JP3985668B2 - Navigation device - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a navigation device.
[0002]
[Prior art]
2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there is a navigation device that directly contacts a target store and confirms that the user is in business, and performs route guidance to the store (see, for example, Patent Document 1). According to the navigation device disclosed in Patent Document 1, for example, when the occurrence of a failure in an in-vehicle device is detected, a service store nearest to the failure occurrence point is searched, and a service store with a short distance from the failure occurrence point is called. multiply. The user informs the defect occurrence point, time, contents, etc., and consults with the person in charge of the service store to decide whether or not to go to the service store. Then, when the user desires to go to the service store with which the telephone contact is made, route guidance to the service store is performed.
[0003]
[Patent Document 1]
JP-A-10-54727 [0004]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, since the conventional navigation device is a telephone contact by the user himself / herself, for example, when driving on a highway, the user needs to call the service store while driving the vehicle. This increases the burden on the driving operation of the user.
[0005]
The present invention has been made in view of such a problem, and an object of the present invention is to provide a navigation device that can contact a target store without increasing the burden of a user's driving operation.
[0006]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
The navigation device according to claim 1 includes: map data used for drawing a map; storage means for storing facility information such as a facility location and a telephone number on the map; and a message for a question asking about the business hours of the facility. Question message storage means for storing, telephone number extracting means for extracting a telephone number of a predetermined facility from facility information, a communication module for automatically transmitting to the facility of the extracted telephone number, and communication when communication to the facility is established A transmission / reception control means for sending a question message to the facility via the module and receiving a response to respond to the question message from the facility, and whether or not the facility can arrive at the facility within business hours based on the response result It is characterized by comprising an arrival determining means for determining whether or not and a notifying means for notifying the determination result.
[0007]
In this way, the navigation device of the present invention, along with the automatic transmission to the facility, to send a query message to question the business hours of the facility, to receive the response of business hours for this. As a result, the user can contact the facility without calling himself. As a result, without increasing the burden on the user's driving operation, it is possible to perform the confirmation of the business hours.
[0008]
In the navigation device according to claim 2, the notification means includes display control means for displaying a map on a screen, and when the arrival determination means determines that the facility can be reached within business hours, the display control means The surrounding map is displayed on the screen. As described above, when the facility can be reached within business hours, the location of the facility and a map of the surrounding area are displayed, so that the user can go to the target facility according to the map display.
[0009]
According to a third aspect of the present invention, the question message storage means stores voice data obtained by recording a question message, and the transmission / reception control means transmits a question message obtained by reproducing the voice data. Thereby, the user can contact the facility without speaking.
[0010]
Note that the transmission / reception control means is not limited to transmitting a question message obtained by reproducing voice data, but may be one that transmits, for example, text data or binary data indicating the content of the question message. The response from the facility may be received as text data or binary data, for example. That is, the question / response between the navigation device and the facility may be performed by data communication.
[0011]
5. The navigation apparatus according to claim 4, wherein a position detecting means for detecting a current position and a required time from the current position to the facility are calculated, and an estimated arrival time at the facility is calculated using the required time. And a time calculation means, wherein the arrival determination means determines that the arrival is possible within business hours when the estimated arrival time is included in the business hours of the facility indicated by the response received by the transmission / reception control means .
[0012]
As a result, only the facilities that can arrive within the business hours from the current position are displayed on the screen, so that the user can reliably go to the facilities within the business hours according to the map display. For example, it is assumed that the estimated arrival time will be delayed due to traffic jams, etc. Therefore, the estimated arrival time is delayed by the predetermined time by adding the predetermined time to the calculated required time as the final required time. As a result, it is possible to obtain an estimated arrival time that takes into account the delay of the required time due to traffic jams. In addition, this makes it possible to determine whether or not the estimated arrival time is included in the business hours that are responses from the facility.
[0015]
According to the navigation device of the fifth aspect , the storage means further stores facility type information, and specifies a facility type specifying means for specifying a desired facility type, and a facility corresponding to the specified facility type is determined in advance. Priority order determining means for assigning priorities based on conditions, and the telephone number extracting means extracts the telephone number of the facility with the higher priority from the facility information.
[0016]
For example, among the facilities corresponding to the facility type that the user desires to search, the facility is ranked from the facility that is close to the current position. Thereby, since the telephone number of the facility with a short distance from the current position is extracted, it is possible to contact from a facility with a short distance. As in the navigation device according to claim 6 , the storage means further stores information on the business hours of the facility, and the priority determination means is preset by the user for the stored business hours of the facility. By prioritizing at least one of the following conditions for each facility type, the distance from the current location to the facility, the time required from the current location to the facility, and the fuel consumption from the current location to the facility, It is possible to go from the current position most efficiently and contact from the facility according to the setting of the user. In addition, a priority may be given to each of these conditions, and a facility that matches the high priority condition may be selected.
