JPH10105753A - Communication mechanism between road and vehicle, and nonstop automatic toll collection mechanism - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To quickly and surely collect tolls via the radio communication in a nonstop automatic toll collection mechanism by using a counter means which counts the number of vehicles existing in a communication area and a slot number setting means which variably sets the number of slots in response to the number of counted vehicles. SOLUTION: Each element is connected to a control part 20 consisting of a microcomputer, and the signal are applied to the part 20 from an optical vehicle axle counter 4, a laser vehicle detector 5 and a CCD camera 12 respectively. At the same time, the part 20 supplies the operation control signals to a radio question antenna 14, a guidance display 14, an image-pickup device 17 and a front and back opening/closing type blocking device 18. Then, a counter means consists of the camera 12 and the part 20, and a slot number setting means consists of the part 20. As a result, the tolls can be quickly and surely collected via the radio communication even for the simultaneous passage of plural motor bicycles, etc., in a nonstop automatic toll collection mechanism.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a road-to-vehicle communication mechanism and a non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism for collecting tolls.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Recently, a nonstop automatic toll collection mechanism for collecting tolls on an expressway or the like by wireless communication without manual intervention has been developed. That is, in such a non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism, a vehicle type is determined by a sensor at a predetermined position on the upstream side of a tollgate, and communication is performed by an antenna provided at the next position to collect a fee corresponding to the vehicle type. When the collection is completed, the gate on the downstream side is opened, so that the vehicle can pass through the tollgate without interrupting traveling.

[0003] In this way, the vehicle can smoothly pass through the tollgate, and the occurrence of congestion at the tollgate can be prevented.

[0004]

The toll collection by communication in the above non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism is as follows.
This is performed every time one vehicle enters a communication area having a length in the front-rear direction of about 4 to 5 m in one channel. However, if two motorcycles enter the communication area in a parallel running state, the respective two-wheeled vehicle enters the communication area. Communication cannot be performed separately, so that toll collection cannot be performed. Therefore, it is conceivable to collect tolls by wireless communication using time division multiple access (TDMA).

In the case of the time-division multiple access, a predetermined number of slots are set by time-division of a communication frame, and the communication is performed by associating the slots with the respective on-vehicle devices. Even if you invade, you can collect tolls. However, as described above, entry into the communication area usually involves a single four-wheeled vehicle, so that setting the number of slots to a large number often results in empty slots in the frame. There was a problem that the communication time became longer due to a longer time.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and has as its object to enable road-vehicle communication by time-division multiple access to be reliably performed in a short time.

Another object of the present invention is to ensure that toll collection by wireless communication in a nonstop automatic toll collection mechanism can be performed in a short time.

[0008]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, a road-to-vehicle communication mechanism sets slots in a communication frame in a time-division manner and associates the slots with on-vehicle devices. In a road-to-vehicle communication mechanism that performs communication by time-division multiple access between the vehicle and each of the in-vehicle devices, a means for counting the number of vehicles in the communication area and the number of slots are variably set in accordance with the count value of the number of vehicles And a number-of-slots setting means.

According to the above configuration, the number of slots in the communication frame changes in accordance with the number of vehicles entering the communication area, and the number of slots is increased only when the number of vehicles in the communication area increases. Communication with the minimum required communication time is always possible.

The counting means may be configured to count the number of vehicles based on an image obtained by an image sensor that captures a communication area, or a vehicle detection sensor disposed upstream and downstream of the communication area. This is realized by a configuration in which counting is performed based on the difference between the number of detections, and a laser sensor is suitably used as the detection sensor.
Inventions described in 3, 4).

The road-vehicle communication mechanism is preferably used in a non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism.
The invention described above), and is also suitably used in an automatic driving system.

[0012]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows the overall configuration of a non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism.

Each of the toll booths 1 is a tollgate island, between which each of the traffic lanes 2 is located. At the most upstream position on Tollgate Island 1, there are 4 optical vehicle axles
And the laser type vehicle detecting device 5 is positioned above the optical type vehicle axle counter 4 by the support bar 7.
Attached to. A roof 10 is arranged at a position covering the latter half of each tollgate island 1, and the roof 1
A CCD camera 12, a signal light 13, and a wireless interrogation antenna 14 are attached to a position corresponding to the traffic path 2 at the front of 0. A monitoring box 16 is provided at a position slightly downstream from the center position of the tollgate island 1, and further, a guidance display 15 and an image pickup device 1 of the vehicle are provided downstream thereof.
7 is provided, and a front-rear opening / closing type blocking device 18 is provided at the most downstream side.

