JP2006115364A - Audio output control device - Google Patents

Abstract

An object of the present invention is to make it easier to hear by playing a sound that is important from which sound is heard from an appropriate sound source position and preventing a collision with sound that is not important from which sound is heard. It is to provide information by voice.
A virtual sound source position when each piece of information to be output by voice is output alone is stored, and when audio information is output alone, the sound information is output from the virtual sound source position, and a plurality of information is output. When audio information is output from the sound source position, the virtual sound source position is adjusted and output based on the priority given to each information.
[Selection] Figure 5

Description

  The present invention relates to a system for providing information to a user using voice.

  As an example of a system that provides information by voice, in a car navigation system, when information such as route guidance is transmitted to a driver, voice guidance is usually used in addition to display on a screen. This is a way to increase safety by allowing drivers to obtain information without having to look at the screen while driving. Also, while driving, there are many cases where sound from CDs and radios flows in the car. When performing the above voice guidance, the volume of the CDs and radios is reduced, or the voice guidance is sent to the front speaker on the driver seat side. It is devised to make it easy to convey the contents of the voice guidance by playing from.

Also, as disclosed in Patent Document 1, there is known a method of presenting the direction of an obstacle to a driver in an easy-to-understand manner by detecting the obstacle with a sensor and presenting a warning voice from the direction of the obstacle. Yes.
Further, as disclosed in Patent Document 2, the building position from the driver's viewpoint using the position information of the building built in the car navigation system and the information of the position and direction of the vehicle measured by the GPS or gyroscope is used. There is known a method of performing voice guidance that is easier to understand by estimating the direction in which the sound is visible and performing voice guidance using a virtual sound source from that direction.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-58219

JP 2002-267470 A

  Some of the information that the system communicates to the user using voice is important, and the information that is heard from which is important. What is heard from which is important is a warning sound to notify the presence of an obstacle or route guidance sound such as a right or left turn. On the other hand, it is not so important which weather forecast or traffic information comes from.

  In the above-described system, control such as route guidance that makes it easy to hear priority information is performed, but control based on the importance of the direction in which the sound is heard is not considered. In this application, audio that is important to hear from is played from the appropriate sound source position, and information that is easy to hear is provided by preventing collision with non-important audio from which sound is heard. .

  The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and stores a virtual sound source position (desired virtual sound source position) in a case where each piece of information to be output by sound is output alone, and independently stores sound information. Audio information is output from this desired virtual sound source position, and when sound information is output from multiple sound source positions, the virtual sound source position is adjusted and output based on the priority given to each information. To do.

  Audio that is important to which sound is heard is played from the appropriate sound source position, and sound that is not important to which sound is heard is controlled so that it does not collide with the above sound. It becomes easy to hear.

  Hereinafter, in the present application, the present invention will be described using an in-vehicle audio output device as an example. However, it is obvious that the present application can be applied to any audio information providing system that can provide a plurality of types of information in a space that is not limited to being mounted on a vehicle.

  FIG. 1 (a) is a diagram showing a speaker arrangement of an audio output control system according to the present invention. In this example, six speakers 100 are used in order to realize sound output by three-dimensional sound. Four speakers 100 are arranged on the left and right of the upper part and the lower part, respectively, and two speakers 100 are arranged on the left and right. The front lower speaker 100 can be installed on the side of the front door, on the dashboard, or the like. The front upper speaker 100 can be installed on a pillar beside the windshield. The rear speaker 100 can be installed behind the rear seat or on the side of the rear door. Since many private cars on the market are provided with stereo speakers on the left and right in the front, these speakers may be used as the lower speaker 100 in the present system. Similarly, when stereo speakers are arranged at the rear, these speakers may be used as the lower speaker 100 in the present system.