Further, in the navigation device according to claim 7, the priority determining unit assigns the priority of the facility corresponding to the designated facility type based on the business hours of the facility stored in the storage unit. To do.
[0017]
The navigation device according to claim 8 , a route calculation unit that calculates a route from the current position to the facility that is determined to be able to arrive within business hours by the arrival determination unit, and a route guide unit that guides the calculated route It is characterized by providing. Thereby, even if the user does not know the route from the current position to the target facility, the user can go to the target facility along the route guidance.
[0018]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, a navigation device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
[0019]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a navigation apparatus according to the present embodiment. As shown in the figure, the navigation device 100 of the present embodiment includes a position detector 1, a map data input device 6, an operation switch group 7, an external memory 9, a display device 10, a sound output device 11, a remote control sensor 12, a sound. It is comprised by the recognition apparatus 14, the communication module 15, and the control circuit 8 connected with these.
[0020]
The control circuit 8 is configured as a normal computer, and includes a well-known CPU, ROM, RAM, I / O, and a bus line for connecting these configurations. In the ROM, a program to be executed by the navigation device 100 is written, and a CPU or the like executes predetermined arithmetic processing according to this program. This program can also be acquired from the outside via the external memory 9.
[0021]
The position detector 1 includes a well-known geomagnetic sensor 2, a gyroscope 3, a distance sensor 4, and a GPS receiver 5 for GPS (Global Positioning System) that detects the position of a vehicle based on radio waves from a satellite. Have. Since these have errors of different properties, they are configured to be used while being complemented by a plurality of sensors. Depending on the accuracy of each sensor, the position detector 1 may be configured as a part of the above-described ones, and a steering rotation sensor (not shown), a vehicle speed sensor for each rolling wheel, or the like may be used.
[0022]
The map data input device 6 is a device for inputting various data such as map data and search data, and transmits various data in response to a request from the control circuit 8. A CD-ROM or DVD-ROM is generally used as a storage medium for storing these various data, but a writable storage medium such as a memory card or a hard disk may be used.
[0023]
Search data is composed of data such as facility name, facility type, telephone number, address including prefecture / city / town / town / chome address, etc., latitude / longitude coordinates, etc. It is data used for the search function to search. Of the search data, those with a facility type of a store also have data on business days and business hours.
[0024]
For example, a touch switch or a mechanical switch integrated with the display device 10 is used as the operation switch group 7 and is used for various inputs.
[0025]
The display device 10 is constituted by, for example, a liquid crystal display, and the vehicle position mark corresponding to the current position of the vehicle input from the position detector 1 and the map input from the map data input device 106 are displayed on the screen of the display device 10. A road map around the vehicle generated by the data can be displayed. The audio output device 11 includes a speaker, an audio amplifier, and the like, and is used for audio guidance and the like.
[0026]
The voice recognition device 14 recognizes the content of the user's utterance and is used for various inputs of the navigation device 100. The voice recognition device 14 includes a voice recognition unit (not shown), a message storage unit, a synthesized voice generation unit, a microphone used for voice input, and a talk switch.
[0027]
For example, when voice is input, an input trigger is transmitted to the voice recognition unit by pressing a push button of a talk switch, and when the voice recognition unit receives the input trigger, the mode is changed to a mode for receiving voice input from a microphone. When the user speaks the content of operating the navigation device 100 in the mode of accepting the voice input, the voice is converted into a voice signal by the microphone and sent to the voice recognition unit. The speech recognition unit analyzes the utterance content using a technique such as a well-known hidden Markov model, and recognizes the most probable word / phrase. Then, this word / phrase is converted into a command corresponding to the operation of the navigation device 100 and given to the control circuit 8. The control circuit 8 executes various functions of the navigation device 100 according to this command.
[0028]
The message storage unit stores a question message used in a search function to be described later. This question message is, for example, the first message shown in FIG. 8A, the second message shown in FIG. 8B, and the like, and character data to be displayed on the screen of the display device 10 and these messages. And voice data recording the utterance. The character data and voice data are extracted in response to a request from the control circuit 8. The audio data is reproduced by the control circuit 8, and the reproduced audio is output to the outside via the communication module 15. The character data is used for screen display of the display device 10.
