JP3529006B2 - Fish finder - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a fish finder which allows a fish finder to easily have a homing function.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 6 shows a conventional device of this type. CP
The transmission circuit 12 is controlled by the transmission trigger signal controlled by U11.
Excites the ultrasonic wave transmitter / receiver 13 to radiate an ultrasonic wave burst signal into water, for example, toward the bottom of the water. The ultrasonic burst in the water is reflected by the bottom 14 and the school of fish, received by the transmitter / receiver 13, the received signal is amplified and detected by the receiving circuit 15, and the detected output is a digital signal by the A / D converter 16. Is stored in the buffer memory 17 under the control of the CPU 11, and the data in the range corresponding to the display depth range is transferred to the main memory 18 under the control of the CPU 11.

The reflected wave is displayed on the display screen as a display line in the depth direction, and the display line is, for example, 256 (or 512).
Each dot is composed of dots, and each dot is displayed in a color that has an intensity (level) represented by 3 bits represented by 3 bits. That is, the main memory 18 is provided with, for example, three memory planes M0, M1 and M2 each having 256 × 256 bits as shown in FIG. 2A.
The first digit (2) from the lower order of each 3-bit data sequentially read from the buffer memory 17 to one column address of M1 and M2.
⁰ ), the second digit (2 ¹ ) and the third digit (2 ² ) are stored in the same row address of the memory planes M0, M1 and M2, respectively, while sequentially updating the row address. In this way, one piece of detection information is transferred from the buffer memory 17 to the main memory 18. The detected information obtained next is the main memory 1
8 is transferred to the next column address.

The detection information of the main memory 18 stored in this manner is accompanied by various information from the character memory 19 for displaying characters, the depth memory 21 for displaying the depth scale, and the cursor memory 22 in which the cursor is stored. The data is transferred to the video memory 23, the stored contents of the video memory 23 are repeatedly read, and an XY scanning type display 24 such as a CRT or a liquid crystal is displayed.
Is displayed in. On the display screen of the display 24, as shown in FIG. 7, one detection information is displayed as a display line 26 consisting of 256 dots, and each dot is displayed as a color corresponding to the 3-bit data. In FIG. 7, the new display lines are sequentially displayed so that the new one is on the right side, that is, each time one detection information is obtained, one display line is moved to the left in the figure. A water bottom image 27 and a fish school image 28 appear on the display screen.

The current position of the ship on which the fish finder is placed is measured by a position measuring device 31 such as a GPS receiver, and the measured position is displayed on the track display 32. Wake indicator 3
On the display screen of 2, the latitude line and the longitude line, and the position at each time from the position of the departure point to the present are displayed as a track. By the display of the fish finder, the position of the ship when the fish school was obtained and the position of the ship when the part of interest on the bottom of the water appeared was recorded and displayed as an event mark on the track display screen, After carrying out fish hunting to some extent, the vessel is moved to a more prominent position than the event mark, and so-called homing is performed.

[0006] There is also one in which a fish finder image is displayed on one half of the display screen of the fish finder and a track image is displayed on the other half.

[0007]

The above-mentioned conventional technique requires a fish finder and a track recorder, and is expensive and large in size. Further, when the fish finder image and the track image are displayed on one screen, each image is small and difficult to read. In addition, it is necessary for the operator to record each event mark.

Further, a system has been proposed in which the position information is stored in the fish finder in the event mark format and the position information and the image data of the fish finder can be associated with each other as needed. The feature of this method is to record fish finder video data, position data, and other data (water temperature data, etc.) in separate memories, and to move the event mark in synchronization with the fish finder time axis in order to associate the two types of data. Perform complicated operations such as Further, since the event mark is artificially input, it is necessary to constantly operate the device. These methods have some advantages in long-term search, but they are not very practical in the case of one-man operation, when overlooking the target target and wanting to perform homing easily. There is a point association is difficult at a point that did not event mark since by further corresponding location data and fish depth data image in the event mark (JP open flat 1-23748
1).

Next, in order to correlate the images of the track recorder and the fish finder, the longitude direction of the track recorder and the time axis of the fish finder are displayed in correspondence with each other, and when the longitude reverses, the fish finder image is displayed. A method has been proposed in which the time axis direction of data is reversed and overwritten. According to this method, the track record data and the fish finder video data correspond to each other, but the fish finder data becomes an image corresponding to the ship speed instead of the conventional constant time axis speed data. Further, since the fish finder screen and the wake screen are displayed on the same display screen, the fish finder image screen becomes small, so that a display device having a certain size is required (JP-A-7-63841). .

