JPH10325860A - Method for diagnosing vics light beacon part - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To check a transmission, a reception operation, by letting a light- emitting part of a beacon head emit light by test data from a VICS-ECU part, receiving data of turning light and displaying on the VICS-ECU part. SOLUTION: A diagnosis code is sent from an operation/display part 1 to a VICS-ECU 3 through a navigation ECU 2. A CPU 32 sends test data to a communication I/F 41 of a beacon head 4 through a G/A 33 and a communication I/F 34 and supplies to a light-emitting part 42. A driving circuit 421 makes an LED 422 emit light. A transmission operation for up-link data can be checked by confirming the emission. A PD 431 detects data of turning light and sends to the G/A 33 via an AMP circuit 432, the communication I/F 41 and the communication I/F 34. The G/A 33 compares the transmitted and received data and sends an OK message or the like to the operation/display part 1 through the navigation ECU 2 when the data agree with each other, whereby the message is displayed. A reception operation for down-link data can be checked by confirming the display.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a method of diagnosing an optical beacon unit of a VICS, and more particularly to a method of checking operation for diagnosis.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In April 1996, VICS (Vehicle Information and Communic) for transmitting congestion information to an automobile navigation system using a communication means such as an optical beacon.
ationSystem) service started. If this service is used, traffic congestion information can be displayed on the display screen of the navigation device in real time, so that a route can be guided while avoiding traffic congestion.

There are three levels of display data of traffic congestion information in the VICS service. Level 1 provides information by displaying character data, level 2 provides information by displaying simplified graphic data, and level 2 provides information by displaying map data. Called 3. These three pieces of information are transmitted by using three communication means of an optical beacon, a radio wave beacon, and FM data multiplex broadcasting. Among the above-mentioned communication means, the FM data multiplex broadcasting can obtain the traffic congestion information wherever the car is located as long as the FM broadcasting wave can be reached. On the other hand, optical beacons and radio beacons cannot obtain information unless they pass below them, but they can obtain detailed information.

[0004]

Among the above three communication means, an optical beacon exchanges data between a roadside device installed on the road and a vehicle-mounted device installed in an automobile by bidirectional communication using light (wavelength: 850 nm). It can be performed. And
When actually using the optical beacon, an operation check is performed to diagnose whether or not the data exchange by the optical beacon is performed normally. Conventionally, when checking the operation of the on-vehicle device of the optical beacon, the following has been performed. First, the VIC from the optical beacon head
A pseudo signal generator for obtaining S data by another system and generating a pseudo signal having the same content as the beacon data transmitted from the road device based on the S data is prepared, and a pseudo signal transmitted from the pseudo signal generator is prepared. Was used to check the optical beacon part of the in-vehicle device. As another method, a vehicle carrying an optical beacon was actually driven under an optical beacon on the road, and the operation of the onboard optical beacon was checked.

However, in the case of the above-described checking method, a pseudo signal generator for generating a pseudo signal having the same content as the beacon data transmitted from the road device is prepared, or a vehicle equipped with an optical beacon is actually mounted on the road. I needed to run under a light beacon. Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a method for easily checking the operation of an optical beacon unit of an on-vehicle device without requiring any special equipment or place.

[0006]

To achieve the above object, the present invention provides an operation / display unit, a navigation ECU unit,
In a VICS receiver having an ICS-ECU unit and an optical beacon receiving unit including a beacon head unit,
The VICS-ECU unit outputs test data having the same baud rate as the reception baud rate to the beacon head unit, causes the light emitting diode of the light emitting unit of the beacon head unit to emit light by the output, and confirms the light emission transmission of the data by visual observation, etc. It is checked whether the transmission operation of the uplink data including is normally performed, and of the optical data included in the light emission, the circulated optical data is received by a photosensor such as a photodiode and output to the VICS-ECU unit. By displaying this data, it is confirmed whether the data has been received and received normally, and it is checked whether the operation of receiving the downlink data including the light receiving unit has been normally performed.