[0029]
The communication module 15 is, for example, a mobile phone and is used for communication connection with the outside, and performs communication connection with the outside according to an instruction signal from the control circuit 8. Various data is transmitted / received to / from the outside via the communication module 15. Note that the voice data is not limited to the recorded voice generation, but may be synthesized voice data generated by a synthesized voice generation unit described later.
[0030]
The synthesized speech generation unit stores, for example, sounds corresponding to 50 words and connects them to generate speech. It should be noted that the phrase for which the synthesized speech is to be generated is transmitted from the control circuit 8.
[0031]
In addition, when the car navigation device 100 of the present embodiment designates a destination position from the operation switch group 7 or the remote controller 13, the optimum route from the current position to the designated position is automatically selected and guided. A so-called route guidance function for forming and displaying a route is also provided. As a method for automatically setting an optimum route, a known method such as the Dijkstra method is known. Furthermore, a search function for searching for the position of the facility input from the operation switch group 7 or the remote controller 13 using the search data is also provided.
[0032]
These functions are executed mainly by performing various arithmetic processes by the control circuit 8. That is, when the destination is designated, the control circuit 8 calculates a route using the map data of the map data input device 6, displays the route on the display device 10, and at the branch point or the intersection to turn right or left. Enlarge and voice guidance. Further, when the facility is input, the control circuit 8 extracts a position that matches the input facility from the search data, and causes the display device 10 to display the extracted location of the facility and a map of the surrounding area.
[0033]
Next, regarding the route guidance processing to the facility that can arrive within business hours, which is a feature of the present embodiment, the flowchart shown in FIGS. 2 to 4 and the screen display of the display device 10 of FIGS. This will be described with reference to FIG.
[0034]
First, in step S10, initial setting is performed. This initial setting is to set a facility preferred by the user for each facility type. For example, in the case of a gas station, a user usually sets a company name or a company name that can use a credit card or a service card. The information set here is stored in a writable storage medium of the map data input device 6.
[0035]
In step S10, the current position is detected and the current time is detected. The current time may be obtained by converting UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) time obtained from the GPS receiver 5 to Japan standard time, or from a clock function (not shown) built in the navigation device 100. You may acquire.
[0036]
In step S20, a list of facility types to be searched is displayed. For example, a list for each facility type as shown in FIG. 5 is displayed on the screen of the display device 10. If the facility type list cannot be displayed on one screen, a list of other facility types may be displayed by page turning or scroll display.
[0037]
In step S30, the user's desired facility type is designated from the facility types displayed in step S20. At this time, as shown in FIG. 5, the designated facility type may be indicated by an arrow 20 or the like. In the present embodiment, it is assumed that a gas station is designated.
[0038]
In step S40, a range for searching for facilities of the facility type designated by the user is set. For example, as shown in FIG. 6, the user is allowed to input each hierarchy of addresses such as prefectures, cities, towns and villages. The search range setting method is not limited to setting by address.
[0039]
In step S50, the facility type specified in step S30 and included in the search range set in step S40 are extracted from the search data, and priorities are assigned to the extracted facilities. For example, as shown in FIG. 10, the business hours of the facility, the user's preference, the distance from the current position to the facility, the required time from the current position to the facility, the current position to the facility, as shown in FIG. Judgment is made from the condition of fuel consumption.
[0040]
For example, in the facility business hours condition, the facilities whose current time is included in the business hours are ranked higher, or in the user preference conditions, the facility corresponding to the user preference set in step S10 is ranked higher. Or In addition, in the condition of the distance from the current position to the facility, the straight line distance and the road distance from the current position are calculated based on the map data in advance, and the facility with a short distance is ranked higher. Or, the facility that has a short required time when traveling on the road is made higher. Furthermore, with regard to the fuel consumption conditions, the fuel consumption rate (km / l) is set in advance, so that the facilities that can be reached with a small amount of fuel can be made higher, or the roads with high average speed can be reached. The facility is placed at the top, the facility that can travel on the road where road congestion does not occur frequently is placed at the top, and the fuel consumption is calculated in consideration of the slope of the road.
[0041]
Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 11, priority may be set for each of the above-described conditions, and facilities that frequently meet the high-priority conditions may be set higher. The priority may be arbitrarily changed by the user.
[0042]
In this way, by assigning priorities to the facilities to be searched, in step S130, which will be described later, it is possible to head most efficiently from the current position, and it is possible to contact from the facility according to the user's preference. .
[0043]
In step S60, the business status is confirmed from the higher-priority facility, and if it is open, that facility is stored. The process in step S60 will be described later.
[0044]
In step S70, the facility memorized in step S60 and the surrounding map are displayed. Thereby, the user can go to the target facility according to the map display.
