JP3403774B2 - Guidance device - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a guide device, and more particularly to a guide device for guiding a position such as a destination point or a point to change course by using a three-dimensional sound field.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a navigation device has been actively developed for guiding a driver of a vehicle who is not geographically guided to a desired destination. In this navigation device, search the travel route to the input destination,
By displaying the searched route, the vehicle position, the position of the destination, the arrow indicating the direction to go, etc. on the display that draws the map around the current position of the vehicle, you can guide to the destination along the route I am trying to do it. In today's high-speed and complicated traffic situations, how quickly and reliably the driver can recognize the guidance information such as the vehicle position and the direction to go is an important issue. In response to this problem, conventionally, a navigation device that outputs guidance information by voice has been put into practical use.
With this navigation device, when the vehicle approaches an intersection where the vehicle should change course, for example, a guidance voice such as "the next (~ meter ahead) intersection is to the right" is output, and the driver hears this. You can recognize the direction your vehicle should travel without looking at the display. In addition, even if you do not receive guidance along such a route, you may be able to reach the destination if you know the direction (position) of the destination. If you have some sense of land, drive along the route. Sometimes it is more convenient than doing it. For this reason,
2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there is a display which displays an arrow indicating a direction of a destination and a distance to the destination on a display.

[0003]

By the way, the driver is
When changing the course at an intersection, the driver usually turns the steering wheel while checking the corner of the intersection, for example, in the case of a right turn, checking the positional relationship between the vehicle and the front right corner of the intersection. However, in a conventional navigation device that performs route guidance by voice, the next intersection (hereinafter,
The driver only knows the distance to the "next intersection") and the route guidance such as right turn or left turn.Therefore, the driver can specify the positional relationship between the corner of the next intersection and the vehicle. Because it is often difficult, you may pass through an intersection where you should make a turn. Further, in the navigation device that displays the direction and distance of the destination on the display, the driver has to move the viewpoint from the front view to the display one by one in a short time that does not hinder driving. It was not easy to reliably recognize the direction and distance of the ground.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a guide device capable of surely recognizing the position of a specific point such as a destination point or a course changing point.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided storage means for storing at least one piece of absolute position information of a specific point, absolute position detection means for detecting an absolute position of a vehicle, and absolute position detection for this. Relative position determining means for determining the relative position of the specific point with respect to the vehicle from the absolute position detected by the means and the absolute position information of the specific point stored in the storage means, and a recognition sound for outputting a recognition sound. The guide device is provided with output means and sound image control means for locating the recognition sound output from the recognition sound output means in the relative position direction determined by the relative position determination means, thereby achieving the above object. According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the guide device according to the first aspect, the specific point stored in the storage means is a destination point where the vehicle travels, and a route change point in a preset route to the destination point. The above-mentioned object is achieved by being at least one of the points.

[0006]

In the guide device according to the first aspect, the relative position judging means determines from the absolute position information of the specific point stored in the storing means and the absolute position of the vehicle detected by the absolute position detecting means.
Determine the relative position of a specific point with respect to the vehicle. The sound image control means localizes the sound image of the recognition sound output from the recognition sound output means in the relative position direction of the specific point determined by the relative position determination means. In the guiding device according to the second aspect, the recognition sound is output so that the sound image is localized at the relative position of at least one of the destination point and the course changing point.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the guide device of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 shows a circuit configuration of a guide device according to this embodiment. This guide device includes an arithmetic processing device 10 that performs various processes necessary for route guidance. The arithmetic processing device 10 includes a storage device 12, an absolute position detection device 13, and a bus line 11 such as a data bus. Input device 14, image display device 15
And a recognition sound output device 16. The arithmetic processing unit 10 includes a CPU (central processing unit) 101 for making various judgments and controls, a ROM 102 in which various programs for the same are stored, and a RAM 10 as a working memory.
3 and 3.

