Patent Application
20120001741
The present invention relates to a vehicle-mounted electronic device and particularly to a vehicle-mounted electronic device that, based on pre-stored incident-prone area data or user-set incident-prone area data, a destination that has been set, and so on, warns the user to watch out if the destination is located within an incident-prone area.
In this application, an “incident” refers to any unfavorable event that might occur in relation to vehicles, examples of which include theft of a vehicle itself, theft from a vehicle of in-vehicle equipment or goods loaded on the vehicle (a so-called vehicle break-in), tampering such as cutting a tire or scratching away paint, natural disasters such as flooding and a landslide caused by a downpour, and others.
Nowadays, various types of electronic devices such as navigation apparatuses, music players, DVD players, television receivers ready for analog and digital broadcasts are made compact and are offered as portable or vehicle-mountable devices.
Some of such vehicle-mounted electronic devices, for example, navigation apparatuses, are, when used, fitted to the dashboard of a vehicle.
Today, there are even offered electronic devices that are both vehicle-mountable and portable by being provided with a built-in power supply, a portion for connection to an AC power supply, or the like so that, when removed from a vehicle, they can be carried around for use as portable devices or at home. Vehicle-mounted electronic devices of this type are relatively easy to remove from the dashboard and are therefore prone to theft.
Various proposals have been made to deal with situations where such vehicle-mounted electronic devices face the danger of being stolen.
For example, Patent Document 1 (JP-A-2004-355241) listed below discloses an invention related to a vehicle communication ECU and a method of monitoring it against theft.
The technique disclosed in Patent Document 1 relates to an apparatus that allows a vehicle-mounted device to communicate with the outside via a wireless device. In the apparatus, a sensor is provided that detects the fitted state of the vehicle-mounted device to a vehicle so as to perform monitoring against abnormal removal such as in theft. Based on an output as a result of the detection from the sensor, the apparatus notifies a control center of theft via the wireless device. At the same time, the wireless device is locked so that it becomes unusable.
Furthermore, Patent Document 2 (JP-B-3565125) discloses an apparatus that warns of an accident-prone road section when there is one in a predetermined range in the direction in which a vehicle of interest is traveling.
According to the technique disclosed in Patent Document 2, road sections that were prone to accidents in the past are pre-stored as accident-prone road section information in which accident-prone road sections are, in a form organized one by one, represented by latitudes and longitudes of their end points and of their midway points such as crossroads; it is judged whether or not at least two of the end and midway points of an accident-prone road section are included in a predetermined range in the direction in which a vehicle of interest is traveling, and if it is judged that at least two such points are included, a warning is issued of the vehicle's approach to the accident-prone road section.
With the vehicle-mounted electronic device disclosed in Patent Document 1 mentioned above, however, the sensor is provided that detects the fitted state of the vehicle-mounted electronic device to a vehicle, the sensor detects abnormal removal in theft, and an output as a result of the detection is delivered to the external control center via the wireless device, which leads to the following problems. That is, in order for the occurrence of theft detected of the vehicle-mounted electronic device to be perceived, it is necessary that the sensor be provided separately from the main body of the vehicle-mounted electronic device, resulting in increased cost. Furthermore, since it is necessary to communicate with the external control center, if, for example, a communication failure occurs, the occurrence of theft detected cannot be perceived.
Furthermore, with the apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 2 mentioned above, which warns of an accident-prone road section, it is judged whether or not at least two of the end and midway points of an accident-prone road section are included in a predetermined range in the direction in which a vehicle of interest is traveling, and if it is judged that at least two such points are included, a warning is issued of the vehicle's approach to the accident-prone road section. Even if, however, while the vehicle of interest is being driven, a theft-prone road section is found present in a predetermined range in the direction in which the vehicle is traveling, no particular problem is raised as long as the vehicle simply travels across that road section. It is when the driver stops the vehicle and leaves it that the driver should watch out for theft most closely. That is, a warning of theft is needed not while the vehicle is traveling but at the time it is stopped. According to Patent Document 2, however, there is provided no portion for judging that the vehicle of interest is stopped, which leads to a problem that a warning cannot be issued when the vehicle is stopped in a theft-prone area.
