JP2001188992A - Information providing method and information providing system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] To automatically provide information desired by a driver while ensuring the safety of the driver in an ever-changing driving environment. SOLUTION: A vehicle 100 uses a means for detecting and accumulating a driving behavior of a driver 110, a means for detecting and accumulating a surrounding environment, a means for accumulating an information access history, a driving behavior, a surrounding environment, an information access history and the like. Driver 1
It includes means for determining the current 10 information preferences, and transmits the information preferences to the center 200 via the communication device 180. The center 200 includes means for collecting information from an information source such as the Internet 300 and means for filtering information according to the current information preference of the driver 110.
The information is transmitted to the automobile 100 side.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a technology for collecting information on the Internet or the like in a vehicle such as an automobile. More specifically, the present invention relates to a technique for collecting information desired by a driver at each time while ensuring the safety of driving of the driver. The present invention relates to an information providing method and an information providing system for automatically collecting and presenting information.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Due to the development of the information distribution industry and mobile communication technology, in a social situation where a huge amount of information sources can be accessed anytime and anywhere even in a vehicle such as an automobile, information necessary for a driver is provided when necessary. Is required.

Conventionally, in a system having a display device such as a car navigation system, the operation is restricted unless the side brake is applied so that the information gathering operation of the driver does not disturb the driving operation process.
The operation for collecting information of the driver cannot be actively performed.

[0004] Conventionally, as an information providing service system for a driver, there is a function of calculating and notifying traffic congestion information and estimated transit time of a planned transit route together with a route search function of a car navigation system and traffic congestion information of VICS. . Further, as one of the customized information providing services, there is an information distribution system using a mailing list of a pre-registration type by a user. In this service, as shown in the figure, it is possible to receive customized information provision by selecting and registering a category that the user wants to receive when subscribing to the service.

On the other hand, in a Web-based community system such as the Internet, there is an awareness-based service that manages the access history of a user and introduces a homepage accessed by a user having a similar access history.

[0006]

However, with the rapid development of mobile communications, it is becoming natural that a huge amount of information can be accessed anytime and anywhere. A service that uniformly restricts information access, such as restricting information collection, has a problem of significantly impairing the inherent convenience of an in-vehicle information communication device.

[0007] There is also a system that can access a huge amount of information sources such as the Internet through in-vehicle information communication equipment. However, information retrieval and the like are left up to the user. It is necessary to search for information, and there is a problem that the characteristics of a car as a high-speed moving tool are sacrificed.

[0008] Under the ever-changing driving environment, the user preference for the type of information also changes every moment. Therefore, in order to cover user preferences in the static category, it is necessary to provide a large amount of information to the user so as to satisfy a sufficient condition, and the user needs a certain amount of labor to search for desired information from the information. There was a problem that required time. The effort and time required to select information may have been acceptable in a traditional office-home environment, but not in a fast-moving car.

The present invention solves the above-mentioned problems and provides a user with customized information according to the behavior of the driver, the surrounding environment, the history of access preferences, and the like, so that the user can enjoy comfortable and secure safety. The purpose is to improve accessibility to information.

[0010]

According to the present invention, in a system in which a vehicle arbitrarily communicates with an information providing service center to receive information, the vehicle detects and accumulates the driving behavior of a driver, The main feature is that the driving behavior category of the driver is obtained from the vehicle and transmitted to the information providing service center, and the information providing service center transmits information along the driving behavior category to the vehicle side.

[0011] The present invention also relates to a vehicle which detects and accumulates the surrounding environment in addition to the driving behavior of the driver, further accumulates the information access history of the driver, and stores the driving behavior, the surrounding environment, and the information access history. For example, the information preference of the driver is obtained and transmitted to the information providing service center, and the information providing service center transmits information according to the information preference of the driver to the vehicle side.