[0010]

According to the present invention, for every predetermined number of display lines for displaying search information of a fish finder, the position information of the vessel when the detection information of the display line is obtained is stored in the storage means. It is recorded, and when you indicate the position on the fish finder display screen,
The position information corresponding to the indicated display line is read from the storage means, and the distance between the current position of the ship and the read position is determined from the read position information and the position information of the current ship. And the direction are calculated, and the calculation results are displayed.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a part of the configuration of the present invention,
The parts corresponding to those in FIG. 6 are designated by the same reference numerals. In this embodiment, a position measuring device 31 such as a GPS receiver is provided, and when the position information of the ship measured by this position measuring device 31 is GPS, one measurement data has several hundred bytes,
In the data conversion unit 41, the converted position information is converted into a simple format that is essentially required in connection with fish detection, and the converted position information is temporarily stored in the buffer memory 42. Under the control of the CPU 11, the detection information is buffered. Each time it is transferred from the memory 17, the position information is transferred to the main memory 18 in association with the detection information. In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 2A, the detection information corresponding to each display line in each of the three memory planes M0, M1 and M2 of the main memory 18 is stored in each storage unit 44. One end, for example, a portion 44a in which the water bottom side of the detection information is stored is a position information storage unit, and the remaining portion 44b is a detection information storage unit. For example, each storage unit 44 of each memory plane has 256 bits, 26 bits of which are the position information storage unit 44a,
The remaining 230 bits are used as the detection information storage unit 44b.

As shown in FIG. 2B, the memory plane M0
With respect to the 26 bits of the position information storage unit 44a, the degree value (the number of 0 to 180) in the longitude information is 8 bits, the value of the minute (the number of 0 to 60) is 8 bits, and the three digits below the minute are Value (a number from 0 to 1000) is stored in each 10 bits, and similarly, the position information storage unit 44a of the memory plane M1.
The latitude information is stored in the position information storage unit 4 of the memory plane M2.
Time and other information are stored in 4a. For example, GPS generally obtains location information about once a second, but if detection information is obtained faster than 1 second, if the location information does not change when the next detection information is obtained, Store location information.

[0013] Since the corresponding Dzu only the positional information and the detection information to a portion of the thus main memory 18 is stored, the display 24
For example, as shown in FIG. 2C, in this example of the display screen, only the lower end portion 45 is slightly cut off from the display of the fish finder image, which is slightly shortened in the depth direction as compared with the conventional fish finder image display. , Not so affected. For example, when it is desired to know the position in the fish finder image when the fish school image 28 in FIG. 2C is obtained, the cursor control unit 46 is controlled to move the cursor 47 on the display screen to or near the fish school image 28. Then, an instruction is input (FIG. 3, S1). Then, the position in the storage unit 44i of the main memory 18 in which the detection information displayed on the display line 26i above the cursor 47 is stored.
The position information Pi stored in the position information storage unit 44a is read (S2), and the distance R between the read position and the current position is determined from the position information Pi and the current position information Po from the position measuring device 31. And the azimuth θ from the current position to the read position
Is calculated (S3), and the distance R and the azimuth θ are displayed in the display window 48 in a portion that does not affect the fish finder image on the display screen of the display 24, as shown in FIG. 2C ( S4). The CPU 11 performs the above-described processing such as various calculations.

A difference value may be stored as the position information. In this case, as shown in FIG. 4, a position information acquisition command is generated for each fish detection information (S1), position information (current position) is acquired (S2), and the current position information is stored in several hundred bytes of auxiliary memory. Is stored only once (S3) and the difference between this current position information that changes sequentially and the position information in the auxiliary memory is calculated (S4). For example, 10-bit (1/1000 min) difference information The position information of the main memory 18
The information is stored in the information storage unit 44a (S5). The difference information is 1
000 is checked, and if not exceeded, the operation is continued, that is, the steps S1, S2, S4, S5, and S6 are repeated, and when 1000 is exceeded, the difference information is 1
Since it exceeds 0 bits and cannot be stored in the position information storage unit 44a, the position information in the auxiliary memory is updated to the current position information. In other words, in this example, the position information storage unit 44a in the main memory 18 has 10 bits, and when this is done, the position information storage unit 44 will be different from the case described in FIG.
The number of bits of a can be reduced. The number of bits of the position information storage unit 44a is not limited to 10 bits, and may be smaller or larger than this.

[0015] Generally, the range (area) of fish hunting performed at one time
Is not that wide. Therefore, the fish school search range is generally 60
If it is within (10800 m) minutes, for example, the required longitude data in units of 1/1000 minutes is 1 minute / (1/100
0) × 60 minutes = 60,000, 2 ¹⁶ = 65536 data can be stored in a ¹⁶ -bit memory, and 16 bits are sufficient for the position information storage unit 44a. In other words, change the position information at the start of fish school search within 60 minutes by 1 /
It is sufficient to store it with an accuracy of 1000 minutes. Since the longitude value may change due to the movement of the ship, only the minute value is stored, but the change of the longitude value is distinguished by the ± sign, and the position information within 2 degrees is 1 / 100
It can be stored in units of 0 minutes. In this case, the number of bits 16 of the position information storage unit 44a may be increased or decreased appropriately depending on the usage state.

