JP2001195684A - System for detecting road situation - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve safety in driving by detecting a front road situation by the detection of a vehicle or an obstacle in front of a preceding vehicle. SOLUTION: Multiple object detecting devices 10 are arranged at interval along a road surface 1. Each device receives data including object existence information which is transmitted from the front device 10, adds one's own object existence information to the received data, successively transmit information to the rear detecting device 10 and also transmits it to a road state monitor device 40 which is mounted on a vehicle 30 when the vehicle passes. The road situation in front of a its own vehicle is judged by the device 40, based on received data.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a road condition detecting system, and more particularly to a road condition detecting system capable of detecting a road condition further ahead of a preceding vehicle.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a magnetic field generating means (hereinafter, referred to as a magnetic nail) such as a permanent magnet or an electromagnet is installed at regular intervals in a vehicle traveling direction on a road surface, while a magnetic sensor is mounted on a vehicle side to provide a magnetic nail. Detect the magnetic field generated by the magnetic sensor,
There has been proposed a vehicle guidance system that guides the traveling direction of a vehicle such that the position of a magnetic nail is located at the center of the vehicle in the vehicle width direction based on a change in the detection output of a sensor (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei.
12409 and JP-A-8-201006, etc.).

In such a vehicle guidance system,
It is very important for safety to detect the road condition ahead of the own vehicle. 2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a device for detecting a road condition ahead of a vehicle, there is a device using a laser radar. This involves projecting a laser beam in front of the vehicle, detecting the presence or absence of reflected light, and detecting the presence of obstacles ahead and the preceding vehicle.
If an obstacle or a preceding vehicle exists, the distance to the obstacle or the like is detected.

[0004]

However, the conventional apparatus using a laser radar can detect only an obstacle or a vehicle immediately before the own vehicle. For example, when there is a preceding vehicle, it is not possible to detect the presence of a vehicle or an obstacle further ahead of the preceding vehicle. For this reason, in a situation where a plurality of vehicles are present in front, it has not been possible to grasp the situation further ahead of the preceding vehicle, detect the danger or the like more quickly, and reflect the danger on the driving of the vehicle. Further, if the inter-vehicle communication is used, it is possible to grasp the situation further ahead of the preceding vehicle, but it is far from realizable since all vehicles must be equipped with the equipment.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a road condition detecting system capable of detecting not only the position immediately before the own vehicle but also the road condition ahead of the preceding vehicle.

[0006]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a road condition detecting system comprising: a plurality of object detecting devices provided at intervals in a vehicle traveling direction on a road surface; A road condition monitoring device that monitors a road condition based on data transmitted from the object detection device, wherein each of the object detection devices detects an existence of an object on the road surface; Receiving means for receiving data including object presence information transmitted from the device, and adding the own object presence information detected by the object detection means to the forward object presence information received by the reception means to create data Information processing means, and transmission means for transmitting creation data of the information processing means to a rear object detection device and the road condition monitoring device, wherein the road condition monitoring device includes Receiving means for receiving the signal data, and configured to include a monitoring means for monitoring the road conditions on the basis of data which the receiving means receives.

In such a configuration, each object detection device detects the presence or absence of an object on the road surface in the vicinity of itself by the object detection means, and receives the data transmitted from the object detection device in front by the reception means. The information processing means creates data by adding its own detection result to the received object presence / absence information from the forward object detection device. The transmission means transmits the data created by the information processing means to the object detection device and the road condition monitoring device at the rear. The road condition monitoring device receives data transmitted from each of the object detection devices by a receiving unit, and monitors a road condition based on the data received by the monitoring unit.

[0008] The monitoring means may include a display means for displaying a road condition based on the transmission data of each object detection device received by the receiving means. It will be possible to monitor road conditions such as occurrences and accidents.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a determining means for determining a road condition based on the transmission data of each object detecting device received by the receiving means, so that the determining means automatically determines the road condition based on the received data. Road conditions such as the occurrence of traffic congestion and the occurrence of accidents are determined. In this case, the result of the determination may be notified to the driver or the like.