In order to solve the above-described problems, through various studies, the inventors of this application have invented a vehicle-mounted electronic device that is provided with a current location detection function for detecting a current location of a vehicle, data on theft-prone areas, an area discrimination function for discriminating the current location of the vehicle, a vehicle state detecting function for detecting that the vehicle is stopped, and a warning function, and thus, upon detecting that the vehicle is stopped within a theft-prone area, can issue a warning to watch out for theft without especially requiring communication with the outside. This invention has been filed under Japanese Patent Application No. 2007-283500.
When an actual use situation of this vehicle-mounted electronic device is assumed, however, it is found that the following several problems are yet to be solved.
For one thing, with respect to an incident that might occur in one particular facility, the probability of occurrence of the incident and degree of danger thereof may vary depending on a time slot, and it is therefore desirable to determine whether or not a warning should be given depending on a time slot. Furthermore, even if the probability of occurrence of the incident and degree of danger thereof are low at the time of arrival at a destination, after a lapse of a predetermined length of time from the arrival (for example, in the midst of shopping in a store), the occurrence rate and degree of danger of the incident may increase, and it is therefore desirable to determine whether or not a warning should be given also assuming such a case. Moreover, it is desirable to determine whether or not a warning should be given in consideration also of whether or not a stay in the facility as the designated destination may possibly be a prolonged.
In view of the above-described problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle-mounted electronic device that is highly effective from a practical viewpoint.
In order to achieve the above-described object, the present invention provides a vehicle-mounted electronic device comprising: an input portion for designating a destination; an incident-prone area storage portion in which incident-prone area data is stored; an indication portion; and a control portion. In the vehicle-mounted electronic device, the incident-prone area storage portion stores an incident occurrence rate in each area in each of a plurality of time slots or the incident occurrence rate in each facility within each area in each of the plurality of time slots; the control portion calculates a predicted time of arrival at the destination designated, and upon detecting that, in a time slot after a lapse of a predetermined length of time from the calculated predicted time, the incident occurrence rate in an area in which the destination is located or the incident occurrence rate at the destination is not less than a preset predetermined value, the control portion makes the indication portion provide an indication.
According to this configuration, a warning can be indicated in consideration also of the incident occurrence rate after a lapse of a predetermined length of time from a predicted arrival time.
Furthermore, the above-described configuration may be as follows. That is, if the control portion detects that the incident occurrence rate in the area in which the destination is located or the incident occurrence rate at the destination is not less than the predetermined value, and if a stay in a facility as the destination is predicted to be prolonged, the control portion makes the indication portion provide an indication.
According to this configuration, a warning can be indicated in consideration also of the incident occurrence rate after a lapse of a predetermined length of time from a predicted arrival time and of characteristics of a designated facility.
Furthermore, the above-described configuration may be as follows. That is, if the incident occurrence rate at the destination is not less than the predetermined value, the control portion searches for, as an alternative destination, a facility of the same type in the vicinity of the designated destination, which has a value of the incident occurrence rate in the time slot less than the predetermined value.
According to this configuration, if there is a safer facility of the same type in the neighborhood of a destination, it is possible to lead the user to such a facility.
Furthermore, this configuration may be as follows. That is, if an appropriate facility as the alternative destination is found, the control portion makes the indication portion provide guidance to the alternative destination, and if an appropriate facility as the alternative destination is not found, the control portion makes the indication portion indicate a warning to watch out.
According to this configuration, if an alternative destination is found, guidance to the alternative destination can be provided, and if the alternative destination is not found, a warning that a designated destination is an incident-prone facility can be indicated.
Furthermore, in the above-described configuration, the preset predetermined value may be made changeable to an arbitrary value via the input portion.