  The method of generating three-dimensional sound using these speakers 100 is not particularly limited in the present invention. However, considering that the vertical field of view seen from the driver's seat is not so wide, the forward vertical direction is considered. It is preferable to use two sets of the front upper speaker 100 and two sets of the lower front speaker 100 separately. With respect to the front left and right direction, a method of expressing the arrival direction of the sound by adjusting the balance of the left and right speakers 100 is used. Alternatively, a method of expressing the head-related transfer functions to the left and right ears in the horizontal direction with digital filters, applying each digital filter to monaural sound, and outputting from the left and right speakers 100 can be used.

In addition, when separation in the vertical direction is not necessary, it is conceivable to use a four-speaker configuration in which the front upper speaker 100 is omitted.
FIG.1 (b) is a figure showing another speaker arrangement | positioning of the audio | voice output control system by this invention. In this example, a stereo dipole speaker 101 is disposed in front of the driver, and one speaker 100 is disposed on each of the left and right rear portions. It is necessary to install the speaker 100 at the upper front by outputting each sound in which the digital filter expressing the head-related transfer functions of the left and right ears in the horizontal direction and the vertical direction is applied to monaural sound by the stereo dipole speaker 101. Voice guidance can be performed from the top, bottom, left and right.

  The above is an example of a three-dimensional sound output method that can be used in the present invention. A spatial position of a virtual sound source is designated by designation by a direction from a driver or designation by coordinates, and a sound source is designated at that position. Any method that can make the listener feel that there is.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the audio output control system according to the present invention. The audio output control system 200 is centered on a system control unit 201 composed of a CPU, ROM, RAM, data bus, and the like, with a GPS receiver 202, an autonomous navigation sensor 203, a traffic information receiver 204, a display 205, and obstacle detection. The unit 206, the audio unit 207, the map information reading unit 208, the HDD 209, the audio output device 210, the three-dimensional sound control unit 211, the virtual sound source position determination unit 212, the operation unit 213, and the like are connected. The GPS receiver 202 is a device that receives signals from a plurality of GPS satellites (not shown). The autonomous navigation sensor 203 is a device that estimates the current position of the vehicle and the direction of the vehicle using gyro information, vehicle speed pulses, and the like. The map information stored in the HDD 209 is read from the map information reading unit 208 to the RAM and calculated from the information received by the GPS receiver 202, the position information obtained by the autonomous navigation sensor 203, and the map A final current position is estimated by map matching using information, and a map around the vehicle position and a symbol representing the vehicle are displayed on the display 1005 through the system control unit 201.

The traffic information receiver 204 receives VICS traffic information through FM multiplex broadcasting, radio wave beacons, optical beacons, and the like. The obstacle detection unit 206 is an apparatus that detects obstacles that exist in front of or behind the vehicle. The obstacle detection unit 206 is a sensor device such as a millimeter wave radar, an ultrasonic sonar, or an infrared camera, and the distance to the sensed object or the object. A warning signal is generated when there is a risk of collision from the relative speed with the car. The audio unit 207 includes a radio receiver that receives audio broadcasts such as AM broadcasts and FM broadcasts, a CD player, and an MD player. The voice output device 210 is a device for performing route guidance during traveling, received traffic information, warnings, and the like by voice, and is configured by a combination of the above speakers. The three-dimensional acoustic control unit 211 is a device that allows the user to feel the direction of voice arrival by controlling the amplitude, delay, and phase of the voice output from each speaker constituting the voice output device 210. The virtual sound source position determination unit 212 determines the direction in which the audio from the audio unit, the route guidance sound, the warning sound, and the like can be heard based on the directionality priority and the information provision priority of each sound. This is notified to the three-dimensional sound control unit 211 as the position information of the sound source. The operation unit 213 is a unit for the user to operate the information terminal, and can be configured by a remote controller, a touch panel, a voice recognition device, or the like.
In order to explain the above-mentioned direction priority and information provision priority, several situations that can occur while driving a car are taken up.

