KR20180083745A - System and vehicle for providing precise position information of road landmarks - Google Patents

Abstract

Provided are a vehicle and a system for providing precise position information of a road facility supporting stable autonomous driving by providing accurate position information of a main road facility to precisely perform a positioning correction of a vehicle. According to the present invention, a wireless transmitter for wirelessly transmitting information on a road facility including coordinate information is installed near a point where a road facility is installed, and an RFID tag is embedded in a road corresponding to the point where the road facility is installed. A vehicle obtains the coordinate information of the road facility from a signal transmitted from the wireless transmitter and realizes an accurate position of a corresponding coordinate from the signal from the RFID tag to perform a positioning correction of the vehicle. To this end, the vehicle further includes a wireless receiver for receiving road facility information from the wireless transmitter, and an RFID reader for transmitting a signal capable of activating the RFID tag embedded in the road and for receiving information transmitted from the RFID tag. According to the present invention, the accurate position of the corresponding coordinate can be realized from the signal of the RFID tag, thereby realizing a position of the road facility with high precision.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention [0001] The present invention relates to a precise position information providing system for vehicles and road facilities,

The present invention relates to a vehicle and a system for providing precise position information of a road facility, and more particularly, to a vehicle and a system for providing precise position information of a road facility, And more particularly, to a system for providing precise location information of vehicles and road facilities.

There have been many studies on an autonomous vehicle having an unmanned driving function that automatically travels to a destination without a driver's operation. Autonomous vehicles generally analyze data obtained from various sensors such as a satellite navigation device, an inertial navigation device, a radar, an ultrasonic meter, a laser scanner, and a camera mounted on a vehicle by an internal computer. Based on the analyzed information, , Information on roads in operation, obstacles, and the like to generate driving information.

Positioning and positioning correction techniques based on high-precision GPS and inertial sensors are generally used to detect the position of the vehicle. GPS (Global Positioning System), which is called a satellite navigation system or a satellite positioning system, is one of the most accurate positioning systems developed so far. However, in general, the error range of the position measurement using GPS is 5 ~ 15m, and errors up to 30m may occur, so that the performance required by general vehicle safety technology is not satisfied. In consideration of this point, a satellite navigation correction system (DGPS or DGPS-RTK) (hereinafter referred to as "DGPS") is widely used in the field of vehicle safety technology. DGPS is a GPS surveying method of relative positioning method. It corrects the elements causing errors by using already known reference point coordinates, and obtains accurate position information by minimizing errors.

Image sensors, road lanes based on radar sensors, and road sign recognition technology are generally used to identify information about roads and obstacles on the road. The image sensor is attached to the vehicle and acquires the peripheral images (forward image, backward image, lateral image, etc.) of the vehicle. Such an image sensor can be realized by a single camera, a stereoscopic camera, a omnidirectional camera, a monocular camera, and the like. The distance sensor detects objects existing in the vicinity of the vehicle and measures the distance between the vehicle and objects (objects to be measured, objects, obstacles, vehicles, etc.). The distance sensor may be implemented by a radar (Radar Detection And Ranging), a RADAR (Light Detection and Ranging), an ultrasonic sensor, an infrared sensor, or the like.

Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) has been developed to prevent traffic accidents in driving vehicles and to improve traffic flow efficiency. Vehicle navigation systems typically include Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) communications based on WAVE (Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments) and CALM (Continuous Air Interface for Long and Medium Range), Vehicle to Infrastructure , V2I) communication. In recent years, studies on safety driving service using inter-vehicle communication technology such as IEEE 802.11p (prevention of cooperative collision, warning of collision of forward vehicle, change of lane, etc.) have been actively conducted. The vehicle safety driving service monitors the real-time driving situation through wireless communication between the short-distance vehicles, thereby inducing safe driving of the vehicle and improving the traffic congestion situation, thereby providing a more safe and comfortable driving environment to the driver.

However, in the case of the inertial navigation system, there is a disadvantage in that the error accumulates continuously, and in the case of the satellite navigation apparatus, there is a restriction that it is possible to operate only in the position and the weather where the satellite communication is possible.

