JPH1070620A - On-vehicle information communication equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To allow a vehicle to inform emergency information to a specific destination even on the occurrence of an accident by sending the emergency information to the specific destination via a communication network even when an accident takes place in the vehicle. SOLUTION: When an accident detection section 65 detects it that its own vehicle encounters an accident, the section 65 reads a terminal number of an emergency center being a specific destination stored in advance in a RAM section 75 and allows an emergency control section 63 to transfer the terminal number of the emergency center to a control section. The control section generates a call signal and sends it to a radio base station from an antenna via a transmission section and a transmission reception multicoupler. Furthermore, the monitor control section 63 transfers accident detection information, trigger class information, status information, vehicle position information, identification information, number of passenger information, and accident occurrence time information or the like to the control section as emergency information and the control section sends the emergency information from the antenna through the transmission section and the transmission reception multicoupler via the radio base station to the emergency center.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an in-vehicle information communication device, and more particularly to an in-vehicle information communication device capable of notifying a specified destination of emergency information from a vehicle even when an accident occurs.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a mobile telephone which has become widespread is one in which a mobile station device is installed in a vehicle so that a telephone call can be made while the vehicle is running or stopped. As an example, in Japan, communication is performed between automobile telephones and general telephones in major cities throughout the country using the frequency of the 800 MHz band. On the other hand, a car telephone line used for a car telephone is constituted by a car telephone exchange, a radio network controller, a radio base station, a mobile station, and a transmission line between each station.
It is connected to a wired network exchange via a telephone exchange.

[0003] A car telephone can communicate with a general telephone or a car telephone by accessing a radio base station. Also, even if the user moves to another wireless zone while talking on a car telephone, the control station exchanges archeological sites and enables continuous communication.

[0004]

However, when a vehicle is mounted on a vehicle and moving, for example, when a vehicle encounters an accident and an injured person occurs in the vehicle, the passenger may be in the vehicle. If there is no person who can respond to the voice call with the emergency center, the number of injured cannot be confirmed until the emergency / rescue team arrives at the accident site. For this reason,
When the number of injured persons increased, it was sometimes impossible to respond promptly to the injured persons due to the size of the rescue / rescue teams.

[0005] The present invention has been made in view of the above,
It is an object of the present invention to provide an in-vehicle information communication device capable of notifying a specific destination of emergency information from a vehicle even when an accident occurs.

[0006]

According to the first aspect of the present invention,
In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in an in-vehicle information communication device provided in a vehicle and communicating with a communication network via wireless, an accident detection means for detecting that the vehicle has encountered an accident, and Has an information transmitting means for transmitting emergency information indicating occurrence of an accident to a specific destination via the communication network.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an in-vehicle information communication device provided in a vehicle and communicating with a telephone network via wireless communication to solve the above problem. Means, a line connection means for connecting a line to a specific destination via the telephone network when the vehicle encounters an accident, and a voice connection after connecting the line to the specific destination. The gist of the present invention is to have voice communication means for starting a call.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in order to solve the above-mentioned problem, the accident detecting means includes deployment information from an occupant restraint device for restraining the occupant, and acceleration for detecting acceleration applied to the vehicle. The gist is to detect that a vehicle has encountered an accident based on at least one of accident detection information indicating that acceleration information from a sensor has exceeded a predetermined reference value and emergency operation information indicating an emergency operation. I do.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in order to solve the above problems, the information transmitting means includes: vehicle position information indicating a current position of the vehicle, identification information for identifying a user, a passenger in the vehicle before and after the accident. At least one of the passenger number information indicating the number
And transmitting the emergency information to the specific destination as the emergency information.

[0010]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, when it is detected that a vehicle has encountered an accident, emergency information indicating that the vehicle has encountered an accident is transmitted to a specific destination via a communication network. Thus, even in the event of an accident, emergency information from the vehicle can be notified to a specific destination.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, when it is detected that the vehicle has encountered an accident, after a line is connected to a specific destination via a telephone network, a voice call is made. , A voice call can be made between the specific destination and the vehicle even when an accident occurs.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, the deployment information from the occupant restraint device for restraining the occupant,
Based on at least one of accident detection information indicating that acceleration information from an acceleration sensor for detecting acceleration applied to the vehicle has exceeded a predetermined reference value and emergency operation information indicating an emergency operation, the vehicle has an accident. An encounter can be detected, and as a result, even in the event of an accident, emergency information from the vehicle can be notified to a specific destination. According to the present invention, at least one of vehicle position information indicating the current position of the vehicle, identification information for identifying a user, and passenger number information indicating the number of passengers in the vehicle before and after the accident. By transmitting the emergency information to the specific destination as emergency information, the emergency information from the vehicle can be notified to the specific destination even in the event of an accident.