FIG. 2 shows the electrical connection configuration, in which the above-mentioned components are connected to a control unit 20 comprising a microcomputer, and the optical vehicle axle meter 4, the laser vehicle detection device 5, and the CCD camera 12 respectively provide Signal of the control unit 20
, And the wireless interrogation antenna 1
4. Guidance display 15, imaging device 17, front-rear opening / closing prevention device 1
8 is provided with an operation control signal. The control unit 20 is provided as a control device 25 in the monitoring box 16, and the control device 25 includes an operation unit 2.
1. The display unit 22 is provided integrally.

In the above description, the CCD camera 12 and the control section 20 constitute a counting means, and the control section 20 constitutes a slot number setting means.

The operation of the non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism will be described below with reference to FIG.

When the vehicle arrives at the area of the non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism, the vehicle type and the vehicle type are detected by measuring the vehicle width and the vehicle height with the laser type vehicle detecting device 5, and the entire communication area R is detected by the CCD camera 12. The image of the license plate of the vehicle is taken and the number of the vehicle and the vehicle number are recognized. Further, the number of the vehicle axes is measured by the optical vehicle axle meter 4, and the control unit 20 comprehensively determines the information. Then, the vehicle type is determined, and the number of vehicles in the communication area R is determined (step 1).

If it is determined in step 1 that the vehicle is a four-wheeled vehicle and the number of vehicles in the communication area R is set to "1", the wireless interrogator antenna 4 wirelessly communicates with the vehicle-mounted device 19 to determine the vehicle type. The collection of the corresponding fee is started (step 2).

FIG. 4 is a view showing communication data. The communication data D has a configuration in which a communication frame F is time-divisionally divided and has slots S. In a frame F in the range indicated by X, the number of slots S is It is "2" and one is used as an empty slot. Each slot S includes a downlink communication packet P1 from the wireless interrogation antenna 14 to the in-vehicle device side and an uplink communication packet P2 from the in-vehicle device side to the wireless interrogation antenna 14 side. When the number of vehicles is "1" as described above, the number of slots S indicated by X is set to "2".
The communication is performed in the part where.

The above-mentioned empty slot is used for communication with an in-vehicle device to which a link has not been established, and an in-vehicle device to which a link has not been established in this empty slot issues a link establishment request. The reason why one empty slot is always provided as described above is to reduce the probability of collisions caused by simultaneous link establishment requests from a plurality of in-vehicle devices, and is not limited to one.

FIG. 5 shows the wireless interrogation antenna 14 and the vehicle-mounted device 19.
FIG. 7 is a diagram showing communication contents between the communication, connection, writing,
It consists of three steps of cutting, and in the step of writing,
For example, in the prepaid card set in the vehicle-mounted device 19, the charge subtraction rewriting is performed. The operation of each of the above steps is performed in the above-described one slot, so that communication with one vehicle requires three slots, that is, three frames.

When the collection is completed (step 3), the guidance display 15 switches its red lighting to blue lighting (step 4), and the front / rear opening / closing type blocking device 18 is opened (step 5). This allows the vehicle to check the display and pass through the tollgate without stopping. Then, the passing vehicle is video-captured by the imaging device 17 (step 6). This video shooting is performed to record passing vehicle information as a measure against fraud.

In step 3 described above, for example, the time T
If the fee cannot be collected within the set time a after elapse,
The display unit 22 displays the fact in the monitoring box 16 (steps 7 and 8).
Exit 6 and receive the toll directly from the crew of the vehicle. Then, by operating the operation unit 21, the lighting of the guidance display 15 is switched, and the front / rear opening / closing type blocking device 18 is opened.

If it is determined in step 1 that the motorcycle is a motorcycle, it is determined whether or not the motorcycles form a group in the image obtained by the CCD camera 12 (step 9). If it is determined that one motorcycle does not form a group, the process proceeds to step 2, and thereafter, the same operation as in the case of the four-wheeled vehicle is performed.

