JPH11202761A - Navigation device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make information on images or the like required by a user easily obtainable with a navigation device by providing a means for performing the communications of image data with a predetermined image data storage part, storing received image data and displaying the stored image data at need. SOLUTION: From the data of a road map or the like reproduced in a map disk reproduction part 14, whether or not a terminal equipment storing the image data is present on a road selected as a route to a destination is judged. In the case of judging that it is present, the terminal equipment is called by a radio telephone set 30 and connected by a telephone line and the image data or the like stored in the terminal equipment are transmitted. When the image data or the like are transmitted, the received images are stored in a storage part 16 inside the navigation device 10. Then, on the screen of a monitor 20 connected to the navigation device 10, at the time of guiding the route, along with the road map of the route or the like, the images of the road in the middle of the route stored in the storage part 16 are displayed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a navigation device mounted on a vehicle such as an automobile to provide various kinds of guidance such as displaying a map near the position of the vehicle.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, various navigation devices to be mounted on automobiles and the like have been developed. This navigation device is, for example, a CD RO storing road map data.
It comprises a large-capacity data storage means such as M, a current position detection means, and a display device for displaying a road map near the detected current position based on the data read from the data storage means. In this case, as a means for detecting the current position, a means using a positioning system (hereinafter simply referred to as GPS) using a positioning satellite called a GPS (Global Positioning System), a traveling direction of the vehicle, and a traveling direction are used. There is an autonomous navigation method that tracks a change in the current position from a departure point based on information such as speed.

[0003] The data of a road map near the current position detected by the current position detecting means is stored in a CD.
A video signal for displaying a road map is read out from a large-capacity data storage means such as a ROM, and this video signal is supplied to a display device to display a road map near the current position. In some cases, the navigation device main body and the display device may be configured separately. Further, it is also possible to display a road map or the like at a desired position in a home or the like without mounting it on a moving body such as an automobile.

[0004]

By the way, information displayed by such a conventional navigation device includes:
Basically, it is a road map and its accompanying information, and other information cannot be displayed. When images for guiding sightseeing spots and the like are prepared in the CD ROM, these images can be displayed on the display device. However, even in this case, the image data corresponding to the CD ROM must be stored. This is a premise, and it is not possible to immediately display an image of an arbitrary place required by the user.

For example, there is a navigation device having a route setting function for automatically calculating a route of a road from a current location to a destination. It was impossible to obtain an image of an intersection or the like existing in the city.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In view of the foregoing, an object of the present invention is to make it possible for a navigation device to easily obtain information such as images required by a user.

[0007]

According to the present invention, there is provided a communication unit for communicating image data between a predetermined image data storage location and a predetermined communication line via a predetermined communication line. In addition, the image data received by the communication means is stored, and the stored image data is displayed if necessary.

According to the present invention, it is possible to sequentially obtain image data of a required place such as the vicinity of the current position by communication through a predetermined communication line, and to perform appropriate navigation using the received image data. it can.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described.
This will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In this embodiment, the navigation device is installed on a vehicle (moving body) such as an automobile and used as a navigation device for providing road guidance and the like. In this embodiment, a radio telephone is connected to the navigation device. There is a configuration to use.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a navigation device. A navigation device 10 of this embodiment is a GPS (Global
A system called Positioning System) is used to perform positioning of the current position, a GPS antenna 11 for performing the positioning is connected, and a positioning signal received by the antenna 11 is received. , GPS receiver 1
The reception process is performed in step 2, and the current position is calculated from the analysis of the received positioning signal.

The obtained current position data is supplied to a system controller 13 which is a central control device for controlling the operation of each part of the navigation device 10. A map disk reproducing unit 14 is connected to the system controller 13, and the obtained road map data in the vicinity of the current position is stored in a map disk (not shown) mounted on the reproducing unit 14.
, And supplies the reproduced map data to the system controller 13. System controller 13
Then, based on the supplied map data, a drawing process for creating display data for displaying a road map in a predetermined range is performed, and the obtained display data is displayed on the monitor device 20 connected to the navigation device 10. Display on the screen. As the monitor device 20, for example, a relatively small display device using a liquid crystal image display panel is used, and is installed on a dashboard of an automobile or the like.