As a result, when a vehicle encounters an accident and an injured person occurs in the own vehicle, even if there is no passenger capable of responding to a voice call with the emergency center, the emergency / It is possible to notify the rescue squad and the like of the position of the vehicle, the number of passengers, and the like. Therefore, even if the number of injured persons increases, the size of the rescue / rescue squad can be increased, and prompt responses to the injured persons can be performed.

[0014]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a network system in which an in-vehicle information communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention is used. In the figure, a telephone network is composed of a subscriber line from a telephone terminal to an exchange, a transmission line, and a telephone exchange. As shown in FIG. 1, the telephone network is hierarchized into four layers. The hierarchization method divides telephone subscribers nationwide into 30,000 to 40,000 units and accommodates them in the local exchange. More specifically, a terminal station 13 that accommodates a line from a general telephone 11 owned by a subscriber, and then some terminal stations 13
(Subscriber exchanges) are connected by a trunk line and accommodated in the trunk exchange of the central station 15. Further, a central station 17 is formed by connecting a number of centralized stations 15 via a trunk line. Similarly, several central offices 17 are collected to form a general office 19.

On the other hand, as a configuration of the car telephone line, the car telephone exchange 21 first performs connection processing with the general telephone network, connection between car telephones, and billing processing for car telephone call. The radio network controller 23 controls radio channels, issues commands, and manages radio channel quality. In addition, it performs monitoring control of the wireless base station 25 and monitoring control and testing of the wireless line. Further, the wireless base station 25 performs transmission and reception of various signals in a wireless section and monitors wireless channel quality. Furthermore, the mobile device 27 performs transmission and reception of various signals in a wireless section, switching of wireless channels, and transmission of location registration information.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a system configuration of an emergency information communication device 31 applicable to the on-vehicle information communication device according to the embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, an emergency information communication device 31 is a mobile device 27 having a configuration of a car telephone that can be connected to a general public telephone network. An antenna 33 for transmitting and receiving to and from a general public telephone network, a duplexer 35, a receiving unit 37, a transmitting unit 39, a frequency synthesizer 41 for certifying a channel to be used, and a mobile phone 27 A control unit 43 for controlling the entire operation, a display unit 45, a keyboard 47, a reception unit 49 connected to the control unit 43;
This is a configuration having a transmission unit 51. The display unit 45 includes, for example, a liquid crystal, an LED, and the like, and notifies various kinds of information to the user. The keyboard 47 is for inputting various information such as input of a dial number. The receiver 49 is for outputting the transmitted voice, and includes a receiver circuit 53 and a speaker 55. The transmitting section 51 is for inputting a voice to be transmitted, and includes a transmitting circuit 57 and a microphone 59. Further, the emergency information communication device 31 has an emergency information processing unit 61 that transmits emergency information indicating that the vehicle has encountered an accident to a specific destination such as an emergency center. The emergency information processing unit 61 will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

Next, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the configuration of the emergency information processing section 61. In the figure, the monitoring control unit 63 controls the control unit 43 according to the control program when an accident is encountered.
And outputs a line connection instruction signal, emergency information, a voice switching instruction signal, and the like. The RAM unit 75 has a backup function using a battery 77, and stores control data, the number of passengers before and after the occurrence of an accident, and stores information to be sent to the emergency center, terminal numbers of the emergency center, and the like. . In addition, as an emergency center, a rescue squad, a rescue squad, a police, or the like that can rescue a crew of a vehicle that has encountered an accident is preferable.

The accident detection unit 65 outputs a deployment information for deploying an airbag for restraining the occupant when an accident occurs, and indicates that the acceleration applied to the vehicle exceeds a predetermined reference value. It is composed of an acceleration sensor that outputs accident detection information. SW1 is an emergency switch for connecting a line to an emergency center by operating a passenger in an emergency.