[0045]
In step S70, this facility is set as the destination, and in step S80, a route from the current position to the target facility is calculated. Then, the route calculated in step S90 is guided.
[0046]
Next, the business status confirmation and the destination determination process in step S60 will be described with reference to the flowcharts shown in FIGS.
[0047]
In step S100, it is confirmed whether or not there is a facility whose business hours are confirmed by telephone contact. Here, if there is a facility for checking the business hours, the process proceeds to step S110. If not, the process proceeds to step S40, and the search range is changed. Execute the process.
[0048]
In step S110, the telephone number of the facility having the higher priority in step S50 is extracted from the search data, and is automatically transmitted from the communication module 15 to the facility having this telephone number. At this time, as shown in FIG. 7, the destination facility may be highlighted on the screen of the display device 10 with an arrow or the like.
[0049]
Further, the display of each candidate in the figure may be color-coded according to the possibility of being able to reach within business hours. For example, the estimated arrival time obtained by adding the required time to the current time is calculated, and the possibility of arrival is distinguished from the estimated arrival time and the business hours of the search data of each candidate facility.
[0050]
In other words, if the estimated arrival time is included in the business hours and the estimated arrival time is one hour or more before the business end time, the blue background means that the business can be reached without any problem within the business hours. If the candidate facility is displayed in color and the estimated arrival time is 15 minutes or more before the closing time, the yellow background color means that it can be reached within business hours if there is no unexpected traffic jam In addition, the candidate facilities are displayed with a red background color in order to indicate that it is difficult to reach within the business hours when the estimated arrival time is less than 15 minutes before the business end time.
[0051]
A time delay due to traffic jam may be added to the estimated arrival time in advance. In other words, since the estimated arrival time is expected to be delayed due to traffic jams, etc., the estimated arrival time can be obtained by adding the predetermined time to the calculated required time as the final required time. It takes into account the delay.
[0052]
In step S120, it is determined whether or not the other party has answered the phone with a ringing tone within 10 times. If the other party answers the call with a ringing tone within 10 times, the process proceeds to step S130. If the ringing tone exceeds 10 times, it is determined that the facility is closed. Then, the processing is shifted to step S100, and the above-described processing is executed for the facilities having the second highest priority.
[0053]
In step S130, a question message is transmitted by voice to the other party who answers the call. This question message is shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, and is extracted from the message storage unit of the voice recognition device 14, and voice data of the extracted message is reproduced in the control circuit 8. Then, the reproduced voice is transmitted to the other party via the communication module 15. The character data extracted together with the voice data is used for screen display. The processing in step S130 will be described using the flowchart of FIG.
[0054]
First, in step S200, the first message is reproduced. For example, a message as shown in FIG. 8A is reproduced, and the other party is made aware that this call has been automatically made. During message reproduction, the message being reproduced is displayed on the screen of the display device 10 as shown in FIG.
[0055]
In step S210, the second message is reproduced and a question regarding business hours is transmitted to the other party. Note that the synthesized speech at the estimated arrival time described above is generated by the synthesized speech generation unit of the speech recognition device 14, and the generated synthesized speech at the estimated arrival time is “XX” in the second message shown in FIG. Replace with “hour XX minutes” and play audio.
[0056]
During the reproduction of the second message, the message being reproduced is displayed on the screen of the display device 10 as shown in FIG. 9B. Thus, by including the estimated arrival time in the second message, the estimated arrival time can be transmitted to the other party. In addition, as shown in FIG.9 (c), you may make a business time zone respond as a question content of a 2nd message.
[0057]
In step S220, the response result from the other party is acquired via the communication module 15, and the acquired response result is stored in the RAM. In addition, when the other party answers by answering machine, a response from the other party cannot be obtained. Therefore, if there is no response even after a predetermined time has elapsed from the other party, the subsequent processing is executed assuming that a response result outside business hours has been obtained. If the response from the other party is a voice, the voice recognition device 14 may recognize the voice and store the recognition result in the RAM.
[0058]
In step S140, it is determined whether the response result stored in the RAM is in operation. Here, if the response result is in operation, the process proceeds to step S150. If not, the process proceeds to step S100. The above process is executed. In addition, when the response result memorize | stored in RAM is a business hours, you may determine whether the arrival time mentioned above is included in this business hours.
[0059]
In step S150, the facility confirmed to be reachable during business is stored. Then, the above route guidance is executed with this facility as the destination. Even if the user is in this route guidance and the user does not know the route from the current position to the target facility, the user can go to the target facility along the route guidance.
