JPH01217210A - Navigator for vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To guide a vehicle smoothly to a destination, by detecting an actual lane where the vehicle is running to give a warning to an operator to that effect when the lane does not correspond to a running course to the destination. CONSTITUTION:While a vehicle is running to a destination along a running course, a running lane on a road is recognized by a running lane recognizing means 20 and a lane judging means 21 compares the running lane with a target lane corresponding to the running course to judge whether they are identical or not. When both the lanes are different, a warning is given by a warning means 22 to that effect. By the warning of the warning means 22, the operator notices the difference between the actual running lane and the target lane to change the running lane to the target lane immediately.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a navigation device that guides a vehicle to a destination by displaying the vehicle's current position along with a map on a display device, and particularly relates to a navigation device that guides the vehicle to a destination. This is related to measures to

(Prior art) This type of vehicle navigation device basically uses roads,
A map information storage means such as a CD-ROM that stores in advance map information composed of various elements such as place names and city positions, a current position recognition means that recognizes the current position of the vehicle, and a display placed inside the vehicle, etc. means, and is configured to display the current position of the vehicle on the map on the display means based on the signal from the current position recognition means and the signal from the map information storage means.

However, in this conventional system, if only the map and the vehicle's current position are displayed, for example, if you have to turn at a certain intersection on the way to your destination, you will notice that the intersection you are approaching is the same as the intersection on the map. It is difficult to determine with certainty whether this is the case. For this reason, there are problems such as passing an intersection where the driver should have turned, or feeling uneasy even if the driver has turned at an intersection correctly.

Therefore, the applicant previously memorized information for driving guidance, such as actual images and multiple types of directional markings, for multiple predetermined points on a map, and then determined the location from the current location of the vehicle to the destination. When the vehicle approaches a predetermined point on the map, an actual image of that point and a direction indicator mark corresponding to the set travel route are superimposed and displayed on the display means. (See Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 62-93614).

(Problem to be Solved by the Invention) In this case, a wide road has multiple lanes, and for example, at an intersection where roads with multiple types of lanes intersect, the lanes may be straight lanes or right turn lanes. Or the left turn lane is dedicated and the use of other lanes is prohibited. In order to smoothly guide a vehicle at an intersection or the like, it is desirable to be able to accurately recognize whether the lane in which the vehicle is traveling corresponds to the travel route.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and its purpose is to enable accurate recognition of whether the lane in which the vehicle is actually traveling corresponds to the travel route to the destination. The goal is to guide vehicles to their destinations more smoothly.

(Means for Solving the Problem) To achieve this object, the solution of the present invention detects the actual lane in which the vehicle is traveling, and when the lane does not correspond to the driving route to the destination. This is to warn the passengers of this fact.

Specifically, as shown in FIG. 1, the vehicle navigation device of the present invention includes: map information storage means 11 that stores map information in advance; current position recognition means 17 that recognizes the current position of the vehicle; The display means 1 displays the current position of the vehicle recognized by the current position recognition means 17 together with the map stored in the map information storage means 11, and guides the route of the vehicle to its destination.

Further, a driving lane recognition means 20 is provided to recognize the lane of the road on which the vehicle is actually traveling. This lane recognition means 2
0 visually detects, for example, a center line on the road surface, a line separating lanes, or a designated direction prohibition sign on the road surface, and recognizes the driving lane based on these.

Further, a lane determining means 21 is provided which compares the traveling lane recognized by the traveling lane recognizing means 20 with a target lane corresponding to the traveling route to the destination and determines whether the two lanes are the same.

Then, based on the output of the lane determining means 21, a warning means 22 is provided to warn to that effect by voice, display on the display means 1, etc. when the two lanes are different.

(Function) With this configuration, in the present invention, while the vehicle is traveling along the traveling route to the destination, the traveling lane on the road is recognized by the traveling lane recognition means 20, and this traveling lane is recognized by the lane determining means 21 as described above. It is compared with the target lane corresponding to the travel route to determine whether it is different or different. When these two lanes are different, the warning means 22 warns the driver of this fact. Therefore, the driver can recognize that the actual driving lane is different from the target lane by the warning from the warning means 22, and can immediately change lanes to the target lane. Therefore, it is possible to smoothly guide the vehicle to its destination.

(Example) Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described based on the drawings from FIG. 2 onwards.

FIG. 2 shows the overall configuration of a navigation device according to an embodiment of the present invention, in which 1 is a CRT (cathode ray tube) as a display means disposed inside the vehicle interior, and 2 is various types related to vehicle travel guidance. A speaker 3 is used to notify the occupants of information by voice, and 3 is a control device that controls the display information of the CRT 1 and the audio information of the speaker 2. This control device 3 includes a CPU 4 that performs various calculation processes,
ROM5 and RAM6 connected to PU4 and CPU
The input/output interface 7 is connected to the CRTI through the display control circuit 8 and to the speaker 2 through its drive circuit 10. A video memory 9 is connected to the video memory 8 so that signals can be sent and received.