The clock section 67 is a clock for measuring the current time to output time information at the time of occurrence of an accident. GPS
(Global Positioning System) Receiver 71
Is a receiver that calculates the absolute position of the vehicle based on radio waves received from the satellite via the antenna 69. Note that, instead of the GPS receiver 71, an own-vehicle position positioning device that measures the own-vehicle position based on the vehicle position coordinates, the traveling direction, and the speed may be used.

The occupant number detector 73 checks the presence or absence of a occupant based on the presence or absence of an optical signal from a light emitting unit provided for each occupant seat to a light receiving unit, and as a result detects the number of occupants Or a device that checks the presence or absence of seat belts and detects the number of occupants as a result, a device that checks the presence or absence of pressure changes due to the back and buttocks of the occupant, and detects the number of occupants as a result. An image processing apparatus or the like that performs image processing for detecting the number of passengers based on image data obtained by capturing an image of a room. The monitoring control unit 6
Reference numeral 3 always monitors the number of passengers output from the number-of-occupants detection unit 73, and stores in the RAM unit 75 history data (for example, up to 30 seconds before) having the acquired information on the number of passengers. Like that.

Next, the operation of the emergency information communication device 31 applicable to the in-vehicle information communication device will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. First, in step S10, the number of occupants in the vehicle obtained by checking the presence or absence of occupants for each seat by the occupant number detection unit 73 is stored in the storage area 1 in the RAM unit 75.

Next, in step S20, the accident detecting unit 6
At 5, it is detected whether or not the vehicle has encountered an accident. For example, whether deployment information for deploying an airbag that restrains the occupant in the event of an accident has been output from the occupant restraint device,
SW1 which is an emergency switch for connecting to a line with an emergency center by accident detection information indicating that the acceleration applied to the vehicle exceeds a predetermined reference value is output from the acceleration sensor or operated by a passenger in an emergency. It is determined whether or not has been operated. When detecting that the own vehicle has encountered an accident, the process proceeds to step S30, and when the own vehicle has not encountered an accident, the process returns to step S10.

Next, at step S30, the RAM 75
The terminal number of the emergency center which is the specific destination stored in advance is read out, and the terminal number of the emergency center is transferred from the emergency control unit 63 to the control unit 43. Next, the control unit 43
Then, a paging signal is formed, and the paging signal is transmitted from the antenna 33 to the radio base station 2 via the transmission unit 39 and the duplexer 35.
Send to 5. Next, in step S40, the control unit 43
Is the mobile telephone exchange 21 in response to an incoming call from the emergency center.
It is determined whether or not a ringing tone and a response signal have been received by the receiving unit 37 via the antenna 33 and the duplexer 35 to determine the presence or absence of a line connection. When the line is connected, the process proceeds to step S50, and when the line is not connected, the process returns to step S30 to continue calling.

Next, in step S50, in order to notify the number of passengers in the vehicle after the occurrence of the accident, the number of passengers is checked by the number of passengers detecting unit 73 for each seat, and as a result, the number of passengers in the vehicle is obtained. The number of passengers is stored in the storage area 2 in the RAM unit 75. Next, in step S60, the monitoring control unit 63 sets a trigger type indicating that the SW1 for inputting the accident detection information indicating that the own vehicle has encountered an accident or an emergency notification operation by the passenger has been operated. information,
State information indicating the state of the vehicle's engine and electrical systems, GP
The vehicle position information indicating the current position of the vehicle detected by the S receiver 73, the identification information for identifying the user of the vehicle telephone stored in the internal ROM, and the storage area 1 and the storage area 2 Passenger number information indicating the number of passengers in the vehicle before and after the accident, information on the time at which the accident occurred measured by the clock unit 67, and the like are transferred to the control unit 43 as emergency information. 39, The emergency information is transmitted from the antenna 33 to the emergency center via the wireless base station 25 via the duplexer 35.

Since the number of occupants is transmitted immediately before and after the detection of the accident, it is also possible to confirm at the emergency center that there are occupants outside the vehicle after the occurrence of the accident. it can. Next, step S7
0, a voice switching instruction signal is transferred from the emergency control unit 63 to the control unit 43 in order to enable a call between a passenger in the vehicle and the emergency center. The voice switching instruction signal is transmitted from the antenna 33 to the emergency center via the wireless base station 25 via the duplexer 35. Thus, the data communication function negotiated between the emergency center and the emergency information communication device 31 can be changed to the voice communication function.