Further, the navigation apparatus 10 of the present embodiment includes an autonomous navigation unit 15 for detecting the traveling direction and the traveling speed of the vehicle and positioning the current position by autonomous navigation. Data is also supplied to the system controller 13, so that position positioning is possible even in a situation where radio waves from satellites cannot be received due to traveling in a tunnel or the like.

In this embodiment, a storage unit 16 for storing image data is connected to the system controller 13, and image data received from the outside is stored in the storage unit 16 in a predetermined manner under the control of the system controller 13. There is a configuration for storing. As the storage unit 16,
Various rewritable large-capacity storage means can be used. For example, various data storage (recording) devices such as a hard disk device, an optical disk (magneto-optical disk) device, a magnetic tape recording device, and a semiconductor memory device can be used.

The display of a road map on the monitor device 20 is as follows.
It is executed based on the operation mode set based on the operation of the operation unit 17 prepared in the navigation device 10. Here, as the operation mode prepared in the navigation device 10 of the present example, the current location (or the set departure location)
The system controller 13 is provided with a route search mode for searching for a road that is most suitable for traveling from to the destination, and when the corresponding mode is set by operating the operation unit 17, the system controller 13 performs a route search process.

When the route search process is executed, image data of a main passage point of a road on the route is obtained by communication via the wireless telephone 30 connected to the navigation device 10. is there. The navigation device 10 is provided with a telephone interface unit 18, and a wireless telephone (mobile telephone) 30 can be connected via the telephone interface unit 18. When the wireless telephone 30 is connected to the navigation device 10, an automatic call processing from the wireless telephone 30 to a predetermined telephone number can be performed under the control of the system controller 13. (Such as image data) transmitted from the storage unit 16 can be stored under the control of the system controller 13.

Here, a description will be given of the system configuration of the other party communicating with the wireless telephone 30. In this example, as shown in FIG. 2, for example, a public telephone set is installed in the vicinity of a major intersection on a road in advance. Telephone boxes T1, T
Video cameras (or electronic still cameras) C1 and C2} are installed above 2 ° and the like. In the example of FIG. 2, the video camera C1 is installed on the public telephone box T1 installed near the intersection where the roads R1 and R2 intersect, and the video camera C1 is installed near the intersection where the roads R3 and R4 intersect. Video camera C2 on the public telephone booth T2
Is installed.

The video cameras C1, C2 #
Is stored in a terminal device (not shown) installed in each public telephone box T1, T2 #, and the terminal device is connected to a telephone line. In this case, for example, if necessary, the video camera C
The images 1 and C2 may be mounted on a moving device such as a pantilter so that images at a plurality of angles can be taken.
The image data stored in the terminal device is updated, for example, at a predetermined cycle (for example, every day, every hour, etc.). Further, the terminal device may store data other than the image data. For example, the terminal device may collect and store data such as road traffic information such as the congestion status of a road near the intersection where the terminal device is installed and weather.

This terminal device can be connected by calling from various telephones such as a wireless telephone via a telephone line, and stored by the terminal device in response to a request from the other party (here, the wireless telephone) connected via the telephone line. Image data and other data can be transferred. Further, data such as the position where the terminal device is arranged and its telephone number are recorded in advance on a map disk or the like prepared for each navigation device. Alternatively, data such as a position where each terminal device is arranged and a telephone number may be registered in a predetermined center which is determined in advance, and the user may inquire the center about the position and the telephone number.

Next, with the terminal device thus prepared, the navigation device 10 described with reference to FIG.
The process when using is described below. First, a route search mode to the destination is set by operating the operation unit 17,
When the system controller 13 executes a route search process to search for a road that is most suitable for reaching the destination, the route is selected as a route from data of a road map reproduced by the map disk reproducing unit 14 or the like. It is determined whether there is a terminal device storing image data on the road. Here, when it is determined that there is a terminal device, a call is made to the terminal device with the wireless telephone 30, the corresponding terminal device is connected via a telephone line, and image data and the like stored in the terminal device are transmitted. Let it be transmitted.