Case 1: When listening to the radio and presenting a landmark building at the time of turning left or right and guiding the route In this case, in order for the driver to quickly find the landmark building, there is a landmark building Direction is important information. On the other hand, the direction of the radio sound is not important because it is broadcast regardless of the driver's situation. Therefore, it is preferable to set the directionality priority of the route guidance voice presenting the mark higher than that of the radio voice. Regarding the information provision priority, it is generally preferable to give priority to the route guidance voice over the radio voice, but it is also possible to set the priority of the route guidance to be lower than the radio voice by the user setting.

Case 2: When you are listening to a CD and you want to guide tourist attractions.
In this case, in order for the driver to quickly find the guided tourist attractions, the direction in which the tourist attractions exist is important information. On the other hand, since the sound from the CD includes the directionality by the stereo method, in order to listen to the sound as intended by the CD creator, it is necessary to appropriately set the speaker. For this purpose, audio equipment has a left / right balance adjustment function and a DSP function that produces effects such as reverberation and reverberation. Whether the directionality information of the CD sound or the direction information of the tourist attraction guidance sound should be given priority depends on the user's preference. For example, in the standard setting, the directionality priority of the CD sound is increased. The setting can be changed by the user, and the setting can be changed as appropriate.

Case 3: When listening to a CD and taking the winker to change lanes, the vehicle is approaching from behind.
In this case, if the driver is not aware of the vehicle approaching the lane that is about to move from behind, there is a high possibility of a collision accident, so the directionality of the voice that warns the approach of the vehicle from behind is given priority. The degree is preferably higher than the sound of the CD.

Case 4: When listening to traffic information read-out by speech synthesis, the direction of the curve is presented with a continuous curve and the sound effect is reproduced by reproducing from the direction of the curve.
In this case, it is preferable to set a high priority for the direction related to the direction of the curve. However, if the directionality changes frequently in a short period of time, the playback position and strength of other audio changes at the same frequency. Then, since there is a possibility of causing confusion to the user, it is preferable to lower the directionality priority.

  FIG. 3 is a table in which classification of information contents, a symbol representing the classification, and a directionality priority for each classification are associated with each other. The priority set as standard in the above case is shown. The directionality priority can be determined by adding symbols of this classification to the audio information to be output by the audio output device 210. For example, a symbol A may be added to the warning signal output from the obstacle detection unit 206, and a symbol C may be added to route guidance such as a normal right / left turn instruction. In the case of providing general information such as tourist information, the symbol E may be given. A user may be able to change the direction priority order between classifications. For example, in the case 2, it can be considered that the directionality priority of the classification D and the classification E is switched by an operation using the operation means 213. Note that at least information direction may be managed in association with the direction priority, and the management method is not limited to the above embodiment.

  It is also conceivable to provide a means for registering specific types of audio information in the user customization category so that the user can set the direction priority of the user customization category. Furthermore, it is conceivable that the user can set the virtual sound source position or direction for outputting a specific type of audio information. Accordingly, the user can customize the position where radio sound is normally heard, the position where handsfree phone sound is normally heard, and the like.

  Furthermore, in addition to directionality priority, information provision priority can also be considered. As for the information provision priority, it is desirable to increase the priority of information important to the driver. FIG. 4 is a table showing the classification of information contents, the symbol representing the classification, and the standard setting of the information provision priority for each classification. In the table of FIG. 3, the classification of the information provision priority is the direction priority, so that the classification that is given the D classification symbol as “information provision related” is the classification from d1 to d4. It is desirable to subdivide rather than classification. This is because, in advance of where the information comes from, managing whether the information is necessary for the user increases the satisfaction of the user. The priority of information that the user does not want to be provided is represented by “−” and is not a target for providing audio information.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an internal configuration of the virtual sound source position determination unit 212. The traffic information received by the traffic information receiver 204, the obstacle information detected by the obstacle detection unit 206, the radio information from the audio unit 207, the CD sound, and the voice information such as navigation sound have different channels. Assigned. The channel information storage unit 501 stores, for each channel, an information providing priority, a directionality priority, a desired virtual sound source position, and an active flag indicating whether sound is being output from the current channel. The virtual sound source position calculation unit 502 calculates the actual virtual sound source position of each channel based on the information stored in the channel information storage unit. The calculation algorithm will be described later. The active flag is turned on when the system control unit 201 instructs to start reproduction of audio information from each channel, and turned off when reproduction of each channel is completed.

  FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a data format received by the virtual sound source position determination unit 212. At the time of system initialization, the system control unit 201 lists the types of information (navigation, CD audio, etc.) that need to be presented by voice, assigns a channel to each, and sends it to the virtual sound source position determination unit 212 in FIG. Initialize by sending format data. At this time, for the information in which the desired virtual sound source position is determined in advance, data may be sent in the virtual sound source position column of the format of FIG. 6, but the desired virtual sound source position such as navigation voice or collision warning may be used. Information that is dynamically determined may be transmitted without designation. When the obstacle detection unit 206 detects an obstacle, the system control unit 201 acquires obstacle direction information from the obstacle detection unit 206 before instructing the three-dimensional acoustic control unit 211 to output a warning sound. The desired virtual sound source position of the warning sound is transmitted to the virtual sound source position determining unit 212 in the format of FIG.

  Further, even when the setting is changed by the user, the change of the priority or the virtual virtual sound source position is notified in the format of FIG. In the virtual sound source position in the format of FIG. 6, the direction in which the sound should be heard when only the channel outputs sound is designated. The designation method includes a method of expressing the direction from the user as an angle in the horizontal direction and the vertical direction, a method of expressing in a spatial coordinate with an appropriate position in the vehicle as the origin, and a specific position. Instead, it is possible to use a method for designating use of a sound effect preset in the DSP of the audio unit 207. An example of designating the use of the DSP acoustic effect is a CD audio output channel.

  Next, an algorithm in which the virtual sound source position determination unit 212 determines the actual virtual sound source position of each channel will be described using the flowchart of FIG. It is necessary to change the actual virtual sound source position when the reproduction of the audio information is started in any channel, when the reproduction is finished, or when the virtual sound source position is specified in the format of FIG. It is. In either case, the virtual sound source position determination process is started (S701). First, the active flag of each channel is checked, and a channel being reproduced and a channel to be reproduced are listed (S702). If there is only one active channel, the actual virtual sound source position may be arranged at the virtual sound source position stored in the channel information storage unit 501 (S704). Next, when the information provision priority shown in FIG. 4 is set, a step of adjusting the volume of each channel based on this information is provided (S705). As a volume adjustment method, the following method can be used. (1) The volume is not changed. (2) The channels are rearranged in order of priority, and the volume is reduced with a predetermined gain. In the case of adopting the method (2), for example, when there are four active channels with priorities of 1, 3, 4, and 4, when there is simply a magnitude relationship rather than a difference in priorities. A method of decreasing by 3 db is conceivable. In this method, when the gain of the priority level 1 channel is set to 0 db, the priority level 3 channel has a gain of −3 db, and the priority level 4 channel has a gain of −6 db.

  Next, the channel with the highest direction priority is selected from the list of active channels (S706). Next, the virtual sound source position of the selected channel is determined and fixed (S707). As a method for determining the virtual sound source position, if there is no other fixed virtual sound source, the actual virtual sound source position may be fixed to the desired virtual sound source position stored in the channel information storage unit 501. When there are already fixed virtual sound sources, it is preferable to select a direction as close as possible to the desired virtual sound source position stored in the channel information storage unit 501 while avoiding the direction coincident with those virtual sound sources. . As an example of the method for that purpose, the spring model shown in FIG. 8 can be used. Here, when a virtual sound source position 802 of a priority 1 channel and a virtual sound source position 803 of a priority 2 channel are determined around a driver position 801 represented by D, a virtual sound source of priority 3 is determined. Consider determining position 806. These virtual sound source positions 802 and 803, the virtual sound source position 804 in the channel information storage unit 501 corresponding to this sound, and the virtual sound source 805 whose position is to be determined are connected by a bar with the driver position 801 as an axis. I think. The virtual sound source 805 is considered to be connected to the virtual sound sources 802, 803, and 804 by springs 806, 807, and 808, respectively. The spring 808 has an effect of preventing the virtual sound source 805 from deviating from the desired virtual sound source position 804 as much as possible, so that a force proportional to the rotation angle about the driver position 801 is applied to the virtual sound source 805.

