JPH10119676A - Collision alarm system for vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide such a collision alarm system for a vehicle as being vehicle of actuating an alarm regarding rear-end collision in accordance with a detected vehicle-to-vehicle distance and a safety vehicle-to-vehicle distance recognized from the speed and illumination of an owned vehicle and defining a brightness standard to set a reasonable safety vehicle-to-vehicle distance. SOLUTION: A collision alarm system for a vehicle consists of a vehicle-to- vehicle distance detection part to detect a distance to a processing vehicle, a processing part to recognize a safety distance to the preceding vehicle in accordance with the speed and other running conditions of an owned vehicle and an alarm actuator to actuate an alarm regarding rear-end collision with the preceding vehicle in accordance with the detected vehicle-to-vehicle distance and the recognized safety vehicle-to-vehicle distance. The processing part changes the safety vehicle-to-vehicle distance to be recognized corresponding to illuminance detected by an illumination meter 9 mounted on the owned vehicle.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vehicle collision warning system used as a vehicle safe driving support system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a vehicle collision warning system using a radar device for transmitting and receiving a beam such as a laser beam, an electromagnetic wave or a sound wave has been developed. In this vehicle collision warning system, a beam such as a laser beam is emitted in front of the vehicle, is reflected by a preceding vehicle, receives a reflected beam that returns, and the radiation beam travels back and forth between the preceding vehicle. The distance between the vehicle and the preceding vehicle is detected from the required propagation time.

The detected inter-vehicle distance is displayed on a display panel of a driver's seat or the like. In parallel with the detection and display of the inter-vehicle distance, the safe inter-vehicle distance is calculated from the traveling environment such as the vehicle speed of the own vehicle. The driver is warned of the danger of a rear-end collision by an alarm such as a buzzer.

[0004] The safe inter-vehicle distance is determined in consideration of the running speed of the own vehicle (own vehicle speed), fine weather / rainy weather, daytime / nighttime, and the like. Conventionally, the weather is detected by turning on / off a wiper switch, and the time zone is detected by turning on / off a light switch (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-242896).
Issue publication).

[0005]

In the above-mentioned conventional collision warning system, day / night distinction, which is one of the criteria for determining a safe inter-vehicle distance, is detected by turning on / off a light switch. However, even during the same night,
The brightness of roads varies greatly depending on the degree of completeness of lighting in the city or suburbs, the grade of the roadway such as highway or general road, or the presence of moonlight, etc. There is a problem with that.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, a vehicle alarm generation system according to the present invention changes a safe inter-vehicle distance with respect to a preceding vehicle in accordance with illuminance detected by an illuminometer mounted on the vehicle. It is configured to be.

[0007]

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the illuminometer mounted on the vehicle is installed in a vehicle interior. Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to examples.

[0008]

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a vehicle collision warning system according to one embodiment of the present invention, wherein 1 is a data processor, 2 is an inter-vehicle distance detecting section, 3 is a laser transmitting / receiving section, Is an input interface unit, 5 is a data memory,
6 is a display / alarm generator, 7 is a display, 8 is a speaker, 9
Is an illuminometer, and 10 is a key input unit.

The laser transmission / reception unit 3 is installed at an appropriate location such as behind the bumper of the vehicle or in the vehicle interior, and emits a pulsed laser beam from the light transmission unit toward the front of the vehicle. You. The emitted laser beam is reflected by a preceding vehicle existing in front of the host vehicle, and is transmitted to a laser transmitting / receiving unit 3.
Are received by the light receiving section. The transmission of the laser pulse is performed in several different directions in front of the host vehicle based on a mechanical operation of the light transmitting and receiving unit.

The inter-vehicle distance detecting unit 2 calculates the propagation distance of the laser pulse from the time required for the laser transmitting / receiving unit 3 to transmit the laser pulse and receive the reflected pulse, that is, the distance between the laser and the preceding vehicle. Detect distances. The inter-vehicle distance detection unit 2 is used for detecting the inter-vehicle distance in order to enhance detection accuracy such as elimination of interference by a laser beam emitted by another vehicle and removal of unnecessary reflected light from a reflector other than the preceding vehicle such as a corner reflector. Various processes are performed based on an appropriate algorithm. The inter-vehicle distance detection unit 2 detects the inter-vehicle distance between the preceding vehicle and the preceding vehicle by performing information exchange with a navigation system (not shown) or an analysis system for capturing an image of a scene ahead of the vehicle using a camera, if necessary. Improve accuracy further.

The data processor 1 includes an inter-vehicle distance detector 2
Receives data from the inter-vehicle distance detecting unit 2 such as the inter-vehicle distance and direction detected by the
And notifies the display / alarm generation unit 6. The display / alarm generation unit 6 converts the inter-vehicle distance notified from the data processor 1 into digital display data and supplies it to a display 7 installed on a dashboard as shown in FIG. Let it.