According to this configuration, the range of the incident occurrence rate at which a warning should be indicated can be easily changed depending on the user's preferences or circumstances at different times. For example, if a warning is indicated too often and thus is perceived to be annoying, through changing the predetermined value to a higher value, the frequency at which the warning is indicated can be decreased.
The vehicle-mounted electronic device of the present invention makes it possible to indicate a warning in consideration also of the incident occurrence rate after a lapse of a predetermined length of time from a predicted arrival time and thus is highly effective from a practical viewpoint.
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Hereinafter, specific examples of the present invention will be described in detail by way of working examples with reference to the appended drawings. The working examples described below, however, are illustrative of a vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus for embodying the technical ideas of the present invention and are not intended to define the present invention as being directed to this vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus. The present invention is also adaptable equally to vehicle-mounted electronic devices and the like according to other embodiments encompassed by the claims, which do not have a navigation function of the vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus exemplarily used in this working example.
A control portion 10 is constituted of a processor composed of a CPU (not shown) and a RAM/ROM (not shown) and controls operations of various parts of the vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus in accordance with a control program recorded in the RAM and ROM.
A current location detection portion 11 is constituted of a GPS receiver or the like that receives radio waves containing time information from a plurality of GPS satellites orbiting above the earth.
Moreover, as the current location detection portion 11, an autonomous navigation portion composed of a distance sensor, an azimuth sensor, a rudder angle sensor, and so on can also be used.
An input portion 12 is constituted of various types of keys, switches, or the like via which an operational instruction and departure and destination locations are inputted to the vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus.
A display portion 13 displays a map image and a guided route image for viewing by the user and is constituted of a liquid crystal display or the like.
The display portion 13 may include a touch sensor so that it functions as an input portion, in which case the user touches any of icons displayed on a screen to input his/her selection.
A map storage portion 14 stores a plurality of rectangular blocks of mesh data obtained by division at predetermined longitudes and latitudes and road data including road node data and road link data. The road node data is data of nodes that are junction points such as crossroads and branch points of roads, and the road link data is data of links that are paths connecting between the nodes. The road node data contains road node numbers, location coordinates, the numbers of connected links, names of crossroads, and so on, and as the road node data, guide points corresponding to guided locations such as crossroads, and guide data for providing guidance on a right turn, a left turn, straight travel, and so on are also stored.
Furthermore, the road link data contains road node numbers of a start point and an end point, road types, link lengths (link costs), required lengths of time, the numbers of lanes, road widths, and so on. As link attributes, data on bridges, tunnels, railroad crossings, tollbooths, and so on is further imparted to the road link data. The road types refer to information distinguishing between expressways and toll roads, national roads and prefectural roads, and so on.
The map storage portion 14 further stores background data composed of water system data such as the shapes of coastlines, lakes and marshes, and rivers, administrative boundary data, and facility data containing locations, shapes, and names of facilities.
An incident-prone area storage portion 15 pre-stores data on areas prone to various types of incidents likely to occur when a vehicle is parked or stopped in those areas. Examples of such areas include areas prone to theft of a vehicle or a vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus, areas prone to tampering with a tire or paint on a vehicle body, and areas prone to flooding caused by a typhoon or a downpour.
A communication portion 16 is capable of connecting to, for example, a server of a nearest police headquarters in order to obtain updated incident-prone area information and is therefore used for updating of the incident-prone area storage portion 15. Furthermore, the incident-prone area information can also be inputted by the user himself/herself via the input portion 12.
A sound indication portion 17 provides various types of sound indications in the vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus, such as guidance provided during route guiding, and is constituted of a speaker or the like.
Next, the following describes incident-prone area data, taking theft-prone area data as an example.
In
Furthermore, as shown in
Furthermore, in this working example, each of the blocks of mesh data can be identified by an alphabetical character combined with a numeral, and in
Next, referring to
As the theft-prone area data, whether or not an area on each of the blocks of mesh data stored in the map storage portion 14 is a theft-prone area is preset and stored in the incident-prone area storage portion 15. As shown in
In
The above-described working example describes a case where, as the data on theft-prone areas, with respect to each of the blocks of mesh data, whether or not an area thereon is a theft-prone area is set. This setting as to a theft-prone area, however, can also be made in administrative units instead of in units of blocks of mesh data.