  On the other hand, the springs 806 and 807 have the effect of moving the virtual sound source 805 away from the positions that do not interfere with the already fixed virtual sound source positions 802 and 803, for example, the virtual sound source 805, the driver position 801, and the virtual sound source position. When the angle θ formed by 802 is 45 degrees or more, the force of the spring 806 is 0, and when it is less than that, the spring 806 generates a repulsive force proportional to (30−θ). The same applies to the spring 807. In this model, the position where all the spring forces balance is determined as the position of the virtual sound source 805. As another method, a method of determining all virtual sound source positions using a similar spring model, instead of sequentially determining positions, can be considered. In this case, a mass corresponding to the directionality priority is assumed for each virtual sound source of the channel. If the channel with high priority is weighted, when the initial position is the desired virtual sound source position stored in the channel information storage unit 501 of each channel, the virtual sound source of the channel with high priority is determined by another channel. The effect of being moved is reduced, and the virtual sound source of the low priority channel moves greatly.

  The above example describes the case where the virtual sound source position can be set continuously. However, when the virtual sound source position can be set only at a predetermined discrete position, the virtual sound source position calculated by the above algorithm is used. For example, a method of exclusively selecting a discrete position closest to the can be used. As an example in which the virtual sound source positions can be set only at discrete positions, the front virtual sound source positions are set to six in the upper right, left, and middle three locations and in the lower right, left, and middle three locations. Conceivable. In such a case, if the number of audio information to be reproduced simultaneously is small, for example, two, the virtual sound source position of information with high directionality priority is set as the desired virtual sound source position, and the other audio information If the virtual sound source position does not overlap with the virtual sound source position of information with high directionality priority, the desired virtual sound source position is directly used as the virtual sound source position. If the virtual sound source position overlaps, the desired virtual sound source position is in the upper and lower stages of the middle. In either case, a simple algorithm may be used in which the upper and lower stages are changed, and in other cases, the upper and lower stages are not changed and the middle is the virtual sound source position.

  Further, when the DSP effect for the entire vehicle interior is designated as the desired virtual sound source position stored in the channel information storage unit 501 as in the case of CD sound, in S707, the virtual sound source direction already fixed is used. It is possible to use a method of adjusting the DSP effect parameters so that the volume of the CD sound is reduced or reducing the volume of the CD sound playback for a speaker that is simply fixed in the virtual sound source direction. In step S707, the spring force for the channel for which the DSP effect is designated is always zero. Therefore, the virtual sound source position is not adjusted between a channel for which the DSP effect is designated and a channel having a lower priority than that.

  With the above method, the volume and virtual sound source position are appropriately controlled based on the information presentation priority and the directionality priority, and it is possible to provide easily audible information and warning. Specifically, in the case of case 1, when guiding a building in front, the guidance voice is heard from the direction of the building, and the radio sound normally heard from the front is small from the front right. The sound can be heard at the volume, and the sound can be heard from the front as usual with the end of the guidance voice.