In order to solve such a problem, in Korean Patent Laid-Open No. 10-2014-0040658, a plurality of reference position radio signal generators for transmitting a reference position radio signal including information on position coordinates and propagation time are installed in a lane , The autonomous mobile device grasps the position using the reference position radio signal received from the autonomous mobile device and performs autonomous travel. The road surface control device transmits situation information about the nearby area of the vehicle equipped with the autonomous travel device to the autonomous travel device so that it can grasp the traveling direction of the vehicle even in a curve section in which the field of view is not secured, So that it can perform autonomous driving. However, in such a configuration, there is a problem in that power must be supplied to the wireless signal generating device embedded in the bottom of the road, and time information and position coordinates must be set for each wireless signal generating device.

In Korean Patent No. 1209062, position information obtained from a low-precision GPS device is corrected with high accuracy using image recognition information. To this end, the lane characteristic information is included in the road map information, the lane recognition information recognized by the image recognition device is compared with the lane characteristic information, the current position measured by the GPS module is corrected, and the lane information is calculated. However, in this method, it is difficult to precisely correct the position because it is possible to correct the position only if there is characteristic unique to the lane, and it is difficult to precisely locate the lane of the lane due to limitation of the image recognition even though the characteristic is inherent to the lane.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide stable positional information of a main road facility, thereby precisely correcting the positioning of the vehicle. The present invention also aims to reduce the installation and maintenance cost of the system by making the configuration of the apparatus embedded in the road as simple as possible.

In the present invention, a wireless radiator for wirelessly transmitting information about road facilities including coordinate information is installed near a road installation site, and an RFID tag is buried in a road corresponding to a location where road facilities are installed. The vehicle acquires the coordinate information of the road facility from the signal transmitted from the wireless radiator, grasps the exact position of the coordinate from the signal from the RFID tag, and performs the positioning correction of the vehicle. To this end, the vehicle further includes a wireless receiver for receiving road facility information from the wireless radiator, and an RFID reader for transmitting a signal capable of activating the RFID tag embedded in the road and receiving information transmitted from the RFID tag .

In one embodiment, the RFID tag is embedded in the center of each lane on an imaginary line in a direction orthogonal to the road at the center position of the road facility, and the RFID tag transmits lane information when activated. The vehicle corrects the running lane information using the received lane information. In one embodiment, when the RFID tag is activated, traveling direction information and road information may be transmitted together with lane information. The vehicle corrects the traveling direction and running road information by using the received traveling direction information and the road information.

According to the embodiment, the RFID tag is installed a predetermined distance before, for example, 10 meters before the center of the lane on the imaginary line, so that when the vehicle reaches a certain distance before the road facility, .

In addition, the same RFID tag may be embedded at a certain distance along the lane, so that the dual RFID tag can receive the signal from the second RFID tag even when the first RFID tag does not correctly receive the signal.

According to the present invention, coordinate information of a road facility is obtained from a signal transmitted from a communication device installed in a road facility, and an accurate position of the coordinate is obtained from a signal from an RFID tag embedded in the road in correspondence with a location where the road facility is installed The position of the road facility can be grasped with high precision. Also, since the RFID tag is buried in the road, which is very simple in configuration and does not need to be connected to a separate power source, the installation and maintenance cost of the system is reduced.

1 is a block diagram showing the internal structure of an autonomous vehicle.
2 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of a road facility precise location information providing system including a wireless radiator and an RFID tag embedded in a road.
3 is a block diagram showing the internal configuration of the wireless radiator.

The present invention will be described by taking as an example the case of providing precise location information of road facilities to an autonomous vehicle. However, the present invention is not limited to autonomous vehicles, and is applicable to general smart cars.

1 is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of an autonomous vehicle. An autonomous driving vehicle generally refers to a vehicle that recognizes the driving environment itself without operating the driver and travels to the destination. In order for such an autonomous vehicle to travel safely on the road, it is necessary to extract traveling information based on various positioning information such as accurate position information of the vehicle, lane and front and rear information, and dangerous section information on the road, very important.

