JPH0562097A - Traffic system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To surely confirm the condition of a signal and to perform the safe driving by judging the traffic condition on a traffic lane from the received content of the signal change information and giving a warning corresponding to the result to a driver. CONSTITUTION:The signal change information from the transmitter of a signal 8 and the automobile position data from a navigation system are received by the receiving part of the vehicle mounting device of a small car 14 respectively and the receiving content is outputted to the traffic condition judging part of the on-vehicle device. To the traffic condition judging part, each detection output from the traveling condition detecting part is also given. The traffic condition judging part outputs the judgment output to drive an warning generating part to a warning mode side when the safe traveling is hard in accordance with respective inputs and outputs the judgment output to drive the warning generation part to the safe mode side when the safe traveling can be performed. Thus, since the traffic condition on a traffic lane is judged from the receiving content in the on-vehicle device, and even when a driver cannot watch the signal 8, the warning corresponding to the judged result is given to the driver.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a traffic system that warns a driver of a vehicle traveling on a lane in which a traffic signal is installed, about a traffic situation.

[0002]

2. Description of the Prior Art Traffic lights are generally located at relatively high elevations to facilitate identification of the signal.

[0003]

However, even if the traffic light is arranged at a high position, in the case of a small car mounted directly behind a large car, it is often impossible for the large car to confirm the traffic light. In some cases, the vehicle may be driven depending on the movement of a large vehicle in front of the vehicle without checking the signal state of the traffic signal. In addition, since the signal state of the traffic signal depends on the visual sense, if the attention is lowered due to fatigue or the like, there is a possibility that the signal state may be illusionary or may be overlooked. In such cases, neither of them can drive the vehicle safely.

Therefore, according to the present invention, the state of the traffic light is surely confirmed even when the state of the traffic light cannot be visually confirmed, or when the visual attention is greatly reduced. The purpose is to be able to do so and to be able to drive safely.

[0005]

In order to achieve such an object, the present invention is a traffic system having a transmitter and a vehicle-mounted device, wherein the transmitter transmits signal change information of a traffic signal. And that the signal change information is transmitted from the position to a vehicle traveling on the lane, which is arranged at an appropriate position on the lane in which the traffic signal is arranged, and the vehicle-mounted device includes: It is characterized in that it is mounted on a vehicle, receives the signal change information, judges the traffic condition on the lane from the received contents, and issues a warning about the traffic condition from the judgment result.

[0006]

[Function] Since the transmitter transmits the signal change information of the traffic signal to the traveling vehicle on the lane where the traffic signal is provided,
The device mounted on the traveling vehicle receives the signal change information, judges the traffic situation on the lane from the received contents, and responds to the judgment result even if the driver cannot directly see the traffic signal. The warning is given to the driver.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view of a road on which the traffic system according to this embodiment is installed, and FIG. 2 is a signal controller, a traffic light controlled by the traffic light, and a traffic light under the traffic light. FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a vehicle-mounted device.

As shown in FIG. 1, traffic lights 8 and 10 are provided corresponding to the lanes 4 and 6 on both sides of the pedestrian crossing 2, respectively. A large vehicle 12 is running ahead in the lane 4 on the traffic light 8 side.
A small car 14 is running behind it. And
As shown in FIG. 2, the traffic signal 8 includes a pillar 16 provided on the road shoulder.
The operation is controlled by a signal controller 18 mounted above and installed on the pillar 16. Since the same applies to the traffic signal 10, the description thereof will be omitted. Also,
The pedestrian traffic light is not shown.

As shown in FIG. 2, a transmitter 20 is provided in the lower portion of the traffic signal 8. The transmitter 20 is a traffic light 8
The signal change information of the traffic signal 8 is transmitted in the form of an electromagnetic wave to each of the vehicles 12, 14 traveling on the lane 4 corresponding to. That is, the signal controller 18 is
The respective blue, red, and yellow display timings, that is, signal change information are output to the transmitter 20. To be more specific about this timing, not only information on the indication of the traffic light 8 but, for example, the indication of the traffic light 8 is blue at the moment, but it is information on the time until the blue changes to yellow. The signal 8 indicates that the traffic light 8 is red, but it includes information on the time until the red changes to blue.

The transmitter 20 includes a processing section and an antenna section. The processing section processes the signal change information from the signal controller 18, and the processed signal change information is generated from the antenna section in the form of an electromagnetic wave beam. Then, it transmits to the vehicle 14 traveling in the lane 4 with directivity as indicated by the transmission direction by the broken lines in FIGS. 1 and 2. For this electromagnetic wave, a small vehicle 14 is prevented from being received by the large vehicle 12 by excluding those having an extremely short wavelength such as light, or by providing an electromagnetic wave reflector on a shoulder along the lane. It is better not to. Further, by weakening the electromagnetic wave transmission output, it is possible to prevent the transmission output from the transmitter arranged at the traffic signal further ahead of the traffic signal 8 from being received at the same time, and thereby to prevent the interference state. ..