The storage device 12 stores map data 121, intersection data 122, road data 123, and information on various regions such as photo information of characteristic points, hotels in each region, and tourist information. Data 124. The storage device 12 is, for example, a floppy disk, a hard disk, a CD-ROM, an optical disk,
The various data are stored using a magnetic tape, an IC card, an optical card or the like as a storage medium. It is preferable to use a CD-ROM or the like having a large storage capacity as this storage medium, but an IC card may be used for other data such as individual data 124 and data for each area.

Here, the map data 121 is hierarchical map data, for example, map data for each layer from the highest layer to Japan, the Kanto region, Tokyo, and Kanda. The intersection data 122 includes the name of the intersection and its coordinate position, the coordinate position of each corner of the intersection, the data of the roads forming the intersection, and the like. The road data 123 is composed of the thickness of each road, the length of the road, prohibition information such as entry prohibition, guidance unnecessary information, and the like, which are data necessary for route guidance. The input device 14 is for inputting the current location (departure point) and destination (arrival point) at the start of traveling, and includes a touch panel using the display screen of the image display device 15, a keyboard, a mouse, a light pen, a joystick, Various input devices such as a voice recognition device are used.

The absolute position detection device 13 uses a satellite to measure the absolute position (coordinates represented by latitude and longitude) of the vehicle, which is a GPS (Global Positioning Sistem) reception device 1.
31, a beacon receiving device 132 that receives position information from beacons arranged on the road, a direction sensor 133, and a distance sensor 134 are used. The GPS receiver 13
1 and the beacon receiving device 132 can measure the position independently, but in other cases, the absolute position is detected by the combination of the distance sensor 134 and the direction sensor 133.

Here, the direction sensor 133 is, for example, a geomagnetic sensor that detects the geomagnetism to determine the direction of the vehicle, a gas rate gyroscope or an optical fiber that detects the angular velocity of the vehicle and integrates the angular velocity to determine the direction of the vehicle. A gyro sensor such as a gyro, a wheel sensor in which left and right wheel sensors are arranged, and a displacement amount of the azimuth is calculated by detecting the turning of the vehicle by the output pulse difference (difference of moving distance), etc. are used. . The distance sensor 134 uses various methods such as detecting and counting the number of rotations of the wheel, or detecting acceleration and integrating twice.

The arithmetic processing device 10 is an absolute position detecting device 1.
By the data map matching process based on the coordinate data of the vehicle detected in 3 and the map data 121 of the storage device 12, the position where the vehicle is currently traveling is detected as the position on the map (current position). ing. That is,
The arithmetic processing device 10 functions as a current position detecting means together with the absolute position detecting device 13. Further, a traveling route (guidance route) to the destination is searched from the detected current position, the destination input to the input device 14, the intersection data 122 and the road data 123 of the storage device 12, and the like. . The data of the searched route is composed of road data to the destination, intersection data, etc., and these are stored in the RAM 103 together with the data of the destination.

Based on the route data, the arithmetic processing unit 10 determines the relative position of the vehicle at a destination or at a corner ahead of the direction at which the vehicle should turn at the next intersection (hereinafter, simply referred to as "a corner"). That is, the direction and distance of the destination and the corner with respect to the running vehicle are also determined. Then, based on this determination, the data for displaying the arrow indicating the direction and the data for displaying the distance are supplied to the image display device 15, and the recognition sound notifying the destination or the position of the corner is output according to the determination of the relative position. Is supplied to the recognition sound output device 16.

As the image display device 15, a CRT, a liquid crystal display, a plasma display or the like is used. The image display device 15 stores various guidance information sent from the arithmetic processing device 10, that is, the position of the destination, the current position of the vehicle, the searched route, and the like in the storage device 12.
It is designed to be displayed on a map screen drawn based on the map data 121 of FIG. Further, when the vehicle approaches the next intersection requiring a course change, an arrow indicating the distance to the intersection and the direction in which the course should be changed (right turn, left turn) is also displayed.