The data processor 1 comprises various data indicating the running state of the vehicle such as the vehicle speed and acceleration, the illuminance detected by the illuminometer 9, and a wiper on / off signal indicating weather of fine weather / rainfall. Various driving environment data are received through the input interface unit 4 and stored in the data memory 5. The illuminometer 9 is installed on a dashboard as shown in FIG.

Further, in parallel with the above-mentioned various processes, the data processor 1 reads out a running state consisting of the running speed of the own vehicle (own vehicle speed V) and the running environment at a fixed cycle, and makes the running state correspond to the running state. Then, the safety inter-vehicle distance Ls registered in the data memory 5 in advance is read. This safe inter-vehicle distance Ls
Is determined from the own vehicle speed V and the traveling environment such as illuminance and weather (fine weather / rainfall) as shown in FIG.
The safe inter-vehicle distance Ls is set to be a larger value as the vehicle travel environment worsens, such as when the vehicle speed increases and the illuminance decreases and the weather deteriorates.

As an example, in the case of FIG.
s is given by the following equation. Ls = K _R K _L F (V) (1) where F (V) is a function of the vehicle speed V, K _R is a coefficient reflecting the influence of rainfall, and K _L is a coefficient of the illuminance. This is the coefficient to be reflected. The coefficient K _R is 1 when the wiper is not operating, and is increased stepwise to a value larger than 1 as the cycle of the reciprocating motion is shortened when the wiper is operating.

The coefficient K _L reflecting the influence of the illuminance is given by the following equation, for example. K _L = Lo / (Lo + L) (2) where L is the illuminance in the cabin detected by the illuminometer 9, Lo
Is an appropriate constant, and as an example, is set to a value of about the illuminance outside at noon in fine weather. In this case, the coefficient K _L is,
The value is approximately 0.5 at midday on a sunny day, approximately 1.0 on a suburban road at midnight without moonlight or lighting, and approximately 0.6 to 0.8 at sunset on a clear day or midday on a cloudy day.

The data processor 1 includes an inter-vehicle distance detector 2
Is compared with the safe inter-vehicle distance Ls read from the data memory 5, and when the actual inter-vehicle distance L becomes equal to or less than the safe inter-vehicle distance Ls, an alarm for rear-end collision with the preceding vehicle is displayed / The alarm generation unit 6 is notified. display/
The alarm generator 6 drives the speaker 8 to generate a voice message or a buzzer sound from the speaker 8 to warn of a collision with the preceding vehicle.

The configuration in which the safe inter-vehicle distance to the preceding vehicle is calculated from the own vehicle speed V and the illuminance and registered is described above, but instead, the safe inter-vehicle distance is calculated in each case. Can also. If necessary, a method of calculating the safe inter-vehicle distance by taking into consideration not only the own vehicle speed but also the traveling speed of the preceding vehicle itself, as proposed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-201643, is also used. it can.

Further, the optimum distance between vehicles F (V) determined from only the own vehicle speed V, the distance has been described an example of multiplying the coefficient K _L to reflect the impact of the illuminance increases with decreasing illuminance L _L
Other appropriate configurations, such as adding.

[0019]

As described in detail above, the vehicle collision warning system according to the present invention is configured to change the safe inter-vehicle distance to the preceding vehicle according to the actual illuminance detected by the illuminometer mounted on the vehicle. Therefore, as compared with the conventional system in which the detection is performed by turning on / off the light switch, an effect that a collision warning that matches the actual situation with respect to the relationship between the illuminance and the safe inter-vehicle distance can be generated can be obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view for explaining a state of installation of a display, a speaker, and an illuminometer of a vehicle collision warning system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a vehicle collision warning system of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a relationship between a safe inter-vehicle distance to a preceding vehicle and a traveling environment such as an own vehicle speed and illuminance used in the processing of FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Data processor 2 Inter-vehicle distance detection part 3 Laser transmission / reception part 4 Input interface part 6 Display / alarm generation part 7 Display panel 8 Speaker

Claims (2)

[Claims] An inter-vehicle distance detecting unit for detecting an inter-vehicle distance to a preceding vehicle; a processing unit for recognizing a safe inter-vehicle distance to a preceding vehicle based on a vehicle speed and other traveling states of the own vehicle; And a warning generating unit that generates a rear-end collision warning for the preceding vehicle based on the recognized safe inter-vehicle distance, and a safety inter-vehicle distance recognized by the processing unit. A vehicle collision warning system that changes according to the illuminance detected by a mounted illuminometer. 2. The vehicle collision warning system according to claim 1, wherein the illuminometer mounted on the vehicle is installed in a vehicle interior.