[0060]
As described above, the navigation device according to the present embodiment automatically transmits to a facility with higher priority, transmits a question message related to the business hours of the facility, and receives a response of business hours in response thereto. As a result, the user can contact the facility without calling himself. As a result, business hours can be confirmed without increasing the burden on the user's driving operation. If the facility can be reached within business hours, the location of the facility and the surrounding map are displayed, so that the user can go to the target facility according to the map display.
[0061]
(Modification 1)
In the present embodiment, the processing of steps S110 to S130 of FIG. 3 is executed in the navigation device 100, but may be performed by a predetermined center (not shown).
[0062]
That is, in step S110, automatic transmission is made to a predetermined center and the telephone number of the facility is transmitted to this center. Then, the center sends the telephone number to the facility, and executes the processes of steps S120 and S130. Then, the response result finally obtained from the facility is transmitted from the center to the navigation device 100.
[0063]
Thereby, the processing burden of the navigation device 100 can be reduced. The center operator may confirm the business hours for the facility.
[0064]
(Modification 2)
In the present embodiment, the question message in which the voice data is reproduced is transmitted to the other party. However, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, text data or binary data indicating the content of the question message may be transmitted. The response from the facility may be received as text data or binary data, for example. That is, the question / response between the navigation device and the facility may be performed by data communication.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a navigation apparatus 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an overall flow of route guidance processing to a facility that can arrive within business hours according to the embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing business status confirmation and destination determination processing according to the embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing automatic question processing with a store according to the embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 5 is an image view of a screen display for designating a genre of a facility to be searched according to the embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 6 is an image view of a screen display for designating a search range according to the embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 7 is an image diagram of a screen display showing a business status confirmation status according to the embodiment of the present invention.
FIGS. 8A and 8B are diagrams showing the contents of a question message. FIG.
9A, 9B, and 9C are image diagrams for displaying the contents of a question message on a screen.
FIG. 10 is a diagram showing conditions used to determine the priority order of search target facilities according to the embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a priority order for each item according to the embodiment of the present invention.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Position detector 2 Geomagnetic sensor 3 Gyroscope 4 Distance sensor 5 GPS receiver 6 Map data input device 7 Operation switch group 8 Control circuit 9 External memory 10 Display device 11 Voice output device 12 Remote control sensor 13 Remote control 14 Voice recognition device 15 Communication Module 100 Navigation device

Claims (8)

Storage means for storing map data used for drawing the map, and facility information of the location and telephone number of the facility on the map;
Question message storage means for storing a message of a question asking about the business hours of the facility;
Telephone number extraction means for extracting a telephone number of a predetermined facility from the facility information;
A communication module for automatically transmitting to the facility of the extracted telephone number;
A transmission / reception control means for transmitting the question message to the facility via the communication module when communication to the facility is established, and receiving a response in response to the business hours from the facility for the question message;
Arrival determination means for determining whether or not the facility can be reached within business hours based on the response result;
A navigation device comprising notification means for notifying the determination result. The notification means includes display control means for displaying a map on a screen,
2. The navigation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when the arrival determination means determines that the facility can be reached within the business hours, the display control means displays the facility and its surrounding map on a screen. The question message storage means stores voice data recording a question message;
The navigation apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the transmission / reception control means transmits the question message obtained by reproducing the audio data. Position detection means for detecting the current position;
Calculating a required time from the current position to the facility, and using the required time to calculate an estimated arrival time to the facility,
The said arrival determination means determines that it can arrive within business hours, when the said arrival time is included in the business hours of the said facilities which the said response received by the said transmission / reception control means shows. The navigation apparatus in any one of -3. The storage means further stores facility type information,
A facility type designation means for designating a desired facility type;
A priority order discriminating means for prioritizing a facility corresponding to the designated facility type based on a predetermined condition;
The navigation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the telephone number extraction unit extracts a telephone number of a facility having a higher priority from the facility information . The storage means further stores information on facility business hours,
The priority order judging means is a facility business hours, a ranking for each facility type preset by the user, a distance from the current position to the facility, a required time from the current position to the facility, and a fuel from the current position to the facility. 6. The navigation device according to claim 5, wherein priorities are assigned based on at least one of the consumption conditions . 7. The navigation apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the priority order determination unit assigns the priority order of the facility corresponding to the designated facility type based on the business hours of the facility stored in the storage unit. Route calculation means for calculating a route from the current position to the facility determined to be able to arrive within business hours by the arrival determination means;
The navigation device according to claim 1, further comprising route guidance means for guiding the calculated route .

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