When image data or the like is transmitted to the wireless telephone 30, the storage unit 16 in the navigation device 10
Then, the received image data is stored. Then, when performing route guidance on the screen of the monitor device 20 connected to the navigation device 10, an image of a road in the middle of the route stored in the storage unit 16 is displayed together with a road map of the route. As the display mode at this time, various display modes are conceivable, such as displaying an image of an intersection or the like in a partial range of the road map, or displaying the map and the image alternately. If there is traffic information or weather data other than image data, display based on those data (display of congestion status in road map, display of weather as characters or graphics in map or image) Etc.) may be performed.

By receiving the image data and the like and performing the guidance display in this way, the driver is guided by the image of the actual intersection, and the guidance of the route which is very easy to understand is performed. In this case, image data such as intersections
The image data is stored in a terminal device such as a public telephone box with a video camera attached to it, and is obtained by calling the terminal device over a telephone line. Compared to the case of management, image data is stored separately in each terminal device, and communication for collecting image data on each navigation device side by telephone line can be prevented from being concentrated at one center, In general, when performing a route search, a destination or the like is often a place relatively close to the current location, and an installation location of a terminal device that requires image data such as an intersection on a route is located relatively close to the current location. There is a high possibility that the communication cost for collecting image data can be reduced.

Each terminal device transmits not only image data of the installation location of the terminal device but also image data captured by a video camera connected to a nearby terminal device via a telephone line or the like. A copy of the image data may be stored. By doing so, the navigation device can obtain image data of not only the installation location of the terminal device but also a nearby location by calling any one of the terminal devices. It is not necessary to communicate with all the terminal devices that perform the communication, and the communication cost can be further reduced.

The timing of communication with the terminal device on the navigation device side is such that when approaching a target terminal device while traveling, communication with the terminal device is performed to obtain image data. For example, if the route or the range of travel is known in advance, while the car is not used during parking at night or the like, the remaining battery level of the car is checked, and when the remaining battery capacity is sufficient,
Communication may be performed with a necessary terminal device. Further, communication may be performed when the engine of the automobile is started.

When a large-capacity storage unit is used as the storage unit 16 of the navigation device 10, image data within a certain range is sequentially transmitted and stored irrespective of route setting. You may do it. For example, the image data of an intersection within a radius of several tens of kilometers from the current position may be transmitted and stored in the storage unit 16 while the car is not used, such as at night.

In this case, a plurality of types of storage units having different data transfer rates may be provided as the storage unit 16, and storage units for storing data may be selectively used according to the frequency of use. That is, for example, for all the received image data, once all are stored in a low transfer rate storage means using a magnetic tape or the like, and when the route setting and the like are performed and the stored image data becomes necessary, The data may be transferred to a storage unit with a high transfer rate using a hard disk or a semiconductor memory, and the data stored in the storage unit with a high transfer rate may be used for displaying. In addition, after once using the image data transmitted from the terminal device based on the route setting, etc., the image data is transferred to a large-capacity storage means having a low transfer rate using a magnetic tape or the like, and the image data is stored. When image data of an intersection becomes necessary, the stored image data may be read and used without calling the terminal device of the intersection. Further, three or more different storage units may be used in combination.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, the image data is transmitted by the request from each navigation device side through the telephone line. However, the image data may be transmitted using the communication line other than the telephone line. good. In addition, a certain dedicated communication line (for example, a line by multiplexing to a certain broadcast wave) is secured, and the image data of each place is broadcast by the communication line at regular intervals,
The image data required by each navigation device may be received and stored. Also, image data may be moving image data as long as the transmission capacity on the communication line side and the storage capacity on the navigation device side are sufficient.