If the road condition monitoring device is mounted on a vehicle as in the invention of claim 4, the traveling safety of the vehicle is improved. If the monitoring result of the monitoring means is transmitted to the vehicle control means for controlling the vehicle speed as in claim 5, the vehicle speed can be controlled according to the road conditions ahead. As described above, if the object detection device is configured to use solar energy as a power source, it is not necessary to lay a power supply line to each object detection device.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, the object detecting device comprises:
If it is provided with a magnetic field generating means for detecting the position of the vehicle in the vehicle width direction in cooperation with a magnetic sensor mounted on the vehicle, it can be applied to, for example, an unmanned driving system in combination with an automatic guidance system of the vehicle. become able to.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a forward situation detecting system according to the present invention when a road condition monitoring device is mounted on a vehicle will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of installation of an object detection device provided on a road surface. In FIG. 1, traveling lane 1 on road surface 1
The object detection device 10 of this embodiment is installed at the center of each of A and 1B with an interval (for example, 1 m interval) provided in the vehicle traveling direction. Reference numeral 2 denotes a white line indicating the boundary between the driving lanes 1A and 1B, and reference numeral 30 denotes a vehicle. The object detection device 10
Is not limited to 1 m and may be set as appropriate according to road conditions and the like.

FIG. 2 shows the configuration of the object detection device 10. In FIG. 2, the object detection device 10 according to the present embodiment includes:
A circuit section 11 and a power supply battery 12 of the circuit section 11 are housed in a case 13 and buried in the road surface 1. Further, the mold section 14 protruding from the road surface 1 has a transmitter 15 for emitting ultrasonic waves and a receiver 16 for receiving reflected waves.
For example, three pairs (shown in FIG. 4) are fixed, and an opening 14a for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves is formed. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, ultrasonic waves are radiated from the transmitter 15 forward in the vehicle traveling direction. A solar panel 17 for converting solar energy into electricity is provided on the upper surface of the mold section 14, and the converted electricity is stored in the battery 12. By using solar energy as a power supply in this way, the work of laying power supply wiring can be omitted. A transmitting antenna 18 and a receiving antenna 19 are provided around the outside of the mold portion 14.

FIG. 4 shows the structure of the circuit section 11. In FIG. 4, a circuit unit 11 performs a gate process on a reception signal from the transmission unit 21 for driving the three transmitters 15 and a reception signal from the three receivers 16 by a control signal from the transmission unit 21 and receives the signal. And an object detection unit 24 as an object detection unit including a determination unit 23 that determines the presence or absence of an object based on a reception signal from the reception unit 22. A receiving unit 25 for inputting a reception signal of the reception antenna 19; a data processing unit 26 for inputting a determination result from the determination unit 23 of the object detection unit 24 and a reception signal from the reception unit 25 to perform data processing;
A memory 27 that stores data created by the data processing unit 26 and a transmission unit 28 that transmits information stored in the memory 27 via the transmission antenna 18 are provided.

The receiving section 25 is provided with the front object detecting device 1.
The object presence / absence information added with ID information indicating the transmission source from 0 is input from the reception antenna 19 and output to the data processing unit 26, and constitutes reception means together with the reception antenna 19.

The data processing unit 26 adds the object presence / absence information and ID information detected by the object detection unit 24 to the object presence / absence information of the front object detection device 10 obtained from the reception signal input from the reception unit 25. To create data in memory 27
To memorize. Therefore, the data processing unit 26 and the memory 27 constitute information processing means.

The transmitting section 28 transmits the data stored in the memory 27 via the transmitting antenna 18 to the rear object detecting apparatus 10 and the road condition monitoring apparatus 40 mounted on the vehicle 30.
(Shown in FIG. 5), and constitutes a transmitting means together with the transmitting antenna 18.

In this embodiment, the object is detected by the ultrasonic wave. However, the method of detecting the object is not limited to this. For example, an optical sensor such as a laser, an image sensor, a GPS, or the like can be applied. However, when an optical sensor is applied, it is desirable to project light beams both upward and in the horizontal direction in consideration of narrow directivity. G
When the PS is applied, since the presence or absence of an object is detected based on the presence or absence of a GPS signal from a satellite and a built-in GPS receiver, detection may not be possible depending on the shape and material of the object.