The positioning device of the autonomous driving vehicle is basically based on the IMU (Inertial Measurement Device) which collects high-precision GPS collection information, vehicle information such as steering information, speed, and acceleration / deceleration of the vehicle, and moving object information (roll / pitch / yaw information) . The positioning module is basically based on the GPS information collected in the GPS receiving area and generates the positioning information by processing the IMU information and the vehicle information in the GPS receiving area. In general, the collected positioning information maps the local dynamic map (DB) DB and the positioning information built in the vehicle to determine the location information of the vehicle.

The lane recognition information collects lane detection and forward vehicle access information based on the image sensor, and collects surrounding environment information such as the information of the front vehicle and the surrounding facilities based on the radar sensor. For example, an image sensor installed in front of the vehicle detects the presence or absence of a lane in front of about 200 m, the color and pattern of the lane, and extracts the lane information of the actual road. Radar detectors installed at the front of the vehicle extract object recognition, road facility recognition, vehicle approach and collision information from about 500 m ahead. The reliability of the sensor based driving environment recognition information is somewhat variable depending on the mounted processing algorithm and the driving environment, and securing such information reliability is a very important factor.

Inter-vehicle communication module, which is an essential element in an autonomous vehicle, applies V2X communication technology based on WAVE communication and applies V2I, V2V technology to vehicle-to-vehicle communication (V2I). When an autonomous vehicle travels on the road, the main information associated with the roadside infrastructure provides real-time traffic information, surrounding road hazard information, weather information, and weather information. V2I communication provides a communication method in which information is transmitted to vehicles in real time within the effective communication range around the roadside infrastructure.

The autonomous vehicle equipped with the basic positioning device and the sensor-based driving environment recognition device determines the position information of the vehicle by itself and recognizes the information of the road facilities to generate and process the autonomous driving information. Driving information extracted from the autonomous driving vehicle itself should be supplemented by the following aspects.

- It is necessary to ensure accuracy of GPS reception information. In case of general GPS, the position information error is 5 ~ 15m, and the location information error of high-priced high-precision GPS is 2 ~ 3m. In addition, there are factors that cause GPS information error due to the surrounding environment on the road such as weather, wind, and shaded area of GPS.

- The exact lane information of the driving vehicle is needed. It is an essential element for determining the driving pattern of the autonomous driving vehicle such as the driving pattern according to the driving lane, the decision of entry and exit.

- It is necessary to ensure the accuracy of road environment information. It is necessary to provide information on road restrictions such as bend, slip, and accidents in the road, restriction speed, prohibition of overtaking, safety clearance on the roads, and confluence / entry information on the road.

In order for these autonomous vehicles to travel safely, it is difficult to solve the above problem only by collecting information of the vehicle itself and sensor-based prediction information.

Accordingly, in the present invention, a wireless radiator for wirelessly transmitting information about road facilities including coordinate information is installed near a road facility, and one or more RFID tags are installed in a road corresponding to a location where road facilities are installed Buried.

An example of this is shown in FIG. A V2I communication device 110 for ensuring an effective communication range as a wireless radiator is installed on a road at a point where a major road facility 20 such as a road sign, a merging / entering portion, and a variable-message sign is installed. In one embodiment, the wireless transmitters are WAVE (Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments) communication devices. The V2I communication device 110 periodically broadcasts a communication message so that the autonomous vehicle 10 traveling can receive the communication message. The information provided at this time includes ID information of the road facility 20 and actual coordinate information of the road facility. It is preferable that the communication effective range is secured within 200 to 300 meters so as to be received stably at the running speed of the traveling vehicle around the road facilities 20. [

The RFID tag is embedded at a position corresponding to an imaginary line in a direction orthogonal to the road at the center position of the road facility. For example, a predetermined distance from the center of the lane on the virtual line or the center of the lane on the imaginary line. In the example of FIG. 2, the RFID tags 111a to 111d and 112a to 112d are embedded in the respective lanes in front of and behind the imaginary line L.

