Patent Application
20150357996
This application claims the priority benefit of Taiwan application serial no. 103119592, filed on Jun. 5, 2014. The entirety of the above-mentioned patent application is hereby incorporated by reference herein and made a part of this specification.
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to signal receiving technology for radio stations and particularly relates to a radio receiving device that can be installed in a vehicle (e.g. an automobile) and a method of switching frequencies of radio stations.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, radio stations transmit audio information, e.g. broadcasts, in a wireless and unidirectional manner for a distant radio receiver to receive the broadcasts from the radio stations at specific frequencies. However, one radio station may send different regional broadcasts in different regions, or the radio station may not have the same radio frequency in all the regions. As a result, the frequency of the radio station may differ from region to region.
Reception of the radio installed in a vehicle may be easily affected by the movement of the vehicle. Such a problem becomes worse when the vehicle moves in an area where the signal of the radio station is relatively weak or in a border area between several radio stations. Therefore, in the situation that the vehicle is in the border area between two radio stations of different frequencies and the signals from the radio stations are both weak, how to automatically adjust the frequency to maintain the reception of the radio is an issue that needs to be solved.
The invention provides a radio receiving device and a method of switching frequencies of radio stations for continuously detecting reception of the radio station at different frequencies and automatically switching to another radio frequency with better signal strength according to a geographic location of the radio receiving device when the current reception is very poor, so as to avoid the problem that a vehicle provided with the radio receiving device cannot automatically switch to a better radio frequency when the vehicle is in a border area between two radio stations and receives the same radio.
The invention provides a radio receiving device, which includes a positioning module, a radio receiver, a speaker device, and a control unit. The positioning module is configured to obtain a geographic location of the radio receiving device. The speaker device is coupled to the radio receiver. The control unit is coupled to the positioning module and the radio receiver. The radio receiver receives radio information at a first frequency of a radio and plays the radio information through the speaker device. The control unit detects a first signal strength of the radio information at the first frequency. When the first signal strength is smaller than a default value, the control unit checks a radio network frequency list according to geographic location information to obtain a second frequency of the radio corresponding to the geographic location information. The control unit detects a second signal strength of the radio information at the second frequency. When the second signal strength is larger than the first signal strength, the control unit controls the radio receiver to receive the radio information at the second frequency of the radio and play the radio information through the speaker device.
From another aspect, the invention provides a radio frequency switching method including the following: receiving radio information at a first frequency of a radio and playing the radio information; detecting a first signal strength of the radio information at the first frequency and determining whether the first signal strength is smaller than a default value; obtaining geographic location information through a positioning module and checking a radio network frequency list according to the geographic location information to obtain a second frequency of the radio corresponding to the geographic location information when the first signal strength is smaller than the default value. The radio network frequency list includes a plurality of radio names, a plurality of geographic areas respectively corresponding to the radio names, and frequencies respectively corresponding to the radio names in the geographic areas; detecting a second signal strength of the radio information at the second frequency; and receiving the radio information at the second frequency of the radio and playing the radio information when the second signal strength is larger than the first signal strength.
In an embodiment of the invention, the radio frequency switching method further includes the following: maintaining receiving the radio information at the first frequency and playing the radio information when unable to check the radio network frequency list according to the geographic location information to obtain the second frequency corresponding to the radio.
Based on the above, the radio receiving device and the radio frequency switching method of the embodiments of the invention are adapted to continuously detecting the signal strength of the radio signal that is currently received. When the signal strength is very low, another frequency of the radio in the geographic location is obtained according to the geographic location and the radio network frequency list of the radio receiving device for determining whether the signal strength at the another frequency is larger than the original signal strength. If the signal strength received at the another frequency is larger than the original signal strength, the radio is received at the another frequency. In other words, the radio receiving device of the embodiment of the invention, installed in a vehicle (e.g. an automobile), continuously detects the radio reception and automatically switches to a better frequency according to the geographic location only when the current reception is very poor, so as to prevent the problem that the vehicle cannot automatically switch to the better frequency when the vehicle is in a border area between two radio stations that play the same radio information.
To make the aforementioned and other features and advantages of the invention more comprehensible, several embodiments accompanied with drawings are described in detail as follows.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate exemplary embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
In order that a radio receiving device can automatically adjust the frequency according to the geographic location detected by the positioning module to maintain the reception of the radio receiving device, the embodiments of the invention continuously detect the radio reception and switch to a better radio frequency according to the geographic location only when the current reception is very poor, thereby avoiding the problem that a vehicle provided with the radio receiving device cannot automatically switch to the radio frequency with better reception when receiving the same radio information in a border area between two radio stations. Details of embodiments are provided below to support the concept of the embodiments of the invention.
The radio receiver 120 may include a frequency regulator. The speaker device 130 is coupled to the radio receiver 120 for playing an audio signal received by the radio receiver 120. In this embodiment, the speaker device 130 may be audio equipment of a vehicle or speaker equipment of a mobile device. The control unit 140 may be a logical unit, such as a central processing unit, a special-purpose integrated circuit, a complex programmable logic device (CPLD), etc., for implementing a radio frequency switching method shown in
The radio receiving device 100 further includes a display screen 160 and a storage unit 150. The display screen 160 is coupled to the control unit 140 for displaying an operational interface for controlling the control unit 140. The user may control the control unit 140 through the operational interface on the display screen 160. The storage unit 150 is coupled to the control unit 140 for storing a radio network frequency list. The radio network frequency list may include a plurality of radio names, a plurality of geographic areas respectively corresponding to the radio names, and frequencies respectively corresponding to the radios in the geographic areas. Table 1 is an example of the radio network frequency list.