[0007]

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a receiving unit for both optical beacon / radio wave beacon and FM data multiplex broadcasting. An operation unit / display unit 1 operates a receiving unit of the vehicle-mounted device, and displays information received from a beacon and FM data multiplex broadcasting. A navigation ECU 2 controls navigation.
Reference numeral 3 denotes a VICS-ECU unit that controls VICS.
U32, gate array (G / A) 33, communication interface unit (communication I / F) 31 between navigation ECU unit 2 and VICS-ECU unit 3, communication interface unit (communication I / F) 34 with optical beacon head unit , A radio beacon data calculation unit 35, an FM multiplex communication unit 36 that receives a signal from an antenna (AT) that receives a signal from FM multiplex broadcasting, a crystal oscillator 37, and a RAM 38. Reference numeral 4 denotes a beacon head unit, and a VICS-ECU unit 3
A communication interface unit (communication I / F) 41, a light emitting unit 42 and a light receiving unit 43 of an optical beacon, and a radio wave beacon antenna 44 are provided.

Next, the operation of the optical beacon unit will be described with reference to FIG. As described above, the optical beacon enables the necessary information to be obtained by exchanging data between the on-road device installed on the road and the on-vehicle device installed on the vehicle by bidirectional communication using light (wavelength: 850 nm). It has become. That is, the light emitting unit 4 of the beacon head unit 4 of the vehicle-mounted device
2 transmits uplink data to a road optical beacon,
Data including necessary information from the on-road optical beacon according to the content of the uplink data is sent to the light receiving unit 43 of the beacon head unit 4 as downlink data. Some data is provided from the optical beacon without transmitting uplink data.

With respect to the operation of the optical beacon unit shown in FIG. 1, when an instruction to transmit uplink data is given from the operation unit / display unit 1, the instruction is sent to the navigation ECU unit 2,
The information is transmitted to the CPU 32 via the communication I / F 31. The reference clock of the crystal oscillator 37 is supplied from the CPU 32 to the G / A 33.
, Where the frequency is divided to 1,024 Mbps and 6
Generate a 4 kbps clock. Switching of the clock output (1,024 Mbps / 64 kbps) to the CPU is executed by the CPU under G / A register control.
In synchronization with this clock, the uplink data is G / A3
3, transmitted to the light emitting unit 42 of the beacon head unit 4 via the communication I / F 34 and the communication I / F 41. In the light emitting section 42, this uplink data is input to the drive circuit 421,
The drive circuit 421 causes the light emitting diode (LED) 422 to emit light and transmits the light to the road optical beacon. Normally, the light emission data signal is transmitted at 64 kbps.

When the road optical beacon receives uplink data, it transmits downlink data corresponding to this data to the beacon head unit 4. Beacon head part 4
Then, this data is transferred to the photodiode (PD) 4 of the light receiving section 43.
31 and amplified by the AMP circuit 432 to the communication I / F 41
Send to The communication I / F 41 converts this data signal into VICS-
The signal is sent to the communication I / F 34 of the ECU unit,
/ A 33, the CPU 32, the communication I / F 31, and the navigation ECU 2, and are sent to the operation unit / display unit 1. Then, the display unit 1 displays information obtained from the optical beacon.

Next, a method of diagnosing the VICS optical beacon unit of the present invention will be described. FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the diagnostic method of the present invention. FIG. 2 shows a portion of the configuration of FIG. 1 which is necessary for explaining the optical beacon unit diagnostic method. In the configuration of FIG. 2, reference numerals are the same as those of FIG. When diagnosing the VICS optical beacon unit, a diagnostic code for checking the operation is input from the operation unit / display unit 1 in FIG. 2 and transmitted to the VICS-ECU unit 3 via the navigation ECU unit 2. VICS-
The reference clock of the crystal oscillator 37 of the ECU unit 3 is the CPU 3
2 to the G / A 33, where the frequency is divided to 1,0
24 Mbps and 64 kbps clocks are generated. In synchronization with this clock, the CPU 32 outputs the test data written in the ROM. Usually, in the optical beacon, the LED 422 of the beacon head unit 4 of the vehicle-mounted device is used.
64 kbps uplink data transmitted from
The downlink data received and received by the PD 431 is 1,024 Mbps, but in the case of the test data, the uplink data is also 1,024 Mbps, which is the same as the downlink data. That is, the baud rate of the transmission data is made equal to the baud rate of the reception data.

The test data is G / A 33, communication I /
The signal is output to the beacon head unit 4 via F34. In the beacon head unit 4, the test data is output from the communication I / F 41 to the light emitting unit 42, and the driving circuit 421 of the light emitting unit 42
Causes the LED to emit light. By confirming the light emission of the LED, it is possible to check whether the transmission operation of the uplink data including the light emitting unit 42 has been performed normally.

