JPH1096777A - Collision warning system of vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make warnings further conform to an actual condition of driving by generating plurality of kinds of warnings on which a warning degree is intensified in stages on the basis of a detected inter-vehicle distance and a recognized safe inter-vehicle distance without always passing through stages. SOLUTION: A data processor 1 stores data on a preceding vehicle such as a detected inter-vehicle distance, a traveling condition of one's own vehicle and a travel environment signal in a data memory 5, and reads a preregistered safe inter-vehicle distance on the basis of the traveling condition of one's own vehicle. A risk of a rear-end collision is calculated by dividing the safe inter- vehicle distance by an actual inter-vehicle distance. The data processor 1 generates first, second and third warnings on which a warning degree increases in stages in this order in a warning generating part 6 when an inter-vehicle distance with the preceding vehicle is gradually shortened when traveling on an open straight line road. For example, when the preceding vehicle traveling on an adjacent traffic lane cuts in and an inter-vehicle distance suddenly reduces, the second and the third warnings are immediately generated without passing through the first warning.

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. This vehicle collision warning system emits a beam, such as a laser beam, in front of the vehicle, receives the reflected beam that is reflected by the preceding vehicle, and returns the reflected beam to and from the preceding vehicle. Detects the inter-vehicle distance to the preceding vehicle from the propagation time required for
When the detected actual inter-vehicle distance becomes equal to or less than the safe inter-vehicle distance calculated from the vehicle speed of the host vehicle, the driver is warned of a danger of a rear-end collision with a preceding vehicle by an alarm such as a buzzer sound.

[0003] In the above-mentioned conventional collision warning system, it is difficult to narrow down an obstacle for which a true warning is to be issued with high accuracy, and therefore, a warning tends to be generated even for an object that does not actually require a warning. It is in. In particular, when traveling on a curve, a warning is likely to be issued even for a structure such as a reflector installed on the shoulder of the road or an object that does not actually need to be warned, such as an oncoming vehicle traveling normally in the oncoming lane. .
For this reason, there is a problem that a driver feels annoyed and stops the operation of such an alarm generation system, or becomes insensitive to a frequent alarm and misses what is really needed. .

[0004] In order to maintain a further awareness of danger to a driver who tends to be insensitive to an alarm, particularly a driver performing an avoidance operation, a case where the first alarm continues to sound even though the driver performs the avoidance operation Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H7-27204 discloses a method of sounding a second alarm different from the first alarm.
-201643.

[0005] As typified by the above-mentioned patent gazettes and the like, in a method of generating an alarm in multiple stages, usually, the buzzer sound is increased stepwise, the duration is stepwise lengthened, or the warning is made visually. The degree of warning is gradually increased, for example, by switching from displaying an appealing image to a buzzer sound appealing to hearing. That is, a low-level warning with a low warning level is assigned to an alarm with a high frequency of occurrence, and a higher-level warning with a high level of warning is assigned to an imminent situation with a low frequency of occurrence. The harmony between the problem of the driver's annoyance and the effectiveness of the warning has been achieved.

[0006]

In the conventional alarm generation system in which the above-described multi-level alarm generation is performed, various inconveniences are involved because the strength of the warning level is increased step by step. For example, according to the warning generation method proposed in the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-201643, when the driver does not notice the first warning due to carelessness or physical condition, and thus does not perform the avoidance operation. However, there is a problem that the second warning of the next stage cannot be switched, and the strength of the warning is not increased with the worsening of the situation. As previously mentioned,
This is because the level of the first warning is set to be relatively low in order to avoid complications caused by the high frequency of occurrence of the first warning.

In order to cope with such a problem, it is conceivable to automatically switch to the next stage of the second alarm when the first alarm is generated for a certain period of time. However, according to this method, first, in an emergency where it is necessary to generate an alarm having a high warning level such as the second warning,
There is a waste of time that a low-warning alarm must be continuously generated for a certain period of time.

For example, when a preceding vehicle appears immediately in front of the vehicle as soon as the vehicle enters a curve, or when a preceding vehicle interrupts from an adjacent lane, the second-stage warning is skipped by skipping the first-stage warning. It is necessary to immediately generate an alarm of the third stage, or to immediately generate an alarm of the third stage with a higher warning level by skipping the alarm of the second stage. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle alarm generation system that more closely matches the driving situation.

[0009]

According to the present invention, there is provided an alarm generating system for a vehicle, comprising: an inter-vehicle distance detecting unit for detecting an inter-vehicle distance with respect to a preceding vehicle; and a safe inter-vehicle distance with respect to the preceding vehicle based on a vehicle speed and other running conditions of the own vehicle. And a plurality of types of warnings in which the warning level is stepwise enhanced based on the detected inter-vehicle distance and the recognized safe inter-vehicle distance with respect to the preceding vehicle. And an alarm generating unit that generates an alarm without passing through.

[0010]

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the degree of warning is a first optically generated warning according to a ratio of a detected inter-vehicle distance to a recognized safe inter-vehicle distance. It comprises a stage alarm and second and third stage alarms generated by audible sounds. Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to examples.

[0011]

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an inter-vehicle distance display device according to one embodiment of the present invention. 1 is a data processor, 2 is an inter-vehicle distance detector, 3 is a laser transmitter / receiver, and 4 is An input interface unit, 5 is a data memory, 6 is an alarm generation unit, 7 is a display panel, 8 is a buzzer, and 9 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 section 2 calculates the propagation distance of the laser pulse from the propagation time required for the laser transmitting / receiving section 3 to transmit the laser pulse and receive the reflected pulse, ie, the distance between the preceding vehicle 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 on the preceding vehicle, such as the inter-vehicle distance and direction, detected from the inter-vehicle distance detection unit 2 and stores the data in the data memory 5. Further, the data processor 1 determines the vehicle speed,
Traveling consisting of various data indicating the running state of the vehicle such as acceleration and steering angle, a light ON / OFF signal indicating daytime / nighttime, and a wiper ON / OFF signal indicating fine weather / rainy weather. Environment signals are received from various sensors and devices through the input interface unit 4 and stored in the data memory 5.