Next, in step S80, the reception unit 49 and the transmission unit 51 constituting the handset are connected to the control unit 43 to enable a call between a passenger in the vehicle and the emergency center. Here, in step S90, the control unit 43
Determines whether the handset is on-hook,
It is determined whether the call has ended. If the call has ended, the process proceeds to step S100, whereas if the call has continued, the process returns to step S90. Next, step S10
At 0, a disconnection signal is transferred from the emergency control unit 63 to the control unit 43 in order to end the call between the passenger in the vehicle and the emergency center. The disconnection signal is transmitted from the antenna 33 to the emergency center via the radio base station 25 via the duplexer 35, and the line is opened.

As described above, when it is detected that a vehicle has encountered an accident, emergency information indicating that the vehicle has encountered an accident is transmitted to a specific destination via a communication network, so that even when an accident occurs, the vehicle can be identified. Emergency information from the vehicle can be notified to the other party. In addition, if it is detected that the vehicle has encountered an accident, a voice call is started after a line is connected to the specific destination via the telephone network, so that even if an accident occurs, the specific destination A voice call can be made between the vehicle and the vehicle. Further, accident detection information indicating that deployment information from the occupant restraint device for restraining the occupant, acceleration information from an acceleration sensor for detecting acceleration applied to the vehicle exceeds a predetermined reference value, It is possible to detect that the vehicle has encountered an accident based on at least one of the emergency operation information indicating the operation of the vehicle. As a result, even when an accident occurs, it is possible to report the emergency information from the vehicle to a specific destination. it can. Furthermore, at least one of vehicle position information indicating the current position of the vehicle, identification information for identifying the user, and passenger number information indicating the number of passengers in the vehicle before and after the accident is transmitted as emergency information to the specified destination. By doing so, even when an accident occurs, the emergency information from the vehicle can be notified to the specific destination. As a result, when a vehicle encounters an accident and an injured person occurs in the vehicle, even if no passengers can respond to the voice call with the emergency center, rescue / rescue services etc. Can be notified of the position of the host vehicle and the number of passengers. Therefore, even if the number of injured persons increases, the size of the rescue / rescue squad can be increased, and prompt responses to the injured persons can be performed.

In the above embodiment, the case where voice communication is started after transmitting emergency information has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to such a communication order.
The emergency information may be transmitted after performing the voice communication.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a network system in which an in-vehicle information communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention is used.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a system configuration of an emergency information communication device 31 applicable to the on-vehicle information communication device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration of an emergency information processing unit 61.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the emergency information communication device 31.

[Explanation of symbols]

 27 mobile device 31 emergency information communication device 33 antenna 35 duplexer 37 receiver 39 transmitter 41 synthesizer 43 control unit 45 display unit 47 keyboard 49 receiver unit 51 transmitter unit 53 receiver circuit 55 speaker 57 transmitter circuit 59 microphone 61 emergency Information processing unit 63 Monitoring control unit 65 Accident detection unit 67 Clock unit 69 Antenna 71 GPS receiver 73 Passenger number detection unit 75 RAM unit 77 Battery SW1 Emergency switch

Claims (4)

[Claims] An in-vehicle information communication device provided in a vehicle and communicating with a communication network via radio, comprising: an accident detecting means for detecting that the vehicle has encountered an accident; Information transmitting means for transmitting emergency information indicating that an accident has been encountered to a specified destination via the communication network. 2. An in-vehicle information communication device provided in a vehicle and communicating with a telephone network via radio, comprising: an accident detecting means for detecting that the vehicle has encountered an accident; Line connection means for connecting a line with a specific destination via the telephone network; and voice communication means for starting a voice call after connecting a line with the specific destination. In-vehicle information communication device. 3. The accident detecting means according to claim 1, wherein deployment information from an occupant restraint device for restraining the occupant and acceleration information from an acceleration sensor for detecting acceleration applied to the vehicle exceed a predetermined reference value. The in-vehicle information communication device according to claim 1, wherein the on-vehicle information communication device according to claim 1, wherein the on-vehicle information communication device detects that the vehicle has encountered an accident based on at least one of accident detection information indicating the fact and emergency operation information indicating an emergency operation. 4. The information transmitting means includes at least one of vehicle position information indicating a current position of the vehicle, identification information for identifying a user, and passenger number information indicating the number of passengers in the vehicle before and after the accident. The in-vehicle information communication device according to claim 1, wherein the emergency information is transmitted to the specific destination.