In this embodiment, Table 1 exemplifies one radio (i.e. Police Broadcasting Service National Traffic Network). According to Table 1, if the user would like to listen to the radio “Police Broadcasting Service National Traffic Network” in Taipei or Tainan, the user needs to tune the radio receiving device 100 to FM 104.9; if the user would like to listen to the radio “Police Broadcasting Service National Traffic Network” in Miaoli, the user needs to tune the radio receiving device 100 to FM 105.1. Those who apply this embodiment should be able to integrate radio information of any region according to the format of the above Table 1 and store the radio information in the storage unit 150. It should be noted that the geographic area in Table 1 may include a geographic range represented by GPS coordinates. In that case, the control unit 150 may look up the “geographic area” column in Table 1 based on the current GPS coordinates of the radio receiving device 100 obtained by the positioning module 110 (i.e. the current geographic location) to determine the geographic area corresponding to the current geographic location.
In the case that the control unit 140 automatically adjusts the reception frequency only based on the current geographic location provided by the positioning module 110, when the vehicle 10 moves to the border between the ranges 216 and 226 of the radio transmitting stations 210 and 220 and the frequencies F1 and F2 both provide weak signal strength, the reception of the radio may become worse after the frequency is switched. The reason is that the signal transmission at the border between the radio transmitting stations 210 and 220 may be affected by external conditions, such as the terrain, weather, and environment. If the reception frequency of the radio receiving device 100 is adjusted simply based on the geographic location information, the radio receiving device 100 may not obtain the better reception for the radio.
Accordingly, in the embodiments of the invention, the signal strength of the radio information at the current frequency is used as the main reference first, and the radio receiving device 100 obtains one or multiple other radio frequencies according to the current geographic location and detects whether the signal strength of the newly-obtained radio frequency is larger than the signal strength of the current radio frequency only when the control unit 140 detects that the signal strength of the radio information at the current frequency decreases to a certain degree. Thus, the radio frequency switching method of the embodiment of the invention is provided to prevent switching to a radio frequency having signal strength worse than the original radio frequency.
Details of operations of the radio receiving device 100 and the control unit 140 are described hereinafter.
If the first signal strength is smaller than the default value, Step S340 is performed after Step S330, and the control unit 140 obtains the current geographic location information of the radio receiving device 100 via the positioning module 110. In Step S350, the control unit 140 checks a radio network frequency list according to the geographic location information to obtain a second frequency of the radio corresponding to the geographic location information. In Step S360, the control unit 140 determines whether the second frequency of the radio corresponding to the current geographic location information is obtained. Take the embodiment of
On the other hand, if the second frequency of the radio is found, the control unit 140 moves on to Step S370 from Step S360 to detect a second signal strength of the radio information at the second frequency F2 and determine whether the second signal strength is larger than the first signal strength. If the second signal strength is larger than the first signal strength, the control unit 140 moves on to Step S380 from Step S370 and determines whether the second signal strength is larger than the default value. If the second signal strength is larger than the first signal strength and the default value, the control unit 140 moves on to Step S390 from Step S380 to control the radio receiver 120 to receive the radio information at the second frequency F2 of the radio and play the radio information through the speaker device 130.
If the second signal strength is larger than the first signal strength but smaller than the minimum signal strength, the control unit 140 returns to Step S340 from Step S380 to obtain the current geographic location information through the positioning module 110 again and check the radio network frequency list according to the geographic location information to obtain a third frequency of the radio corresponding to the geographic location information for replacing the second frequency and accordingly repeating Steps S340-S380. If the second signal strength is smaller than the first signal strength, the control unit 140 returns to Step S340 from Step S370 to obtain the current geographic location information through the positioning module 110 again so as to repeat Steps S340-S390.
It should be noted that the aforementioned Step 5380 may be added or removed from the flowchart according to the actual needs. The invention is not limited to the above descriptions. In other words, in other embodiments of the invention, whether the second signal strength is larger than the default value may not be determined in Step S380. In that case, Step S390 may be performed to execute the corresponding processes once Step S370 confirms that the second signal strength is larger than the first signal strength.
To conclude the above, the radio receiving device and the radio frequency switching method of the embodiments of the invention are adapted to continuously detecting the signal strength of the radio signal that is being received. When the signal strength is very low, another frequency of the radio in the geographic location is obtained according to the geographic location and the radio network frequency list of the radio receiving device for determining whether the signal strength received at the another frequency is larger than the original signal strength. If the signal strength received at the another frequency is larger than the original signal strength, the radio is received at the another frequency. In other words, the radio receiving device of the embodiment of the invention, installed in a vehicle (e.g. an automobile), continuously detects the radio reception and automatically switches to a better frequency according to the geographic location of the radio receiving device only when the current reception is very poor, so as to prevent the problem that the vehicle cannot automatically switch to the better frequency when the vehicle is in a border area between two radio stations.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the invention covers modifications and variations provided that they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 103119592 | Jun 2014 | TW | national |