Moreover, the above-described setting can also be made in units of facilities such as hotels, restaurants, various types of entertainment facilities, and department stores or, in a case of urban cities, in units of buildings. Furthermore, a large-scale facility may have a plurality of parking lots, and in such a case, this setting may be made in units of parking lots within the premises of the facility.
In this working example, whether or not each lot is a theft-prone area is set. There is, however, no limitation thereto, and whether or not each city or each town is a theft-prone area may also be set.
Moreover, in the above-described example, each of the blocks of mesh data is assigned (0) or (1). Instead, a numerical value of the occurrence rate of theft (some numerical value representing the likelihood of occurrence of an incident such as, for example, the frequency of occurrence based on an average number of cases in which the incident occurs per week, per month, or per year or a relative occurrence rate obtained by normalizing this frequency using a national average value thereof is referred to here as the occurrence rate) is set; an area having a numerical value thus set of the occurrence rate higher than a preset predetermined value is defined as a theft-prone area, and an area having a numerical value of the occurrence rate lower than the predetermined value is defined as a non-theft-prone area. In this case, a storage space is provided in part of the incident-prone area storage portion 15 or in part of the ROM storing the program, and by a manufacturer of the vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus, the predetermined value is preset in the storage space. The preset predetermined value, however, may be made changeable as appropriate by the user via the input portion 12.
Moreover, either or both of the occurrence rate in each month or each season of a year and the occurrence rate in each time slot of a day may be set beforehand so that a set value corresponding to a month, season, or time slot in which the vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus is being used can be used.
As one example thereof,
Furthermore, there are various types of vehicle-related incidents, and it is preferable that an appropriate warning be issued so as to be suitable for each of them.
Next, referring to the flow chart of
This flow chart is described using as an example a case of using data on areas prone to theft of a vehicle or the vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus.
Moreover, the description of this flow chart is based not on an example in which the occurrence rate of theft in each area is stored but on an example in which the occurrence rate of theft in each facility within each area is stored.
A route search function of the vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus is activated (step 1), and once a destination (generally, a facility such as a house, a store, or a building) is designated via the input portion 12 (step 2), a comparison is made between theft-prone area data stored in the incident-prone area storage portion 15 and the destination designated in step 2, and based on a result thereof, it is judged whether or not the occurrence rate of theft in the destination is not less than a predetermined value (step 3).
In this case, a storage space is provided in part of the incident-prone area storage portion 15 or in part of the ROM storing the program, and by a manufacturer of the vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus, the above-described predetermined value is preset in the storage space. The above-described predetermined value, however, may be made changeable as appropriate by the user via the input portion 12.
If, in the processing step at step S3, it is judged that the occurrence rate of theft at the destination is not less than the predetermined value (Y at step 3), a search is made for another facility of the same type near the destination, which has a value of the occurrence rate of theft less than the predetermined value (step 4), and if there is such a facility (Y at step 5), the facility is displayed in the display portion 13 (step 6). If there are a plurality of such facilities, the facilities are displayed in the form of a list for the user to select from, or one of the facilities nearest to the destination designated at step 2 is displayed for the user's confirmation, and resetting is performed to set a selected one or the nearest one of the facilities as a new destination.
If there is no such facility in the neighborhood (N at step 5), an indication that the designated destination is a facility having a high occurrence rate of theft is displayed, and, for example, a warning such as “This facility is prone to theft. Designate another facility.” or “This facility is prone to theft. Remove the vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus whenever you leave the vehicle” is displayed in the display portion 13, or this warning is given in the form of a sound warning in the sound indication portion 17 (step 7).
Furthermore, regarding the warning about theft of the vehicle and the warning about theft of the vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus described in this example, needless to say, the warning about theft of the vehicle is given using data on areas prone to theft of a vehicle, and the warning about theft of the vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus is given using data on theft of a vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus.