The recognition sound output device 16 outputs "pud, pud, pud," as a recognized sound for notifying the destination and the position of the corner.
It outputs a dial tone such as "Pu" or "Pi, Pi, Pi" so that the sound image (virtual sound source) is stereoscopically localized. The recognition sound output device 16 is provided in the arithmetic processing device 10.
A signal processing unit 161 that performs a process of controlling the sound image position of a dial tone according to the original signal of each dial tone, and speakers 163 and 164 connected to the signal processor 161 are provided. The speakers 163 and 164 are arranged on the right side and the left side, respectively, in front of the driver.

The signal processing unit 161 outputs the original signal as the waveform information of each dial tone according to the destination and the relative position of the corner (for example, 1 km ahead diagonally right) with respect to the vehicle determined by the arithmetic processing unit 10. On the other hand, processing for changing the phase, amplitude, etc. is performed. Corresponding to this processing, the speaker 1
63 and 164 form a three-dimensional sound field in which the sound image of each emitted sound is three-dimensionally localized. For example,
A beeping sound (henceforth, "first beeping sound") is heard from the destination position.
A beep sound “Pee, Pee, Pee” (hereinafter referred to as “second beep sound”) is output from each of the speakers 163 and 164 so as to be heard from the corner at the next intersection.

The first dial tone for notifying the position of the destination is for allowing the driver to travel to the destination at his own discretion, depending on the sound image position of the dial tone. On an actual road, it may not be possible to reach the destination only by knowing the position of the destination. For example, it may be necessary to make a large detour to reach the destination due to traffic closure or one-way traffic. In such a case, the second beep sound notifying the position of the corner is for guiding the vehicle to the destination by notifying the driver of the distance to the intersection where the route should be changed and the direction in which the route should be changed. belongs to.

FIG. 2 shows the functional division of each part in the guide device so that each dial tone can be heard from the destination or the corner. That is, the coordinates 20 (absolute position) of the vehicle detected by the absolute position detection device 13
And the coordinates 24 of each intersection obtained based on the data of the guide route 22 stored in the RAM 103, and the RAM 10 similarly.
By calculating the relative position (direction, distance) 28 of the destination and the corner with respect to the vehicle from the coordinates 26 of the destination stored in 3, the arithmetic processing unit 10 functions as a relative position determination means. There is.

Further, in order to obtain a transmitted sound 29 having a sound image that is stereoscopically localized according to the obtained relative position, the original signal is processed by changing the phase, the amplitude, etc. for each channel. The processing unit 161 functions as a sound image control unit. Furthermore, this signal processing unit 16
The signals processed in 1 are supplied from the output terminals a and b for each dial tone respectively, so that the speakers 163 and 16
The reference numeral 4 functions as a recognition sound output means.
1 and 2, the two speakers 16
Although only 3 and 164 are illustrated, the signal processing unit 161
3, three or more speakers can be connected, and the signal processing for controlling the sound image in the signal processing unit 161 is performed in consideration of the number and mounting positions of these speakers.

It is also possible to increase the number of dial tones.
That is, as shown in FIG. 2, in the recognized sound output device 16, the output terminals c are provided for the speakers 163 and 164, and from this output terminal c, position guidance other than the destination and the corner, For example, it is possible to output a signal of a dial tone that guides the position of a passing point on the way which is set in advance, and further increase the number of the original signal and the number of output terminals to three or more. The dial tone of can be output.

Next, the operation of the embodiment thus constructed will be described. Outline of Operation FIGS. 3 to 8 show the positional relationship between the vehicle 30, the destination 32 and the next intersection 34. FIG. 3 shows the destination 32 searched by the arithmetic processing unit 10. Path 36 is shown. Speakers 163, 1 when the vehicle is running
From 64, the first dial tone "Pop, Pup, Pup"
It is constantly output so that it can be heard from the position of the destination 32 (indicated by arrow B in FIGS. 4 to 8). As shown in FIG. 4, the vehicle 30 has a predetermined distance from the next intersection 34 (for example,
When approaching up to 500 m), from the speakers 163 and 164 of the recognition sound output device 16, the second beep sound “Pee, Pee, Pee” can be heard from the position of the corner 38 of the intersection 34 as shown by the arrow A. Is output to.