The control device 3 also includes a CD as a map information storage means.
- A CD player 12 equipped with replaceable ROMII is connected via a decoder 13 so as to be able to send and receive signals, and the CD-ROMII has a map including map elements such as roads and buildings necessary for vehicle driving guidance. information, actual images of major intersections P, P, etc. on the map as shown in Figure 5, and multiple directional marks such as go straight, right/left turn, etc. that indicate the direction in which the vehicle should proceed. stored digitally.

Further, an operating device 14 for performing various key operations for setting a vehicle destination, etc. is connected to the control device 3 so as to be able to send and receive signals via an encoder 15, and the operating device 14 can be operated by a passenger inside the vehicle. The vehicle is equipped with a key switch (not shown), and in response to its operation, the travel route to the destination is set using the CRTI.

Further, the control device 3 receives an output signal from a television camera 16 that visually detects scenery such as terrain and displays outside the vehicle in front of the vehicle. Further, a current position recognition device 17 that recognizes the current position PP of the vehicle is connected to the control device 3 so as to be able to send and receive signals, and this current position recognition device 17 includes a vehicle speed sensor 18 that detects the actual vehicle speed, and a vehicle body Each output signal from a geomagnetic sensor 19 that detects geomagnetism that crosses the
The unit mileage of the vehicle is calculated based on the vehicle speed detected by 8, and each time the vehicle travels the unit mileage, the running direction is determined based on the geomagnetism detected by the geomagnetic sensor 19. The current position pp of the vehicle is recognized by repeating the process from a reference position such as .

Next, the processing procedure performed by the CPU 4 of the control device 3 will be explained. This process is performed by the basic routine shown in FIG. That is, first, in the first step S1, a map corresponding to the current position PP of the vehicle is read out from the CD-ROM 11 as shown in FIG. do. Thereafter, the process proceeds to step S3, where the current position Pp of the vehicle is recognized based on the signal from the current position recognition device 17, and in step S4, the CR
It is determined whether the display on the TI is a map locus display. If the determination is YES here, the process proceeds to step S8 and the intersection p
, p, . . . and in the next step S9, it is determined whether there is an intersection P near the current vehicle position pp. If this determination is No, immediately step S
Returning to step 3, if YES is "there is an intersection", the process proceeds to step S10, and the current position PP of the vehicle up to the intersection P is determined.
The distance from the intersection P and the approach direction of the vehicle with respect to the intersection P (which road to enter the intersection P from) are calculated, and in the next step Sn, it is determined that the distance to the intersection P is within a predetermined distance (
For example, in FIG. 5, it is determined whether or not the state is reached by the broken line circle. Waiting for this determination to become YES, the process proceeds to step S12, where it is determined whether or not a travel route to the destination has been set using the operating device 14. If No (no travel route has been set), the process continues to step S12. Proceed to S15.

- On the other hand, if the answer is YES to "traveling route set", the direction instruction for the vehicle is searched in light of the traveling route in step SI3, and then the process proceeds to step SI4, where the intersection is searched as shown in FIG. After the image of the direction of approach P is synthesized so that the mark M indicating the direction in which the vehicle should travel is superimposed, the process proceeds to step SI5.

In step SI5, an image of the intersection P ("
If the driving route is set, a combination of the direction indicating marks M) is displayed on the CRTI screen.

After such display processing, the flow moves to steps SI6 to S2+ for lane recognition. In this flow, first, in step SI6, an image displayed by the television camera 16 is read, and image processing is performed in step S17. This image processing is specifically performed by an image processing routine shown in FIG.

First, in the first step S'1, a landscape image shown by the television camera 16 is captured, and in the next step S'2, the image is preprocessed. This preprocessing processes the captured landscape image so that it can extract characteristic information from it, including: ■ image enhancement, ■ differential processing, and ■
Colors are extracted in combination so that features can be extracted effectively. "Image enhancement" described in (2) above is to make the bright parts of the image stand out by, for example, making the bright parts of the image brighter and the dark parts darker. In addition, "differential processing" (■) examines changes in the brightness of an image and converts the captured image into a line image. ``Color extraction'' is to extract only a specific color from the captured image.

After this preprocessing, features are extracted from the landscape image in step S'3. This process extracts features such as "straight lines,""circles,""numbers," and "letters" from the preprocessed image, and compares the image against a template that describes these features to determine the features. This is an extraction process. Furthermore, the process proceeds to step S'4, where objects appearing in the image are recognized. This process is to recognize the center line LC of the road surface and the lines LD separating lanes, including their contents, as shown in FIG. 7 from the features extracted in step S'3.