The RFID tag sets RFID information that combines traveling direction information (up and down) and each lane ID information. The RFID tag preferably employs a passive method. The RFID tag typically has an address range of 64 bits, and the area is divided into driving lane information and driving direction information. Depending on the embodiment, road information can be additionally set.

In order to minimize the error of the V2X-based positioning correction, it is desirable to limit the recognition distance between the RFID receiving device in the vehicle and the RFID tag within 1 meter. In this case, in order to prevent unrecognition due to a communication error between the RFID receiving apparatus and the tag, the RFID tag apparatuses are configured to be double with the first system 111a to 111d and the second system 112a to 112d as shown in FIG. 2 .

3 shows an example of the internal configuration of the wireless radiator 110. As shown in FIG. The wireless radiator 110 stores road facility information input from the outside through the external interface 112, which can input road facility information, in the memory 113. The memory 113 is preferably a nonvolatile memory. The wireless radiator 110 may include a display 114 for displaying stored information. The control unit 111 displays the information stored in the memory 113 on the display unit 114 or wirelessly transmits the information through the RF transmitting unit 115. [

The autonomous vehicle receives the broadcasting message transmitted from the front roadside base station, extracts the road facility ID and the reference coordinate information from the message, recognizes that the RFID for positioning correction is buried in front of the vehicle, Activate.

The autonomous driving vehicle 10 includes a vehicle running section for running the vehicle, a vehicle position measuring section for measuring the position of the vehicle, an object sensor section for recognizing an object around the vehicle, An image processing unit, a vehicle control unit that controls the vehicle driving unit using the collected information, and road facility information from a wireless radiator that wirelessly transmits information about road facilities including coordinate information installed near the road facility. And an RFID reader for transmitting a signal capable of activating an RFID tag embedded in a road corresponding to a location where the road facility is installed and receiving information transmitted from the RFID tag.

When the road facility information from the wireless radiator 110 is received in the wireless receiver, the vehicle activates the RFID reader to extract the facility reference coordinate information included in the road facility information at the time when the RFID tag information is detected, A coefficient for positioning correction is calculated, and this information is used as a parameter for positioning correction.

When the vehicle controller receives the road facility information from the wireless radiator 110 in the wireless receiver, the RFID reader sends an RFID excitation signal and waits for a response signal to be received from the RFID tag activated by the RFID reader. When the RFID response signal is received, the vehicle control unit extracts facility reference coordinate information, calculates a coefficient for positioning correction using the information about the time point when the RFID response signal is received and the currently determined position information, and uses this information as a parameter for positioning correction do.

That is, when the RFID response signal is received, the autonomous vehicle extracts the information of the driving lane and the traveling direction information, recognizes the point where the RFID response signal is received as the synchronization point of the reference coordinates provided by the wireless radiator 110, And performs positional correction based on the information and reference information collected from the wireless radiator 110 and the RFID tag. For example, the vehicle controller compares the coordinate information with the position information from the vehicle position measuring unit at the time when the RFID signal is received, and when the difference between the position indicated by the position information and the position indicated by the coordinate information is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold value The positional correction of the vehicle can be performed using the difference value.

The autonomous vehicle processes V2X-based road facilities information received at the time of driving and compares it with the facility information in the precision electronic map based on the provided road facility information to infer the current location information of the vehicle. The surrounding road facility information provides a variety of autonomous driving support information that can not be recognized by the vehicle recognition sensor, such as road facility ID, facility use, regulation and restriction information, driving lane information, and the like.

Since the tag information of the reference position to be detected includes the running direction of the road and the lane information, accurate lane information can be collected based on this information. Based on this information, the vehicle is able to refer to the longitudinal / lateral travel of the autonomous vehicle and to correct the running lane information and the road information by merging with the lane information collected from the vehicle image sensor.

If a road sign is used for the positioning correction by the V2X communication infrastructure, it can be easily constructed by attaching a WAVE communication device (V2I) to the existing road sign. It is very important to develop a recognition algorithm and improve the reliability of the extracted information in order to recognize the information of the various signs on the autonomous vehicle as a conventional sensor such as a video or a radar sensor. However, as in the present invention, Is effective and it is possible to provide additional necessary information.

