPU 12 RAM 13 ROM 41 GPS Receiver 42 Direction Sensor 43 Travel Distance Sensor 44 Geomagnetic sensor 45 Speed sensor 61 Voice control circuit 62 Voice synthesis circuit 71 Display control circuit

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A navigation guidance device comprising control means for generating voice guidance a predetermined time before reaching a guidance point including a branch point and an intersection. 2. The average speed of the traveling vehicle is obtained before the point where the voice guidance is generated before the guide point, and the distance from the vehicle's current position to the guide point and the obtained average speed are the time required from the guide point to the guide point. 2. The navigation guidance device according to claim 1, wherein said guidance is generated, and voice guidance is generated at the time when the required prediction time coincides with a preset voice guidance start time. 3. The navigation guidance device according to claim 1, wherein the voice guidance start time can be arbitrarily set.