After such image processing, the process proceeds to step srs, where the lane in which the vehicle is currently traveling is recognized based on the center line LC and lane division line LD. Next, in step S19, the target lane in the guidance direction corresponding to the set travel route is read, and in step S20, it is determined whether the actual lane matches the target lane. If this determination is YES (lane matching), the process returns to step S3 above, but if the determination is YES (lane mismatch), the process returns to step S3.
If so, the process proceeds to step S2+, where a warning is issued from the speaker 2 to the effect that the lane is different from the target lane, and then the process returns to step S3.

On the other hand, when the determination in step S4 is No, the process proceeds to step S5 to calculate the distance to the intersection P, and then in step S6 it is determined whether the distance is within a predetermined distance, and if this determination is YES, the process continues. No
In the case of , the process advances to step S7 to switch to map locus display, and then returns to step S3.

Therefore, in this embodiment, in steps S+6 to S+8 in the above flow, the center line Lc of the road surface and the lane marking line Ll) are recognized from the scenery information detected by the television camera 16, and the recognized line LC is
, L[) is configured to recognize the actual lane in which the vehicle is traveling.

Also, step S+9. Through S20, the lane determining means 21 is configured to compare the traveling lane recognized by the traveling lane recognizing means 20 with the target lane corresponding to the traveling route to the destination and determine whether the two lanes are the same. Ru.

Then, in step S2+, the warning means 22 is configured so that, based on the output of the lane determining means 21, when the actual driving lane and the target lane are different, the speaker 2 gives a warning to that effect.

Therefore, in the above embodiment, the current position Pp of the vehicle is basically recognized by the current position recognition device 17 based on the direction of geomagnetism detected by the geomagnetic sensor 19 and the travel distance detected by the vehicle speed sensor 18. The travel trajectory 9 of the vehicle up to the current position PP is displayed together with a map on the CRTI. Then, by operating the operating device 14, a travel route from this current position pp to a destination is set, and major intersections P on this travel route are set.

When a vehicle approaches P, . . . , an image of the intersection P and an instruction mark M indicating the direction in which the vehicle should proceed through the intersection P are combined and displayed on the CRTl. For this reason, the crew member
By looking at the RTl display, the user can specifically and reliably recognize the direction in which to proceed at the intersection P, and the vehicle can be easily guided to the destination.

Also, at that time, check the scenery outside the vehicle in front of the vehicle or the TV camera 1.
6, the center line LC and lane division line LD of the road surface are identified through image processing, and the lane in which the vehicle is actually traveling is recognized based on the line LC+LD.

This driving lane is then compared with the target lane corresponding to the driving route to determine whether the two lanes are different. If the two lanes are different, the speaker 2 issues an audio warning to that effect. Therefore, with this warning, the driver can immediately recognize that the actual driving lane is different from the target lane and change lanes to the target lane, allowing the driver to smoothly select the appropriate lane even at an intersection P where there are multiple designated direction lanes. can do.

Therefore, the vehicle can be smoothly guided to the destination.

In the above embodiment, the driving lane is recognized by the center line LC and lane dividing line L[) on the road surface, but in addition to this, for example, as shown in FIG. It is also possible to perform recognition based on the mark S, and the same effects as in the above embodiment can be achieved.

Furthermore, in the embodiment described above, the driver is warned by the sound from the speaker 2 that the driving lane has deviated from the target lane, but the warning may be given by a display on the CRTl.

(Effects of the Invention) As described above, according to the vehicle navigation device of the present invention, the actual driving lane of the vehicle is recognized, and when the lane is different from the lane corresponding to the driving route to the destination, a message to that effect is displayed. Since the vehicle is designed to warn the occupants, the target lane corresponding to the travel route can be quickly selected, and the vehicle can be guided to the destination more smoothly.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the present invention. Figure 2 and the following drawings show embodiments of the present invention.
The figure is a block diagram of the overall configuration, and Figure 3 is the C of the control device.
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the basic processing procedure performed in the PU. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the processing procedure in the image processing routine. FIG. FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a display state of an intersection image, and FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating road markings that are the basis for lane recognition. FIG. 8 is a diagram showing another example of a road sign. 1... CRT (display means), 2... Speaker, 3
...Control device, 11...CD-ROM (map information storage means), 16...TV camera, 17...Current position recognition device (current position recognition means), 20...Driving lane recognition means , 21...Lane judgment means, 22...Warning means, PP...Vehicle current position.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) Map information storage means that stores map information in advance, current position recognition means that recognizes the current position of the vehicle, and displays the current vehicle position recognized by the current position recognition means together with the map in the map information storage means. A navigation device for a vehicle, comprising: a display means, and a driving route for a vehicle to a destination; a driving lane recognition means for recognizing the lane of the road in which the vehicle is actually driving; lane determining means for comparing the driving lane recognized by the lane recognizing means with a target lane corresponding to the driving route to the destination and determining whether the two lanes are different; A navigation device for a vehicle, comprising a warning means for warning when the lanes are different.