The data processor 1 executes an alarm generation process as illustrated in the flowchart of FIG. 1 in parallel with the process of storing the various data in the data memory 5. That is, the data processor 1 determines whether there is a preceding vehicle by searching the data memory 5 (step 1).
1) If present, the inter-vehicle distance L detected for the preceding vehicle is read from the data memory 5 (step 12).

Subsequently, the data processor 21 reads the running state of the own vehicle such as the own vehicle speed V from the data memory 5 (step 13), and based on the running state, registers the running state in the data memory 5 in advance. The safety inter-vehicle distance Ls is read (step 13). The safety inter-vehicle distance Ls is determined from the own vehicle speed V and other driving environments such as time zone (daytime / nighttime) and weather (fine weather / rainfall) as illustrated in FIG. The safe inter-vehicle distance Ls is set to a larger value as the other driving environment such as brightness and weather deteriorates.

Next, the data processor 1 calculates the safe inter-vehicle distance Ls read from the data memory 5 by using the inter-vehicle distance detecting section 2.
By dividing by the actual inter-vehicle distance L detected in
The rear-end collision risk D (= Ls / L) for the preceding vehicle is calculated (step 15). The data processor 1 determines whether the calculated risk D is 1 or more (step 16),
If the risk D is 1 or more, the risk D
It is determined whether it is 1.5 or more (step 17). If the danger level D is less than 1.5, the data processor 1 turns on the first-stage alarm in step 19, and thereafter returns to step 11.

If the data processor 1 determines in step 17 that the risk D is not less than 1.5, it subsequently determines whether or not the risk D is not less than 2 (step 18). If the danger level D is less than 2, the data processor 1 turns on the second-stage alarm at step 20 and thereafter returns to step 11.

If the data processor 1 determines in step 18 that the danger level D is 2 or more, it turns on the third-stage warning in step 21 and thereafter returns to step 11.

If the data processor 1 determines in step 11 that there is no preceding vehicle, or if it determines in step 16 that the danger D is less than 1, the data processor 1 determines in step 22 whether the alarm is on. Then, if the alarm is on, the alarm is canceled in step 23, and then the process returns to step 11. In addition,
Although illustration in the flowchart is omitted for convenience of illustration, if a second-stage alarm is already being generated by the previous process when a third-stage alarm is newly generated, this second alarm is It is released.

When the first alarm is turned on by the data processor 1, the alarm generation section 6 causes the display panel 7 to blink "warning attention" in red. When the second alarm is turned on, the alarm generator 6 generates a buzzer sound for one second from the buzzer 8 in addition to the blinking of the display. A continuous buzzer sound is generated from the buzzer 8.

If the distance between the vehicle and the preceding vehicle gradually decreases while traveling on a straight road with good visibility, the first, second, and third warnings in which the warning level increases stepwise are the same. Generated in order. On the other hand, in a case where the preceding vehicle traveling in the adjacent lane is interrupting the own lane and the inter-vehicle distance is suddenly reduced, the inter-vehicle distance with the suddenly changing preceding vehicle is changed according to the inter-vehicle distance. Immediately without going through the first alarm, the second and third alarms are generated.

As described above, the configuration in which the safe inter-vehicle distance from the preceding vehicle is calculated from the own vehicle speed V, the traveling time zone, the weather environment, and the like and registered. However, if necessary, the safety inter-vehicle distance for the preceding vehicle may be changed as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No.
As disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. H10-209, a method of calculating not only the own vehicle speed but also the traveling speed of the preceding vehicle itself can be used.

[0024]

As described above in detail, the vehicle collision warning system according to the present invention provides a detected vehicle distance,
It is a configuration in which multiple types of warnings, in which the warning level is strengthened in stages based on the recognized safe inter-vehicle distance, are generated without necessarily passing through the stages, such that the inter-vehicle distance suddenly decreased due to interruption from the adjacent lane etc. In this case, a warning with a strong warning level is immediately generated, and an effect is produced in which a warning can be generated according to the driving situation.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart illustrating an example of an alarm generation process performed by a vehicle collision alarm 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 exemplifying a relationship between a safe inter-vehicle distance to a preceding vehicle, a host vehicle speed, and a traveling environment used in the processing of FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 data processor 2 inter-vehicle distance detection unit 3 laser transmission / reception unit 4 input interface unit 6 alarm generation unit 7 display panel 8 buzzer

Claims (3)

[Claims] An inter-vehicle distance detecting unit for detecting an inter-vehicle distance with respect to a preceding vehicle; a processing unit for recognizing a safe inter-vehicle distance with respect to a preceding vehicle based on a vehicle speed or a traveling state of the own vehicle; An alarm generation unit that generates a plurality of types of alarms in which the warning level is stepwise enhanced based on the inter-vehicle distance and the recognized safe inter-vehicle distance, without necessarily performing a step according to the warning level. An inter-vehicle collision warning system for a vehicle. 2. The vehicle collision warning system according to claim 1, wherein the warning level is increased stepwise according to a ratio of the detected inter-vehicle distance to the recognized safe inter-vehicle distance. . 3. The alarm according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of types of alarms in which the degree of warning is stepwise enhanced include an optically generated first-level alarm and a second type of audible sound. And a third-stage warning.