FIG. 5 shows the configuration of the road condition monitoring device 40 mounted on the vehicle 30. In FIG. 5, a road condition monitoring device 40 according to the present embodiment, which is mounted on a vehicle, receives a reception antenna 41 for receiving transmission data transmitted from each of the object detection devices 10 and a reception signal of the reception antenna 41. Receiving unit 42, a data processing unit 43 for inputting a received signal from the receiving unit 42 to perform data processing, a memory 44 for storing processing data of the data processing unit 43, and a processing data of the data processing unit 43 and the memory 44. The vehicle includes a road condition determination unit 45 as a determination unit that determines a road condition ahead based on stored data, and a display unit 46 as a display unit that displays a determination result of the road condition determination unit 45. The judgment result of the road condition judgment unit 45 can be transmitted to the vehicle control unit 31 that controls the speed of the vehicle and the like. Here, the receiving antenna 41 and the receiving unit 42 constitute a receiving means on the road condition monitoring device side. The data processing unit 43, the memory 4
4. The road condition judging unit 45 and the display unit 46 constitute monitoring means for monitoring the road condition based on the received data.

Next, the operation of the road condition detecting system according to this embodiment will be described. First, the operation of the object detection device 10 will be described. Each of the object detection devices 10 emits ultrasonic waves intermittently at predetermined time intervals in the object detection unit 24 in the same manner as a conventional ultrasonic sensor, detects the presence or absence of a reflected wave, and detects an automobile or obstacle in front of the own vehicle. The presence or absence of an object such as an object is determined, and the determination result is transmitted to the data processing unit 26. The transmission data of the front object detection device 10 received by the reception antenna 19 is input to the data processing unit 26 via the reception unit 25. The data processing unit 26 adds the determination result from the object detection unit 24 to the received transmission data from the front, creates data, and stores the data in the memory 27. For example, the presence of an object is stored in the memory 27 as binary data of “1” and the absence of an object as “0”. When the receiving antenna 19 and the transmitting antenna 18 are close to each other as shown in FIG. 2, there is a possibility that the own transmission data is also received. Therefore, the data processing unit 26 has a function of removing its own data from the received data based on the ID information or the like.

Each object detecting device 10 is, for example,
Assuming that the data of the object detection devices 10 (including each ID information and the object presence / absence information) is added to the data of the object detection device 10 and the presence / absence information of 100 objects is stored, as shown in FIG.
Adds and stores its data A1 to the object detecting device 10 _1, the front 99 of the data A. Adds and stores its data A2 to the front 99 of the data including the object detection apparatus 10 ₂ In the object detecting device 10 _1. That is, in the object detecting device 10 _2, the data A of the object detection apparatus 10 ₁ and the object detection apparatus 10 ₁ of the front 98 of the data A 'as shown in FIG. 6
1 and its own data A2 are stored. In this way,
In the object detection device ₁₀₁₀₀ , the front object detection devices 10 ₁ to 1
00 adds its own data A100 to the data A1~A99 ₉₉ stores. Thereby, based on each ID information of each object detection device 10, an object (an obstacle or a preceding vehicle, etc.)
Can be determined, and the presence or absence of an object can be detected up to about 100 m away.

Each of the object detection devices 10 stored as described above
Data including the ID information and the object presence / absence information
8 to the vehicle 30 passing through the transmitting antenna 18. Thereby, the existence of a plurality of preceding vehicles, obstacles, and the like up to about 100 m ahead can be known on the vehicle side.

For example, if 20 bits are assigned to the ID information, it is possible to provide the ID information to about one million object detecting devices 10. Then, each object detection device 10
If 00 pieces of object presence / absence information are stored, a total of 12
It is 0 bit, and the data is constantly transmitted and retransmitted in consideration of the reliability of information transmission.
If bits are allocated, the data length is about 300 bits. Object detection device 1 with a vehicle speed of 120 km / h
0 and the communication distance in the traveling direction between the vehicle 30 is 50 cm
Then, the communication time is 15 msec. in this case,
The modulation speed is about 20 kbit / sec, and practical use is possible. The carrier frequency is commonly used 12
It is possible to use the 5 KHz band.