On the other hand, when it is determined that a group is formed, the number of slots is increased (step 10). That is, when two motorcycles are arranged, the number of slots is changed to "3", and when three motorcycles are arranged, the number of slots is changed to "4".
Thereby, the communication data D is switched from a portion indicated by X where the number of slots is “2” to a portion indicated by Y where the number of slots is “3”, as shown in FIG. 4, for example. Then, the number of the two-wheeled vehicles is stored (step 11), and the toll collection is started by wirelessly communicating with the vehicle-mounted device (step 12). The communication of the toll collection is performed without trouble in the slots increased as described above.

Next, it is determined whether or not the toll collection has been completed for all the units (step 13). In this way, when one motorcycle is tolled and the front / rear opening / closing blocker 18 is opened, the other two-wheeled vehicle runs in parallel and the front / rear opening / closing blocker 1 is opened.
Eight parts cannot be passed.

As described above, the toll collection for a plurality of motorcycles is performed without any trouble, and the slot is increased only when the number of vehicles in the communication area increases. Becomes possible.

FIG. 6 shows a modification of the above embodiment. In this modification, a pair of laser sensors provided on the upstream side and the downstream side of the communication area R are used as detection sensors of the vehicle constituting the counting means. That is, the laser type vehicle detection device 5
Each of them is used as an upstream laser sensor, and each of the laser type vehicle detection devices 29 is used downstream. FIGS. 7A, 7B, and 7C show laser type vehicle detection devices 5 and 29.
Shows an example of an image obtained by using the image G in FIG.
1 is a state in which there is one motorcycle N, and an image G2 in (B)
Indicates a state in which two motorcycles are arranged, and an image G2 in (C) indicates a state in which three motorcycles are arranged, and the number of vehicles is determined from these images.

Then, the number of vehicles in the communication region R is counted by subtracting the number of vehicles based on the detection by the laser vehicle detection device 29 from the number of vehicles based on the detection by the laser vehicle detection device 5.

In the above embodiment, the non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism has been described. However, the road-to-vehicle communication mechanism of the present invention can be applied to an automatic driving system (AHS) as described below.

That is, as shown in FIG. 8, a sensor 30, such as a CCD sensor, is provided at intervals of, for example, 200 m on a highway or the like, and the number of vehicles in the communication area R having a length of about 200 m is counted. As in the embodiment, the number of slots in the frame is changed so as to correspond to the count value of the vehicle, communication is performed between the roadside device 32 and the vehicle 33, and the vehicle is automatically driven. In this case, as the number of counted vehicles increases, the number of slots also increases as compared with the above embodiment.

[0032]

According to the present invention, road-to-vehicle communication by time division multiple access can be reliably performed in a short time.

Further, the toll collection by wireless communication in the non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism can be carried out in a short time and reliably, so that the toll collection can be performed without trouble even when a plurality of vehicles such as motorcycles pass. Become.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an external configuration diagram of a non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an electrical connection of the non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism according to the first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism according to the first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of communication data.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a communication operation.

FIG. 6 is an external configuration diagram of a modification of the first embodiment of the non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism of the present invention.

FIGS. 7A and 7B are image diagrams of a motorcycle, in which FIG.
Indicates the case of two cars running in parallel, and (C) indicates the case of three cars running in parallel

FIG. 8 is an external configuration diagram of a non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 12 CCD camera (counting means) 20 Control unit (counting means, slot number setting means)

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A road-to-vehicle communication mechanism for performing time-division multiple access between a road device and an on-vehicle device by setting each slot by time division in a communication frame and making the slots correspond to each of the on-vehicle devices. A road-to-vehicle communication mechanism, comprising: means for counting the number of vehicles in a communication area; and slot number setting means for variably setting the number of slots in accordance with the count value of the number of vehicles. 2. The road-to-vehicle communication mechanism according to claim 1, wherein the counting means includes an image sensor that captures an image of the communication area, and counts vehicles based on an image obtained by the image sensor. 3. The communication device according to claim 2, wherein the counting means includes detection sensors of the vehicles disposed on an upstream side and a downstream side of the communication area, respectively, and performs counting based on a difference between the numbers detected by the detection sensors. Item 4. The road-to-vehicle communication mechanism according to Item 1. 4. The road-to-vehicle communication mechanism according to claim 3, wherein said vehicle detecting means is a laser sensor. 5. The non-stop automatic toll collection mechanism according to claim 1, wherein the toll collection is performed by the road-to-vehicle communication mechanism.