[0012]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration of an information providing system according to the present invention. In the figure, 100 is an automobile, 200 is an information providing service center, and 300 is the Internet. Reference numeral 110 denotes a driver.
The vehicle side 100 obtains the current user's desired information preference from the driving behavior of the driver, the surrounding environment, the information access history, and the like, and transmits the information preference to the center 100 side via the communication device 180. The center 100 collects information from the Internet 300 or the like, and transmits information according to the information preferences of the user to the vehicle 100 via the communication device 260. The vehicle 100 notifies the driver of the information from the center through a user interface.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a specific configuration inside the automobile 100. In the vehicle 100, a driving behavior sensor 111 for detecting the driving behavior of the driver 110, a GPS receiver 112 for detecting the position of the vehicle 100, a behavior history database 113 for storing the driving behavior of the driver 110 together with the position of the vehicle 100, a driver There is a category model database 114 in which a model of the behavior history category is stored, and a category calculation device 115 for calculating the behavior category of the driver 110 from the behavior history database 113 and the category model database 114. Further, in the vehicle, there are an information access management server 121 that manages information access of the driver (user) 110 and an access database 122 that stores the access history of the user. Further, the vehicle has an on-board center 131 for detecting the environment around the vehicle 100, a car navigation device 132, and a surrounding environment history database 133 for storing a history of the surrounding environment. The relation calculation unit 140 is a part for calculating the relationship between the driving behavior category, the information access and the surrounding environment, and the situation-dependent preference database 141 is a database that stores the calculation results of the relation calculation unit 140. Further, in the vehicle, there are a risk calculation server 150, a monitor 160, a speaker 161, an information conversion device 170 such as a media selection device 171, a timing calculation device 172, and a media conversion device 173, a communication device 180, and the like. There are various roadside sensors 190 outside the vehicle.

FIG. 3 shows a specific configuration example in the information providing service center 200. Information service center 200
Is an information collection server 210 that collects information from an information source such as the Internet, an information filtering server 220 that extracts necessary information from the information collection server 210,
A user information database 230 for storing information of a plurality of users, a user information management server 240 for calculating and managing the similarity between the users, an information extraction server 250 for extracting access information of similar users from the information collection server 210,
Communication device 260 that communicates with communication device 180 on the vehicle side
Etc.

First, the basic operation of this embodiment will be described. The driving behavior sensor 111 provided in the vehicle 100 of the automobile 100 acquires driving behavior information of the driver 110 in real time. The driving behavior to be acquired is a steering wheel angle, a throttle opening, a brake fluid pressure, a turn signal lever operation, a wiper operation, and the like. The acquired movement behavior information is accumulated in the behavior history database 113. In the behavior history database 113, together with the driving behavior information of the driver 110, position information acquired in real time by the GPS receiver 112 is also accumulated. Using the accumulated driving behavior information and position information, the category calculation device 115 performs category classification (speed madness, urban area / mountain / mountain / coast driving tendency, etc.) of the driving behavior of the driver. The category classification is calculated for a plurality of periods such as the past 10 minutes and the past 1 hour. This category classification is performed by the category model database 114 that can be updated from the center 200 via the communication devices 180 to 260.
Is calculated using the model stored in.

The access management server 121 monitors the access information of the driver (user) 110 via the communication device 180, stores the access history information in the access history database 122, and uses the access history information. Calculate the information access preference of the user. Further, the surrounding environment history database 133 accumulates surrounding environment information obtained from the various on-board sensors 131, the car navigation device 132, and the various roadside sensors 190, and manages the information as history information.

The relation calculation device 140 obtains the relationship between the driving behavior category obtained by the category calculation device 115, the surrounding environment stored in the surrounding environment history database 133, and the information access preference calculated by the access management server 121. That is, the current information preference (situation-dependent preference) is estimated from the information access preference and the current driving behavior, weather, time, position, road alignment, temperature, congestion status, and the like. The obtained relationship (situation-dependent preference) is stored in the situation-dependent preference database 141, and the communication device 180
Transmitted to the center 200.

On the other hand, on the center 200 side, the information collection server 210 searches for information on an information source such as the Internet 300 and stores and manages indexes. The information filtering server 220 includes the communication devices 180 to 26
The information is acquired from the index of the information collection server 210 according to the user's situation-dependent preferences based on the driving behavior category and the surrounding environment information transmitted via the information collection server 210. This acquired information is used as information filtering server 2
20 is transmitted to the automobile 100 via the communication devices 260 to 180.

The information transmitted to the automobile 100 is as follows:
The information is provided to the user of the driver 110 via a user interface such as the monitor 160 and the speaker 161 via the information conversion device 170.

Next, another operation example of this embodiment will be described.
User information database 230 of information providing center 200
Accumulates and manages information (situation-dependent preference, driving category, etc.) of each user (driver) transmitted via the communication devices 180 to 260. Using this information,
The user information management server 240 calculates and manages the similarity between each user. That is, the user information management server 240
It manages similarities such as situation-dependent preferences and driving behavior categories among users. The information extraction server 250 is a communication device 18
0 through the communication device 260 and, from the current status of the user (driver 110), extract the access information in the same state of the similar user managed by the user information management server 240 from the information collection server 210. Then, the information is transmitted to the user's automobile 100 via the communication devices 260 to 180. FIG. 4 shows a schematic flowchart in this case.