The second dial tone is output so that its sound image is located at substantially the same height as the driver's line of sight, and the first dial tone is localized so that its sound image is located slightly above the driver's line of sight. As a result, the driver can separately recognize the position of the destination and the position of the corner based on not only the type of the sound but also the difference in the vertical position thereof. It should be noted that the second dial tone may be localized upward, or the first and second dial tone may be output so as to be localized on the same plane. Further, these beep sounds are output so as to change the sound image position in accordance with the change in the position of the vehicle due to traveling, and when the vehicle 30 reaches the position as shown in FIG. Is heard substantially to the left of the vehicle 30, and the first dial tone is output so as to be heard from the diagonally left front side. With this second dial tone, the driver can know the direction to turn (left direction). However, if there is a distance from the intersection, the position of the corner 38 can be heard almost from the front, and it is difficult to know the direction in which the curve should be made. In 4,
It may be moved to the left) and localized.

As shown in FIG. 6, when the vehicle 30 has passed through the intersection 34, the vehicle 30 has already traveled within a predetermined distance from the next intersection 40. Therefore, from the position of the corner 42 of the intersection 40 to the second position. I hear the dial tone. As shown in FIG. 7, when the vehicle 30 arrives just before the intersection 40, the second dial tone is output from almost the right side, and the first dial tone is output so as to be heard from the diagonally right front side. As shown in FIG. 8, when the intersection 40 is completely turned, since there is no intersection to change the course to the destination, only the first dial tone indicating the position of the destination 32 can be heard from diagonally left front. Is output to. During the above operation, the image display device 15 outputs various guide information for guiding the route to the destination, as in the conventional case.

Details of Operation FIG. 9 shows a flow of a specific process performed by the arithmetic processing unit 10 in the guide device. First, the input device 1
When the destination is input to 4 and the destination is set (step 1), the current position detected by the arithmetic processing unit 10 based on this destination and the absolute position of the vehicle detected by the current position detector 13 A route from (starting position) to the destination is searched (step 2). The departure position may be input from the input device 14.

When the vehicle starts traveling, the arithmetic processing unit 10 again detects the current position of the vehicle (step 3) and calculates the distance from the searched route data to the next intersection (step 4). ), If it is within the predetermined distance (step 5; Y), the direction of the corner of the intersection is calculated from the intersection data 122 of the storage device 12 (step 6) and stored in the RAM 103. On the other hand, if it is not within the predetermined distance (step 5; N), the process proceeds to step 7.

In step 7, the relative position of the destination is calculated from the current position of the vehicle and the destination, and a control signal corresponding to the calculated data is output to the recognition sound output device 16. With this control signal, the recognition sound output device 16 performs a process of changing the phase, the amplitude, etc. for creating the three-dimensional sound field with respect to the original signals of the first and second emitted sounds (step 8). ,
A speaker 163 outputs a first dial tone and a second dial tone with sound images localized at the relative positions of the destination and the corner, respectively.
Output from 164 (step 9). This allows
The first dial tone "Pop, Pup, Pup" is output so that it can be heard from the position of the destination, and the second dial tone "Pi, Pi, Pi" is output so that it can be heard from the corner position. The driver is guided to the destination. After outputting the dial tone, the arithmetic processing unit 10 determines whether or not the vehicle has arrived at the destination (step 10), and if not (step 10; N), the process proceeds to step 3. When the vehicle arrives at the destination (step 10; Y), the process ends.

As described above, according to the guide device of the present embodiment, the first dial tone and the second dial tone are output, so that the driver can see where the vehicle is traveling. If you have a little sense of land, you can set your own route to the destination by using only the first dial tone without being bound by the route you searched for. It is possible to travel along the route by relying on the dial tone 2 as well. Therefore, the driver can choose to travel without being bound by the searched route, depending on his / her own sense of land.