In the present invention, the generation process of voice information having a high direction priority is not particularly limited. Some examples are given below as examples.
First, a warning about the possibility of collision is given as voice information with high directionality priority. Specifically, collisions at the rear of the vehicle when backing up when entering the garage, collisions at the front of the vehicle when turning left or right in narrow alleys, collisions with vehicles approaching from the rear when changing lanes, etc. It is. These collisions are easier to avoid by attracting the driver's attention in the direction in which the collision can occur. In order to detect such a collision possibility, an obstacle ranging technology using millimeter wave radar, a surrounding human detection technology using an infrared camera and image processing, and the like can be used.

The route guidance voice is also one piece of information with high directionality priority. Although it is very easy to set the virtual sound source position to the front right when outputting a guidance voice such as “coming soon”, it is highly effective. In order to generate a guidance voice such as “Turn left in front of the triangular building”, position information measurement by the GPS receiver 202 and the autonomous navigation sensor 203 and direction information measurement by the autonomous navigation sensor 203 and the geomagnetometer Thus, it is necessary to determine which part of which direction on the map built in the HDD 209 is ahead for the driver. Specifically, 3D models of buildings and 3D models of obstructions such as forests and fences are stored in the map information, and it is determined whether or not a building that is a candidate for a landmark is visible from the driver's viewpoint. . For example, if the top half of the building that serves as a landmark is approximated by a rectangular parallelepiped, and four or more of the straight lines connecting the vertex of the rectangular parallelepiped and the driver position do not intersect the shielding model, it can be seen by the driver. It can be judged. Moreover, since it is difficult to automatically generate a word representing a building as a landmark from the above three-dimensional model, it is stored in advance in the HDD 209 together with map information. When the appropriate expression by the word of the building differs depending on the direction of viewing the building, the expression for each direction is stored in the HDD 209 and used properly.
The present invention is not limited to the above example, and can be used in combination with various outside environment recognition sensors and navigation functions.

The figure showing one Example of speaker arrangement | positioning. The figure showing one Example of a structure of an audio | voice output control system and an apparatus. The figure showing one Example of directionality priority. The figure showing one Example of information provision priority. The figure showing one Example of a virtual sound source position determination part. The figure showing one Example of the information format notified to a virtual sound source position determination part. The figure showing one Example of the operation | movement step of a virtual sound source position determination part. The figure showing one Example of the method of determining an actual virtual sound source position.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 ... Speaker 101 ... Stereo dipole speaker 200 ... Audio | voice output control system 201 ... Audio | voice output control system and apparatus 202 ... GPS receiver 203 ... Autonomous navigation sensor 204 ... Traffic information Receiver 205 ... Display 206 ... Obstacle detection unit 207 ... Audio unit 208 ... Map information reading unit 209 ... HDD
210 ... Audio output device 211 ... 3D sound control unit 212 ... Virtual sound source position determination unit 213 ... Operation means 501 ... Channel information storage unit 502 ... Virtual sound source position calculation unit 801 Driver position 802 ... Virtual sound source position 803 for priority 1 channel Virtual sound source position 804 for priority 2 channel Virtual sound source position 805 ... Virtual sound source 806 for determining position .. Spring 807 as a model ... Spring 808 as a model ... Spring as a model.

Claims (5)

  A storage unit that stores a virtual sound source position serving as a reference for each information provided by voice is provided, and when each piece of information is output alone, the information is output from the reference virtual sound source position and a plurality of pieces of information are output simultaneously. In the case, the audio output control apparatus is characterized in that a virtual sound source position to be output is adjusted based on priority.   2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a storage unit that stores information provision priority of each information provided by the voice, and when outputting a plurality of pieces of information simultaneously, the volume of the output voice of each information is adjusted based on the priority. And a voice output control system and apparatus.   3. The audio output control device according to claim 1, wherein the adjustment of the virtual sound source position or volume is performed at a timing at which another audio is output in addition to the already output audio.   3. The sound output control device according to claim 1, wherein the virtual sound source position or volume is adjusted at a timing when output of the sound that has already been output ends.   3. The audio output control device according to claim 1, wherein the virtual sound source position or volume is adjusted at a timing when the user's customization operation is completed.