Next, the operation of the road condition monitoring device 40 mounted on the vehicle 30 will be described. When the vehicle 30 passes over the object detection device 10, the transmission data from the object detection device 10 is received by, for example, the reception antenna 41 attached to the bottom of the vehicle body. The received data is input to the data processing unit 43 via the receiving unit 42. The data processing unit 43 stores the received data in the memory 44 and outputs the received data to the road condition determination unit 45. The road condition determination unit 45 determines the road condition based on the latest data to be input and the storage data stored in the memory 44.

When there is an object ahead, the position of the own object and the position of the forward object are determined based on each ID information. For example, if the relative distance between the own position and the position of the forward object is small, the forward object is determined. Can be determined as a traveling vehicle. In addition, if there is no change in the position of the forward object, the forward object can be determined to be an obstacle (including a stopped vehicle) that does not move. Furthermore, when the data with an object is continuous and there is little change in the position, if there is a position change in the leading data of the continuous data, it is a natural congestion, and if there is no position change in the leading data, an accident occurs. Can be determined.

By displaying the judgment result of the road condition judging unit 45 on the display unit 46, the occupant can grasp not only the presence of the preceding vehicle but also the presence of vehicles and obstacles in front of the vehicle. Be able to respond quickly to road conditions.

As a display form of the display unit 46, the judgment result of the road condition judging unit 45 may be displayed as character information such as "the traffic congestion ahead" or "the obstacle ahead". The image may be displayed as shown in FIG. FIG.
Indicates the preceding vehicle as a black square on the road. By displaying the image in this manner, the occupant can grasp at a glance the road conditions and the like where traffic is congested ahead by looking at the image. Further, when the data of the plurality of object detection devices 10 has an object continuously,
Since the vehicle length can be predicted based on the number and the installation interval of the object detection device 10, if the length of the black square is displayed according to the vehicle length as shown in FIG. Can be determined.

The vehicle speed can be automatically controlled by transmitting the determination result to the vehicle control unit 31, and the control operation in this case will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

In step 1 (indicated by S1 in the figure, the same applies hereinafter), the road condition judging section 45 judges whether or not there is an object ahead. If NO, the process proceeds to step 5, where the vehicle control unit 31 controls the vehicle speed to a predetermined constant speed. If YES, proceed to step 2.

In step 2, it is determined from the data change state whether or not the front object is moving. In the case of YES, the forward object is determined to be a vehicle, and the process proceeds to step 3. In the case of NO, the forward object is determined to be an immovable obstacle, and the process proceeds to step 6.

In step 3, it is determined whether or not there is a stationary object (obstacle) two places ahead. If NO, step 4
The vehicle speed is controlled so as to follow the preceding vehicle in accordance with the relative speed with respect to the preceding vehicle, and the process returns to step 1.

If NO is determined in step 2, in step 6, braking control is performed so that the vehicle can be stopped just before the obstacle. If the determination is YES in step 3, the speed is reduced in step 7 to monitor the obstacle. After executing the control in steps 6 and 7, it is determined in step 8 whether or not the obstacle has been eliminated. If the obstacle has been eliminated, the process returns to step 1.

In this way, the road condition monitoring device 40
Based on this information, automatic traveling control of the vehicle according to the condition of the road ahead can be performed. Then, as shown by a dotted line in FIG. 2, if each object detection device 10 is provided with, for example, a permanent magnet 50 as a magnetic field generating means and has a magnetic nail function in the vehicle guidance system, it is combined with the above-described automatic traveling control function. Thus, the vehicle can be guided without performing inter-vehicle communication with the front and rear vehicles, and a highly safe automatic driving system can be realized.

In this embodiment, the road condition monitoring device 40
Although the example which mounted in the vehicle was shown, it may be provided not only in this but on the ground side. For example, a leaky coaxial cable (LCX) is installed along the road surface 1 on which each of the object detection devices 10 is provided, and data of the object detection device 10 is transmitted to a ground station equipped with the road condition monitoring device 40 via the leaky coaxial cable. It is good also as a structure which performs.