In the above-described embodiment, the video camera and the terminal device for photographing image data are installed in the public telephone booth. However, other video cameras and terminal devices installed on roads, such as on telephone poles and near traffic lights are used. May be installed in the equipment.

In the navigation device described in the above embodiment, a positioning means such as a GPS is provided.
Although the configuration has been described in which the relatively accurate current position is detected, a configuration in which the approximate current position is detected using existing communication infrastructure equipment or the like may be employed. For example, a signal transmitted from a base station for a radio telephone system called a personal handy phone system (PHS) is received, and the position is determined from the base station to which the received signal is transmitted (that is, the corresponding base station). (It is determined that the position is in the vicinity of the station).

[0030]

According to the first aspect of the invention, image data of a required place such as the vicinity of the current position can be sequentially obtained by communication through a predetermined communication line, and the received image data is used. Appropriate navigation can be performed. For example, by transmitting image data taken by a video camera installed near a main intersection to a navigation device via a wireless telephone line and displaying the image data, the state of the intersection can be displayed on the navigation device. Good navigation can be performed based on the image taken at the same time.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the image data storage locations are distributed and arranged in a predetermined state, and communication is performed by a communication line based on the position determined by the position positioning means. By selecting the image data storage location to be performed, it is possible to communicate with an appropriate location based on the current position or the like at that time and to obtain necessary image data.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, in the second aspect of the present invention, a specific copy of image data is stored by storing copies of the same image data in respective image data storage locations arranged in a distributed manner. Communication can be prevented from concentrating on a location, and communication for obtaining image data can be favorably performed by each navigation device.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, an image near a route is obtained based on the route data calculated by the route calculating means and the current position data measured by the position measuring means. Receiving the data,
By displaying the received image data on the display means, it is possible to display an image of a main intersection existing on the route when performing route guidance.

According to the invention described in claim 5, in the invention described in claim 4, when image data at a position corresponding to the storage means is stored, the image data is stored in the storage means without performing communication via a communication line. By using the stored image data and displaying it on the display means, the image data already acquired and stored by communication is effectively utilized,
Communication for obtaining image data can be minimized.

According to the invention described in claim 6, in the invention described in claim 1, a plurality of types of storage units having different transfer rates of storage data are provided as storage units.
By selecting storage means for storing the image data in accordance with the frequency of use of the image data to be stored, the image data obtained through communication can be efficiently stored.

[Brief description of the drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a plan view showing an example of the arrangement of information acquisition terminals according to one embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 navigation device, 11 antenna for GPS,
12 ... GPS receiver, 13 ... System controller, 1
Reference numeral 6: storage unit, 18: telephone interface unit, 20: monitor unit, 30: wireless telephone unit, C1, C2: video camera, T1, T2: public telephone box

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A communication means for communicating image data between a position positioning means and a predetermined image data storage location via a predetermined communication line, and storing image data received by the communication means. A navigation device comprising: a storage unit for performing the operation; and a display unit for displaying the image data stored in the storage unit based on the positioning by the position positioning unit. 2. The image data storage location according to claim 1, wherein the image data storage locations are distributed and arranged in a predetermined state, and communication is performed by the communication line according to the position measured by the position positioning means. Navigation device provided with control means for selecting a vehicle. 3. The navigation device according to claim 2, wherein a copy of the same image data is stored in each of the distributed image data storage locations. 4. The navigation device according to claim 1, further comprising: route calculation means for calculating a route to a set destination, wherein the route data calculated by said route calculation means and a current position determined by said position positioning means. A navigation device that receives image data in the vicinity of the route based on the data and displays the received image data on the display unit. 5. The navigation device according to claim 4, wherein when the image data at the position corresponding to the storage means is stored, the image data stored in the storage means is not communicated through the communication line. A navigation device to be used and displayed on the display means. 6. The navigation device according to claim 1, further comprising a plurality of types of storage units having different transfer rates of storage data, wherein the storage unit stores the image data in accordance with the frequency of use of the image data to be stored. Navigation device to choose.