JPH0476609B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] The present invention measures the current position of a car and displays it together with map information, and when the car is driving deviating from the reference road, new information about the road on which the car is driving is updated. The present invention relates to an in-vehicle position measurement and display device that can store map information as map information.

In recent years, the usefulness of GPS positioning devices has increased in order to transmit radio waves from multiple artificial satellites to confirm or determine the current location, traveling speed, etc. of users such as ships and aircraft that are constantly moving. It is attracting attention. Here, the GPS positioning device refers to the Global Positioning System (hereinafter referred to as the Global Positioning System).
It receives radio waves from multiple artificial satellites belonging to the GPS (GPS) system, calculates and displays the current position of a moving vehicle. This GPS positioning device has the following characteristics: it can be used continuously all over the world at any time, it has extremely high accuracy in measuring position and speed, and there is no limit to the number of users.From this perspective, GPS Objects that use positioning devices are not limited to ships and aircraft, but should also include automobiles.

In particular, if this GPS positioning device can be used to avoid traffic congestion in urban areas, quickly confirm one's current location, and find a detour to a destination,
Significant time and economic benefits can be obtained.

As is well known, a positioning method using a GPS positioning device is usually performed by receiving radio waves from three or more satellites. Each of these artificial satellites is equipped with a highly accurate atomic clock, but on the other hand, such an expensive timekeeping device is not installed on the receiving side.
Therefore, a time difference and a difference in the rate of change of time appear in the time information on the receiving side. Therefore, current positioning methods receive radio waves from multiple satellites at the same time, and calculate the receiver's clock offset (time difference based on the time difference and the difference in the rate of change of time) between each satellite and the receiving point. The position of the receiving point is calculated and displayed using pseudorange data including offset (converted to distance) and position data of each satellite. In this case, in the case of an automobile positioning device, this current position information is displayed on a display device such as a CRT together with a large amount of road map information stored in advance.

A position display device using this type of positioning system is shown in FIG.

That is, in FIG. 1, reference numeral 2 indicates an antenna, and the output side of this antenna 2 is connected to the receiving section 4.
It is connected to the. The output side of the receiving section 4 is further connected to a positioning calculation section 6, and the output of this positioning calculation section 6 is branched to a position and map information display section 8.
and the map information storage section 10. The output of the map information storage section 10 is in this case connected to the position and map information display section 8 .

In a position display device having such a configuration, radio waves from a plurality of artificial satellites (not shown) constituting a GPS are captured by the antenna 2, amplified and demodulated by the receiver 4, and the output signals are sent to the positioning calculation unit 6. will be introduced in The positioning calculation section 6 calculates and obtains the receiving position, moving speed, direction, etc. of the automobile in which each of these components is mounted. On the other hand, map information storage section 1
0 is magnetic tape, semiconductor memory or CDROM
The road map information on which the vehicle is traveling is sent in advance to the position and map information display unit 8. For this purpose, the position and map information display unit 8 receives the position, moving speed, Position information related to the direction and map information of the road on which the vehicle is traveling are superimposed and displayed on a CRT (not shown) or the like.

However, in this type of in-vehicle position display device, there is a limit to the storage capacity for the map information stored in the map information storage section 10, and even if there is sufficient storage capacity, all of the map information is limited. In order to convert a road map into information and store it in the storage unit, a huge amount of time and expense is required for research and information collection. Moreover, the road map information obtained in this way is not necessarily useful to all drivers.

Therefore, currently, the road information stored in the map information storage unit is limited to major arterial roads, and map information regarding roads including other branch roads or newly opened roads cannot be displayed. That is the reality. After all, when attempting to drive on a new and unknown road, the driver must operate the vehicle using his/her own senses in exactly the same way as before, resulting in traffic congestion, which is currently causing various problems. The shortcoming was that it was impossible to escape from the danger of encountering an accident.

The present invention has been made to overcome the various inconveniences mentioned above, and when driving on a road that is not stored in the map information storage unit, road information obtained from the on-board positioning device is added. The in-vehicle position is stored in the road information storage unit of the vehicle, so that when you try to drive on that road again, you can use the road map information obtained last time to drive smoothly and safely on that road. The purpose is to provide measurement and display devices.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention includes a measuring means for positioning a traveling vehicle along the road on which the vehicle is traveling, a means for storing map information related to the road on which the vehicle is traveling, and a positioning method using the measuring means. display means for displaying the position of the vehicle traveling along with the map information; storage means for storing the travel route of the vehicle measured by the measurement means; The present invention is characterized by comprising means for comparing the route information and the map information and writing this as additional road information in the map information storage means when the map information does not include the travel route information.

Next, preferred embodiments of the vehicle-mounted position measurement and display device according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In FIG. 2, reference numeral 20 indicates an antenna, and the output side of this antenna 20 is connected to a receiving section 22. The output side of the receiving section 22 is connected to the positioning calculation section 24, and one output of the positioning calculation section 24 is connected to the position and map information display section 2.
6.