Next, a small vehicle 14 which is attached to the tail of the large vehicle 12 traveling in the lane 4 and is traveling is equipped with a device 21 for receiving signal change information from the antenna section of the transmitter 20 and processing it. There is. This vehicle-mounted device 21 is shown in FIG.
As shown in, the receiving unit 22, the traveling state detecting unit 24,
It has a traffic situation determination unit 26 and a warning generation unit 28. The receiver 22 includes signal change information from the transmitter 20,
It has a function of receiving own vehicle position data from a navigation system (not shown). Since the navigation system is well known, its details are omitted. The own vehicle position data is data indicating the absolute position of the traffic light 8 up to the small vehicle 14. Running state detector 24
Is the traveling speed of the small car 14 and the small car 14 and the large car 1.
It is possible to detect the distance between the vehicle and the vehicle. Each of the traveling speed and the inter-vehicle distance can be detected by a known method. The traffic condition determination unit 26 has a built-in microcomputer, and determines the traffic condition based on the vehicle position data and the signal change information received by the reception unit 22 and the detection output from the traveling state detection unit 24. However, when safe driving is difficult, the warning generation unit 28 is driven to the warning mode side, and when safe driving is possible, the warning generation unit 28 is driven to the safety mode side. Output. The warning generation unit 28 responds to the output from the traffic condition determination unit 26 by issuing a warning voice corresponding to the driver of the vehicle when it is difficult to drive safely, and when it is possible to drive safely. The corresponding safety sound is generated.

The operation will be described. The signal change information from the transmitter 20 and the own vehicle position data from the navigation system are installed in the vehicle-mounted device 2 in the small vehicle 14, respectively.
While being received by the receiving unit 22 in No. 1, the received content is output to the traffic condition determining unit 26. The traffic condition determination unit 26 is also provided with each detection output from the traveling state detection unit 24.

The traffic condition judging unit 26 outputs a judgment output for driving the warning generating unit 28 to the warning mode side when safe driving is difficult according to the respective inputs, and a warning generating unit when safe driving is possible. A judgment output for driving 28 to the safety mode side is output.

More specifically, first, it is assumed that the driver of the small vehicle 14 cannot see the traffic light 8 by the large vehicle 12. Then, in such a state, the traffic condition determination unit 26 receives the vehicle position data and the signal change information from the reception unit 22, and the traveling speed of the small vehicle 14 from the traveling state detection unit 24 and the previous traveling state. Information about the inter-vehicle distance to the large vehicle 12 is given. Then, the traffic condition determination unit 26 determines that the pedestrian crossing 2 cannot be safely passed based on the absolute position of the own vehicle with respect to the pedestrian crossing 2 based on the own vehicle position data and the timing at which the traffic signal 8 is displayed based on the signal change information. When this is done, a judgment output for driving the warning generation unit 28 to the warning mode side is output. For example, even if the position of the vehicle is near the pedestrian crossing 2, the traffic light 8 is red, or even if the traffic light 8 is blue, the traffic light is about to turn yellow, but the vehicle position is crossing. This is a warning mode when it is far from the sidewalk 2. Further, in this case, the fact that the traveling speed is low even if the vehicle position is close to the pedestrian crossing 2 and the vehicle cannot safely travel on the pedestrian crossing 2 is also added to the above-mentioned judgment factors. Further, there is a case where the signal light 8 indicates that the signal light 8 is red and the large vehicle 12 in front is about to stop. In that case, the driver of the small car 14 indicates that the signal light 8 indicates that the vehicle is large. If the inter-vehicle distance to the large vehicle 12 is short because it cannot be confirmed by 12, the warning mode that requires deceleration based on the inter-vehicle distance data and the signal change information, because there is a chance to collide with the large vehicle 12 The determination output of "YES" is output to the warning generation unit 28, and this is driven to the warning mode side. On the other hand, in any of the above cases, when the small car 14 can safely pass the pedestrian crossing 2, the traffic condition determination unit 26 outputs a determination output for driving the warning generation unit 28 to the safety mode side. In addition, each warning content in the warning mode either sounds the buzzer or uses a voice synthesizer according to the content, such as "Please stop because the front traffic light is red", ""The traffic light is blue, but please slow down.", "Because the traffic light in front is yellow, slow down and stop.", "Be careful of the vehicle in front, and slow down." The voices may be changed such as simply "stop" or "decelerate". In such a method, for example, a microcomputer built in the traffic condition determination unit 26 stores voice data corresponding to each traffic condition in a memory, and the traffic condition determination unit 26 causes the reception unit 22 and the traveling state detection unit 24 to operate. It is preferable to properly infer the traffic situation based on each output, and to drive the voice synthesizer of the warning generation unit 28 according to the inference.

It should be noted that although the warning generation unit 28 is set to generate a warning by voice, the warning may be displayed by an image of the state of the traffic signal in the driver's seat, if necessary, or by a light or other means. Good.

[0017]

As is clear from the above description,
According to the present invention, while transmitting the signal change information of the traffic signal by the transmitter to the traveling vehicle on the lane where the traffic signal is arranged, the device mounted on the traveling vehicle receives the signal change information, Since the traffic condition on the lane is judged from the received contents and the warning corresponding to the judgment result is given to the driver, even when it is impossible to visually confirm the state of the traffic signal, In addition, even when the visual attention-based attention is greatly reduced, the state of the traffic signal can be surely confirmed and safe driving can be performed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a road provided with a transportation system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a traffic light according to the above embodiment and a transmitter provided therein.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an apparatus mounted on a vehicle.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 Crosswalks 4 lanes 8 Traffic lights 12,14 Vehicles 20 Transmitters 21 Vehicle-mounted devices

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Daisuke Itao, Inoue Co., Ltd. Omron Co., Ltd. 10 Hanazono Dodo-cho, Ukyo-ku, Kyoto

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A transmitter (20) and a vehicle-mounted device (21).
And a transmitter (20) for transmitting signal change information of the traffic light (8), and at a proper position on the lane (4) in which the traffic light (8) is deployed. The vehicle-mounted device (21) is installed in the vehicle (14) and is for transmitting the signal change information from the position to the vehicle (14) traveling on the lane (4). While receiving the signal change information and judging the traffic condition on the lane (4) from the received content,
A traffic system, which issues a warning about a traffic condition from the result of the judgment.