[0013] The light emission data of the LED is expressed as 1. Since it has a light amount of about several w, 0.75 μw /
The PD 431 capable of receiving the light amount of cm ² or more receives the optical data including the wraparound test data and receives the AMP circuit 43.
2 to amplify this, and communicate via VICS- via communication I / F41.
Output to the ECU unit 3. The VICS-ECU unit 3 outputs the received data to the G / A 33 via the communication I / F 34. The G / A 33 compares the transmitted test data with the received data, and sends an OK message or the received test data to the navigation ECU 2 if they match.
The navigation ECU unit 2 sends this data to the operation unit / display unit 1 and displays an OK message or test data. The operator sees that the OK message or the test data is displayed on the display screen of the operation unit / display unit 1, and can check whether the reception operation of the downlink data including the light receiving unit 43 has been performed normally. The operation unit /
In the display unit 1, the operation unit and the display unit may be integrated or may be separate.

As described above, the level of display data of traffic congestion information in the VICS service is information provision by displaying character data of level 1, information provision by displaying simple graphic data of level 2, and map data of level 3. There are three types of information provided by the display. In the method for diagnosing the VICS optical beacon unit according to the present invention, an operation check can be performed for each level of display data. First, when it is desired to check the operation of the transmission of the uplink data of the data of level 1 and the reception of the downlink data, the content of the test data is transmitted with the content corresponding to the level 1, and as a result, the received data is transmitted. If the test data has the content corresponding to the level 1, it can be checked that the operation is normal. By performing the same check for level 2 and level 3, an operation check for each level can be performed. To simply check the operation of transmission and reception, a simple pulse can be used as test data.

FIG. 3 shows an LED of a light emitting portion of the beacon head.
FIG. 422 is a diagram illustrating a configuration in which a reflection plate is disposed on the front surface of a PD 431 of a light receiving unit 422. By providing the reflection plate in this manner, the amount of light emitted and transmitted can be adjusted, and the PD 431 can reliably receive the transmitted optical data.

[0016]

According to the method of the present invention, since the operation diagnosis of the VICS optical beacon unit is performed using the test data written in the ROM, a pseudo signal having the same content as the beacon data transmitted from the roadside device is provided. There is no need to prepare a pseudo signal generator that generates noise, or to run a car equipped with an optical beacon under the optical beacon on the road. It requires no space and can be done easily.

Further, if test data corresponding to the level of VICS data is used, an operation check for diagnosis for each level of VICS data can be easily performed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an outline of a configuration of a VICS receiver having a receiving unit for both optical beacon / radio wave beacon and FM data multiplex broadcasting.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a diagnostic method of the present invention, and FIG.
Out of the configuration described above, a portion necessary for explaining the diagnosis of the optical beacon unit is extracted.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration in which a reflecting plate is arranged on the front surface of a light emitting unit and a light receiving unit of a beacon head.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Operation / display part 2 ... Navigation ECU part 3 ... VICS-ECU part 31 ... Communication interface (communication I / F) 32 ... CPU 33 ... Gate array (G / A) 34 ... Communication interface (communication I / F) 35 ... Radio wave beacon data operation unit 36. FM data multiplex communication unit 37. Crystal oscillator 38. RAM 4. Beacon head unit 41. Communication interface (I / F) 42. Light emitting unit 421 .. Drive circuit 422. ... Light receiving part 431... Photodiode (PD) 432. AMP circuit 44. Radio wave beacon antenna 5.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. Operation / display unit, navigation ECU
Unit, a VICS-ECU unit for controlling VICS, and a VICS receiver having an optical beacon receiving unit provided with a beacon head unit, wherein test data is output from the VICS-ECU unit to the beacon head unit, and the beacon head is output by the output. Check the light emission transmission operation of the data by causing the light emitting part of the part to emit light, and among the optical data included in the light emission,
A method for diagnosing a VICS optical beacon unit, comprising: receiving the wrapped optical data by a photosensor of the beacon head unit, outputting the data to a VICS-ECU unit, and displaying the data to check the light receiving / receiving operation of the data. 2. The VICS according to claim 1, wherein the baud rate of the test data is the same as the baud rate of the received data.
Diagnosis method of optical beacon part. 3. The method for diagnosing a VICS optical beacon unit according to claim 1, wherein data corresponding to each level of VICS data is used as test data, and an operation check is performed for each level of data. 4. The method for diagnosing a VICS optical beacon unit according to claim 1, wherein a reflector is arranged in front of the light emitting unit and the light receiving unit of the beacon head to ensure that the emitted light is wrapped around.