Further, another operation example of this embodiment will be described.
On the vehicle 100 side, the risk calculation server 150 calculates a near future risk using information obtained from the driving behavior sensor 110, the behavior history database 112, and the surrounding environment history database 133. The media selection device 171 and the timing calculation device 172 determine the media and timing when providing information to the user (driver 110), respectively, according to the risk. The media conversion device 173 converts the media of the information transmitted from the center 200 into the media determined by the media selection device 171. The information converted into an appropriate medium is transmitted from the interface such as the monitor 160 or the speaker 161 to the user (the driver 110) by the timing calculation device 172.
Is provided at the calculated timing.

[0022]

As described above, according to the present invention, by using the driving behavior and the history of the driver, the access history to the information and the surrounding conditions, the user's desired and sufficient safety is ensured. Since the information is provided, both the safety and the comfort are improved.

For example, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide communication according to the situation, and “anytime, anywhere”
The number of situations in which communication can be performed is increased, and the portability inherent in mobile communication can be maximized.

Providing accessibility to various types of information in the vehicle interior in a vehicle society that is increasingly developed in the future means that the range of activities of the user in the society is expanded. Further, since the time for information filtering can be greatly reduced, it is possible not only to improve security but also to expand the range of information search by the user over time.

Further, at that time, information corresponding to the place is provided, so that even in a place where the user travels for the first time, an appropriate service can be received by utilizing the history of the user having the same tendency. And an awareness-based information provision service becomes possible.

Further, the system absorbs the difference between the office, home and vehicle, so that the user can receive information seamlessly regardless of the location.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 shows a schematic block diagram of a system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a specific configuration example of the vehicle side of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a specific configuration example on the information providing service center side of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an operation example of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a selection display screen for explaining a conventional technique.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 100 vehicle (automobile) 110 driver 111 driving behavior sensor 112 GPS receiving device 113 behavior history database 114 category model database 115 category calculation device 121 access management server 122 access history database 131 on-board sensor 132 car navigation device 133 peripheral environment history database 140 relation Computing device 141 Situation-dependent preference database 150 Risk calculation server 160 Monitor 161 Speaker 170 Information conversion device 180 Communication device 190 Roadside sensor 200 Information service center 210 Information collection server 220 Information filtering server 230 User information database 240 User information management server 250 Information Extraction server 260 Communication device 300 Internet

Claims (6)

[Claims] An information providing method in which a vehicle arbitrarily communicates with an information providing service center to receive information provision, wherein the vehicle detects and accumulates the driving behavior of the driver, and the driving behavior of the driver is determined based on the driving behavior. An information providing method, wherein a behavior category is obtained and transmitted to an information providing service center, and the information providing service center transmits information according to the driving behavior category to a vehicle side. 2. An information providing method in which a vehicle arbitrarily communicates with an information providing service center to receive information provision, wherein the vehicle detects and accumulates a driving behavior and a surrounding environment of the driver. The information access history is stored, and the driver's information preference is determined based on the driving behavior, the surrounding environment, and the information access history, and transmitted to the information providing service center. An information providing method characterized in that the information is transmitted to a user. 3. An information providing system in which a vehicle arbitrarily communicates with an information providing service center to receive information provision, wherein the vehicle side detects a driver's driving behavior and stores the driving behavior information. A history database, means for categorizing the driving behavior of the driver from the detected driving behavior information and the history database, means for transmitting the driving behavior category to an information providing service center, and information transmitted from the information providing service center. The information providing service center includes: means for extracting information according to the driver's driving behavior category sent from the vehicle side; and means for transmitting the information to the vehicle side. An information providing system comprising: 4. The information providing system according to claim 3, wherein the vehicle side stores a user's information access history,
Means for detecting the surrounding environment of the car, and means for determining the current user's information preference from the user's information access history, driving behavior, and the surrounding environment of the car. Means for collecting the collected information; and means for transmitting the collected information to the vehicle.
An information providing system, characterized in that: 5. The information providing system according to claim 4, wherein the information providing service center stores means for accumulating situation-dependent preferences and driving behavior categories of a plurality of users, and information of the situation-dependent preferences and driving behavior categories among the users. Means for obtaining similarity, means for calculating an information category which is preferably provided to the user from information access history and situational preferences of a user similar to a certain user, and collection of information along the information category And a means for transmitting the collected information to the vehicle. 6. The information providing system according to claim 3, wherein the vehicle side selects a means for detecting a degree of danger from a driver's driving operation or a surrounding situation, and selects an information providing medium according to the degree of danger. And a means for calculating information provision timing according to the degree of risk, and a means for providing the selected information according to the timing.