The display in the display window 48 of the homing direction and distance on the display screen of the display 24 is as shown in FIG.
As shown in A, display 51 of the bow direction for homing (to reach the target position), display 52 of the distance to the target (this is a value that changes momentarily with the movement of the ship),
Display of the current position which is changing from moment to moment during homing 5
3. There is a display 54 of the time required to reach the target position calculated from the speed of the vessel and the distance to the target, and when the vehicle arrives at the target position, the blinking display 55 of the character "arrival" is performed.

Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 5B, a display window 48
A vessel display 56 is displayed in the center of the upper half of the vessel, and a heading display 51 for homing is provided on the vessel display 56. The current position 5 is displayed on the left and right of the vessel display 56.
3. The display 52 of the distance to the target, which changes from moment to moment, and the bow direction display 57 of the arrow pointing from the bottom to the top in the lower center of the display window 48, so that the bow direction can be finely adjusted when approaching the target The arrow display 58 of the angle of the target direction with respect to the bow direction arrow display 57 and the blinking display 55 of “arrival” may be further displayed.

The position information does not have to be stored every time the search information is obtained. That is, each time new position information is obtained, the position information may be stored in correspondence with the search information obtained next. Also, the cursor 47 is usually a plurality of display lines 2.
Since it is displayed over six positions , one of the display lines 26 corresponding to the position information storage unit 44a in which the position information is stored may always store the position information at a longitude interval which is applied to the cursor 47. . A plurality of display lines on the cursor 47 2
If there is more than one position information on 6 , the average,
Alternatively, it is conceivable to select the position information on the central display line 26 .

Further, the position information may not be stored in the main memory 18 but may be stored in another memory. It suffices that the storage address of the memory and the position of the display line 26 are associated with each other, and the position information corresponding to the display line 26 pointed to by the cursor 47 can be read from the memory. If you set a homing target on the fish finder image and homing to it, the feeding of the fish finder image is stopped, but if you want to monitor the water bottom condition during the homing, the hunt image is displayed on the display screen as usual. If it is displayed, there is an inconvenience that the target pointed by the cursor 47 is off the screen. In such a case, the screen memory is doubled so that the stop image when the target is instructed and the detection image that changes momentarily during homing can be switched, and the display screen can be moved up and down. The stop image when one of the targets is designated may be displayed separately, and the detection image during homing may be displayed on the other.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention, the position information of the target can be known by a simple operation of pointing the cursor without providing a track recorder, and therefore homing can be performed easily. Can be made.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2A is a main memory 1 including three memory planes.
8 is a diagram showing B, FIG. 8B is a diagram showing a storage example of the position information storage section 44a, and C is a diagram showing an example of a display image of the fish finder according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure from a cursor instruction to a homing distance / direction calculation.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure for storing difference information as position information.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a display example of a display window 48.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of a combination of a conventional fish finder and a track recorder.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a display image of a fish finder.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) Reference JP-A-8-43531 (JP, A) JP-A-7-63841 (JP, A) JP-A-5-223934 (JP, A) JP-A-5- 45462 (JP, A) JP-A-4-279883 (JP, A) JP-A-4-265881 (JP, A) JP-A-1-237481 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G01S 1/72-1/82 G01S 3/80-3/86 G01S 5/18-5/30 G01S 7/52-7/64 G01S 15/00-15/96

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] 1. A fish finder which sequentially arranges fish finder information as display lines in the depth direction and displays it on a display screen, and a position finder which measures the current position of a ship on which the fish finder is placed. In the equipped fish finder , the detection information is stored in the depth direction for each display line.
The knowledge information storage unit and the above-mentioned ship when the detection information is acquired.
The location where the location information is recorded at one end of the detection information storage section.
A memory consisting of three memory planes with a storage unit
When the storage unit and the position on the display screen are designated, the position information corresponding to the designated display line is read from the position information storage unit.
However, the part that does not affect the fish detection image on the above display screen
Means for displaying in the minute display window, and the latitude, longitude, time, etc. of the position information are different from each other.
It is recorded in each of the above position information storage units of the replane.
Fish finder, characterized in that that. 2. A means for calculating a distance and a direction between the current position of the ship and the read position based on the read position information and the current position information of the ship, and the calculated distance. The fish finder according to claim 1, further comprising: means for displaying a direction. 3. A fish finder according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that position <br/> location information of longitude and latitude stored in the storage unit is only the lower digit information (minutes). 4. A positional information stored in the storage unit, fish finder according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the difference information with respect to the initial current position information.