While the present invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments, but many variations and modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Various modifications and variations will be possible. Therefore, the embodiments disclosed in the present invention are intended to illustrate rather than limit the scope of the present invention, and the scope of the technical idea of the present invention is not limited by these embodiments. The scope of protection of the present invention should be construed according to the following claims, and all technical ideas within the scope of equivalents should be construed as falling within the scope of the present invention.

10 vehicles,
110 wireless transmitter,
111a to 111d RFID tags,
112a-112d RFID tags.

Claims (20)

A wireless radiator provided near a point where a road facility is installed and wirelessly transmitting information about a road facility including coordinate information;
One or more RFID tags embedded in a road corresponding to a point where the road facilities are installed
And a control unit for controlling the position of the road. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the RFID tag is embedded at a position corresponding to an imaginary line in a direction orthogonal to the road at a central position of the road facility. 3. The method of claim 2,
Wherein the position corresponding to the imaginary line is the center of the lane on the imaginary line. 3. The method of claim 2,
Wherein the position corresponding to the imaginary line is a predetermined distance from the center of the lane on the imaginary line. 5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4,
Wherein the RFID tag is embedded in each lane. 6. The method of claim 5,
And the lane information is transmitted when the RFID tag is activated. The method according to claim 6,
Wherein when the RFID tag is activated, driving direction information is transmitted along with lane information. 8. The method of claim 7,
Wherein the RFID tag transmits information about the road when the RFID tag is activated. The method according to claim 6,
Wherein the RFID tag is configured in a dual mode in which the same RFID tag is embedded at a predetermined distance along a lane. The method according to claim 6,
One or more second RFID tags embedded in a road corresponding to a predetermined distance behind the point where the road facilities are installed,
Wherein the location information providing system further comprises: The method according to claim 6,
Wherein the RFID tag is a passive RFID tag. The method according to claim 6,
Wherein the wireless radiator periodically transmits the ID information and the coordinate information of the road facility. 13. The method of claim 12,
Wherein the wireless radiator is a WAVE (Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments) communication device. An object sensor unit for recognizing an object around the vehicle; an image processing unit for acquiring and processing an image at least in front of the vehicle; And a vehicle control section for controlling the vehicle running section by using,
A wireless receiver for receiving road facility information from a wireless radiator provided in the vicinity of a point where a road facility is installed to transmit information about a road facility including coordinates information wirelessly;
An RFID reader for transmitting a signal capable of activating an RFID tag embedded in a road corresponding to a point where the road facility is installed and receiving information transmitted from the RFID tag;
Further comprising:
The vehicle control unit waits for the RFID reader to receive the RFID signal when receiving the road information in the wireless receiver. When receiving the RFID signal, the vehicle controller performs the positioning correction of the vehicle using the point of time when the RFID signal is received and the coordinate information vehicle. 15. The method of claim 14,
The RFID tag is embedded in the center of each lane on an imaginary line in a direction orthogonal to the road at the center position of the road facility. The RFID tag transmits lane information when activated,
And the vehicle control unit corrects the running lane information using the received lane information. 16. The method of claim 15,
The RFID tag transmits traveling direction information together with lane information when the RFID tag is activated,
And the vehicle control unit corrects the running lane information using the received lane information. 17. The method of claim 16,
The RFID tag also transmits information about the road when activated,
And the vehicle control unit corrects the road information on the road using the received road information. 18. The method according to any one of claims 14 to 17,
The vehicle control unit compares the position information from the vehicle position measurement unit at the time when the RFID signal is received with the coordinate information, and when the difference between the position indicated by the position information and the position indicated by the coordinate information is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold value, And performs the positioning correction of the vehicle by using the correction value. 19. The method of claim 18,
Wherein the vehicle control unit activates the RFID reader when receiving the road facility information from the wireless receiver. 19. The method of claim 18,
Wherein the wireless receiver is a Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE) communication device.

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