In the above embodiment, the first dial tone is always output until the destination arrives at the destination. However, when the driver presses a predetermined button, the first tone is output. You may Alternatively, it may be output only when the distance to the destination is within a predetermined distance or when the second dial tone is output. Although the driver is informed of the position of the corner at the next intersection by the second beeping sound "pee, pee, pee", the recognition sound output device 1
Using a voice synthesizer as the sound source of No. 6,
You may output the voice that says "0 m ahead is to the left" as the recognition sound. In addition, the second beep sound is generated a plurality of times corresponding to the distance from the intersection, for example, when the vehicle is 1 km or 50 from the intersection.
It may be output every time the point of 0 m or 100 m is reached.

Either one of the first dial tone and the second dial tone may be output. Alternatively, the route data may be obtained by sequentially inputting the route to the destination (route change point) using a digitizer or the like without performing the route search. The present invention can also be applied to a guide device that obtains route data by receiving route data transmitted from a place other than the vehicle by wireless or the like. For example, in the case of being used for guidance of a delivery point in a delivery service of a courier service, a guide device that guides the delivery point by receiving route data to the delivery point from a delivery center by radio or the like may be used. The recognition sound may be another dial tone, for example, a sound such as “ping-pong” or “pawn”.

Each tone may be changed not only in the position of its sound image but also in tone color, pitch, etc. depending on the destination and the distance from the next intersection. For example, when the distance to the destination or the corner is far, the volume of each dial tone is reduced and the pitch is lowered, and the volume is increased or the pitch is increased by approaching the destination or the corner to output. May be. In the case of a three-dimensional sound field, the direction of the sound image can be recognized relatively clearly, but it is difficult to recognize the distance. Therefore, the distance can be clearly recognized. In the above embodiment, the arithmetic processing unit 10
However, although the destination and the relative position of the corner have been determined, the recognition sound output device 16 is provided with an arithmetic unit including a microcomputer, and the arithmetic unit detects the absolute position detected by the absolute position detection device 13. The destination or the relative position of the corner may be determined from the position, the data of the storage device 12, or the like.

[0031]

According to the present invention, since the recognition sound is output so that the sound image is localized at the relative position of the specific point with respect to the vehicle, the position of the specific point can be surely recognized. .

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a functional explanatory diagram of the guide device.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a positional relationship between a vehicle, a destination and a next intersection.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a positional relationship between a vehicle, a destination, and a next intersection.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a positional relationship between a vehicle, a destination, and a next intersection.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing a positional relationship between a vehicle, a destination, and a next intersection.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing a positional relationship between a vehicle and a destination and the next intersection.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing a positional relationship between a vehicle and a destination and the next intersection.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a flow of operations of the guide device.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 Processing device 101 CPU 102 ROM 103 RAM 11 bus lines 12 storage devices 121 map data 122 Intersection data 123 Road data 124 Other data 13 Absolute position detector 131 GPS receiver 132 Beacon receiver 133 Direction sensor 134 Distance sensor 14 Input device 15 Image display device 16 Recognition sound output device 161 Signal processing unit 163,164 speakers

Continuation of the front page (56) Reference JP-A-5-203458 (JP, A) JP-A-4-221246 (JP, A) JP-A-5-58219 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int .Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G01C 21/00 G08G 1/0969

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. Absolute position information of a specific point is at least 1
The storage means for storing the two, the absolute position detection means for detecting the absolute position of the vehicle, the absolute position detected by the absolute position detection means, and the absolute position information of the specific point stored in the storage means. Relative position determination means for determining the relative position of the specific point with respect to, recognition sound output means for outputting a recognition sound, and recognition sound output from the recognition sound output means is determined by the relative position determination means. And a sound image control means for localizing in the relative position direction. 2. The specific point stored in the storage means is
The guide device according to claim 1, wherein the guide device is at least one of a destination point on which the vehicle travels and a course change point on a preset route to the destination point.