In this case, for example, if the number of data stored in each object detection device 10 is 100, 100 object detection devices are set as one section, and data is transmitted to the ground station via a leaky coaxial cable for each section. I do. The road condition monitoring device 40 of the ground station monitors the road condition by integrating the received data of each section. Further, it is preferable that the monitoring result can be transmitted to each traveling vehicle as information on the current road condition. On this occasion,
A display device may be provided on the vehicle side to display the received information.

[0037]

As described above, according to the first to fourth aspects of the present invention, it is possible to detect not only a preceding vehicle but also an obstacle or a vehicle in front of the vehicle, so that the driver can avoid a traffic jam or an accident. Etc. can be grasped in advance.

According to the invention described in claim 5, according to claim 1,
In addition to the effects of (1) to (4), by transmitting the monitoring result of the road condition to the vehicle control means for controlling the vehicle speed, it becomes possible to perform automatic traveling control of the vehicle according to the road condition ahead.

According to the sixth aspect of the present invention, the work of installing the power supply line of the object detection device becomes unnecessary, and the work of installing the object detection device becomes easier. According to the invention described in claim 7, the safety of the automatic guidance system of the vehicle can be improved,
It is possible to realize a highly safe unmanned driving system and the like.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an installation diagram of an object detection device in an embodiment of a road condition detection system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of the above-described object detection device.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of an arrangement of a transmitter of the object detection device according to the first embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of a circuit unit in the object detection device.

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram of a road condition monitoring device.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a data transmission operation of the object detection device.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a display example of road condition monitoring data;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a traveling control operation using monitoring data.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 road surface 10 object detection device 11 circuit unit 15 transmitter 16 receiver 17 solar panel 18 transmission antenna 19, 41 reception antenna 21, 28 transmission unit 22, 25, 42 reception unit 23 determination unit 24 object detection unit 27, 43 Data processing unit 28, 44 Memory 30 Vehicle 31 Vehicle control unit 45 Road condition determination unit 46 Display unit

Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat II (reference) B60R 21/00 628 B60R 21/00 628B 628C 628F F02D 29/02 301 F02D 29/02 301A 301D G08G 1/04 G08G 1 / 04 J 1/09 1/09 F 1/16 1/16 A // G05D 1/02 G05D 1/02 JF term (reference) 3D044 AA01 AA25 AC56 3G093 BA23 CB10 DB16 DB18 5H180 AA01 AA27 BB04 BB09 CC03 CC04 CC11 CC12 CC19 FF05 FF12 FF13 FF25 FF27 LL01 LL02 LL04 LL08 LL09 LL11 5H301 AA03 AA09 CC03 CC06 DD07 DD11 DD17 EE06 EE12 FF04 FF11 FF21

Claims (7)

[Claims] A plurality of object detection devices installed at intervals in a vehicle traveling direction on a road surface; and a road condition monitoring device monitoring a road condition based on data transmitted from each of the object detection devices. Each of the object detection devices includes: an object detection unit that detects the presence or absence of an object on the road surface; a reception unit that receives data including object presence / absence information transmitted from a front object detection device; Information processing means for generating data by adding the own object presence / absence information obtained by the reception means to the forward object presence / absence information received by the receiving means; Transmitting means for transmitting the road condition monitoring device, the road condition monitoring device receives the transmission data of each of the object detection devices, and the road condition based on the data received by the receiving device Road condition detecting system comprising: the monitoring means, a to view. 2. The road condition detecting system according to claim 1, wherein said monitoring means includes a display means for displaying a road condition based on transmission data of each object detecting device received by said receiving means. 3. The road condition detecting system according to claim 1, wherein said monitoring means includes a judging means for judging a road condition based on transmission data of each object detecting device received by said receiving means. 4. The road condition detecting system according to claim 1, wherein said road condition monitoring device is mounted on a vehicle. 5. The road condition detecting system according to claim 4, wherein the monitoring result of said monitoring means is transmitted to a vehicle control means for controlling a vehicle speed. , 6. The road condition detection system according to claim 1, wherein the object detection device is configured to use solar energy as a power source. 7. The object detecting device according to claim 1, further comprising: a magnetic field generating means for detecting a position of the vehicle in a vehicle width direction in cooperation with a magnetic sensor mounted on the vehicle. Road condition detection system according to 4.