The output of the positioning calculation section 24 is further branched and introduced into the driving route information detection section 28 and further introduced into the map information storage section 30. The additional road information detection section 32 receives output signals from the driving route information detection section 28 and the map information storage section 30. The output of the additional road information detection section 32 is output to the additional road information storage section 34, where it is stored and displayed on the position and map information display section 26 as necessary. Note that the output of the map information storage section 30 is also outputted to the position and map information display section 26 in the same manner. In this case, the driving route information detection unit 28 receives position information related to consecutive positioning points from the measurement calculation unit 24, and detects the driving route by connecting this position information. The information detecting section 32 obtains the traveling route information from the traveling information detecting section 28 and the road information from the map information storage section 30 and compares the two, so that the traveling route information is determined as the road information obtained from the map information storage section 30. If it differs from the above, it is determined that the road information needs to be newly memorized and saved.
This traveling route information is sent to the additional road information storage section 34. The additional road information storage section 34 receives and stores the output signal from the additional road information detection section 32, and outputs it to the position and map information display section 26.

A more detailed operation of the vehicle-mounted position measurement and display device configured as described above will be described below.

Radio waves from a plurality of satellites constituting a GPS are captured by an antenna 20, and similarly to the device shown in FIG. 24, and the reception position is calculated. When the reception position is obtained by the positioning calculation unit 24 in this way, this signal is output to the position and map information display unit 26 as described above, while the map information storage unit 3
0, the road map of the main road on which the vehicle is traveling is output to this position and the map information display unit 26 as road map data, so this map information and the current position information obtained by the positioning calculation unit 24 are will be simultaneously displayed on a CRT (not shown) or the like.

For example, when a car equipped with the in-vehicle position measurement and display device according to the present invention travels along travel paths A, B, C, D, E, and F shown in FIG.
Based on the positioning data obtained from the artificial satellites constituting the GPS, the driving route information of the vehicle is displayed as shown by the dotted line in FIG.
will be displayed.

On the other hand, this traveling route information is introduced from the positioning calculation section 24 to the traveling route information detecting section 28. In this case, since the road information shown by the solid line in FIG. 3 is obtained from the map information storage section 30, the additional road information detection section 32 uses the output signal of the driving route information detection section 28 obtained from the GPS satellite in this way. , map information storage section 3
If the difference is larger than a predetermined value, it is determined that the vehicle (not shown) is not traveling on the road stored in the map information storage section 30. As a result, the additional road information detecting section 32 treats the traveling route information obtained from this traveling route information detecting section as additional road information, and sends it to the additional road information storage section 34. In Figure 4, the solid line C-
D indicates the additional road information.

Therefore, the position and map information display unit 26 combines the output signals from the map information storage unit 30 and the positioning calculation unit 24, that is, the additional road information, and displays the result on the display. This is illustrated in FIG. In other words, as shown in Figure 3, even if you drive a car on the wrong road,
Since the road information on which the vehicle was erroneously traveled is newly stored in addition to the road information related to the main road, an effect is obtained in which the road map information gradually increases while the vehicle travels. Therefore, when you use the same road again, such as when trying to reach a destination in a short time by detouring around a congested road, the road obtained by driving once by mistake is Even if the information is road information or road information obtained when driving intentionally off the main road, it becomes possible to utilize it again.

Note that in this embodiment, radio waves from the artificial satellites that constitute the GPS are used to measure the current position, but for example, instead of GPS radio waves, a radio navigation system such as Loran It goes without saying that a similar effect can be obtained by using a dead reckoning navigation system using a direction sensor or a distance sensor.

According to the present invention, as described above, when an in-vehicle position measurement and display device drives on a road that is not stored in advance in the map information storage unit built into the device, the information obtained by the device It is possible to obtain a new road image from the measurement results and store it in an additional road information storage. For this reason, it is possible to sequentially store map information related to branch lines, side roads, new roads, etc. other than the already stored main road information. It is possible to obtain the advantage that the vehicle speed increases and that this can be effectively utilized for the next trip.

Although the present invention has been described above with reference to preferred embodiments, the present invention is not limited to these embodiments, and various improvements and changes in design can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention. Of course.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an outline of a general vehicle-mounted measuring device, and FIG. 2 is a block explanatory diagram showing the configuration of a vehicle-mounted position measuring and display device according to the present invention.
FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram schematically showing a road map and an actual driving route, and FIG. 4 is an explanation of a display example of road information when the vehicle deviates from the main road stored in advance in FIG. 3. 5A and 5B are display examples showing a composite screen of road map information stored in advance and additional road information shown in FIG. 4. 20... Antenna, 22... Receiving section, 24...
Positioning calculation unit, 26... Location and map information display unit, 28... Driving route information detection unit, 30... Map information storage unit, 32... Additional road information detection unit, 34...
...Additional road information storage unit.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A measuring means for positioning a traveling vehicle along the road on which the vehicle is traveling, a means for storing map information related to the road on which the vehicle is traveling, and a traveling vehicle whose position is determined by the measuring means. a display means for displaying the position of the vehicle along with the map information; a storage means for storing the driving route of the vehicle determined by the measuring means; and driving route information obtained by an output signal of the storage means and the map. an in-vehicle position measuring and display device comprising means for comparing the map information with the travel route information and writing it as additional road information in the map information storage means when the map information does not include the travel route information. . 2. In the device according to claim 1,
The measurement means is an in-vehicle position measurement and display device consisting of positioning means using GPS.