Working Example 1 is directed to a case where the occurrence rate of theft at a destination is constant regardless of a time slot. The occurrence rate, however, may vary, for example, between daytime and nighttime. Referring to the flow chart of
In
For example, in a case where a destination is a relatively large facility such as a large shopping center or an amusement park, there may be a plurality of parking lots in each of which the occurrence rate of theft varies depending on a time slot as shown in
Furthermore, a configuration can also be adopted in which if, at an estimated time of arrival at a destination (or in a time slot after a lapse of a predetermined length of time from the arrival time), the occurrence rate of theft in the designated destination facility is not less than a predetermined value, it is determined whether or not a warning should be indicated depending on the type of the facility as the destination. To be more specific, if a stay in the facility as the destination is unlikely to be prolonged as in a convenience store, a warning is not given, and if a stay in the facility is likely to be prolonged as in a shopping center, a warning is indicated. In this case, information on whether or not a stay in the facility is likely to be prolonged is pre-stored in the map storage portion 14 or in the incident-prone area storage portion 15.
If the occurrence rate of theft at the designated destination is less than the predetermined value (N at step 14), this destination is set, after which the processing proceeds to a route search (step 16).
Furthermore, referring to the flow chart of
Processing steps at steps 11′ to 13′ are the same as corresponding steps in
Furthermore, if the occurrence rate of theft in the area in which the designated destination is located is less than the predetermined value (N at step 14′), this destination is set, after which the processing proceeds to a route search (step 16′).
A configuration may also be adopted in which if, at an arrival time (or in a time slot after a lapse of a predetermined length of time from the arrival time), the occurrence rate of theft in an area in which a designated destination facility is located is not less than a predetermined value, and if a stay in the facility as the destination is likely to be prolonged, a warning is indicated, while if not, a warning is not indicated.
There are various types of vehicle-related incidents, and warning modes respectively suitable therefor are thinkable. For example, theft is classified into theft of a vehicle itself and theft of in-vehicle equipment such as a vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus or goods loaded on a vehicle (a so-called vehicle break-in), and it is preferable that a warning be given so as to be suitable for each of these types of theft.
With respect to theft of a vehicle, possible warnings include, for example, “Beware! Vehicle theft frequently occurs here.”, and with respect to a vehicle break-in, possible warnings include, for example, “Theft of in-vehicle equipment frequently occurs here. Do not leave valuables in vehicle.”
Furthermore, with respect to tampering such as cutting a tire or scratching away paint, possible warnings include “Beware! Tampering with tire or paint frequently occurs here.” Moreover, for locations prone to flooding caused by a downpour or a typhoon, a warning such as “Beware! Flooding may occur in heavy rain.” could be given. This can also be applied similarly to various types of other disasters represented by, for example, a location highly likely to be hit by a falling object blown by a strong wind, a location assumed to be damaged by a landside caused by an earthquake, and so on.
On the other hand, if the type of theft is a vehicle break-in (N at step 35), a route search is executed with the designated facility set as a destination (step 37). Then, route guiding is started, and after waiting till arrival at the destination (a loop at step 38), a predetermined warning is given to the user at the time of the arrival (step 39).
As discussed in detail in the foregoing, according to the vehicle-mounted electronic device of the present invention, it is judged whether or not a warning should be indicated based on a comparison of the occurrence rate of an incident with a predetermined value. Thus, through changing the predetermined value, it is possible to change the range of the occurrence rate of the incident and frequency at which the warning should be indicated.
As noted earlier, the present invention is not limited to the vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus described in each of the working examples and is applicable also to other types of electronic devices having data on incident-prone areas, a portion for inputting a destination, and a warning function.
The present invention is applicable to various types of vehicle-mounted electronic devices including a vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus.
10 Control portion
11 Current location detection portion
12 Input portion
13 Display portion
14 Map storage portion
15 Incident-prone area storage portion
16 Communication portion
17 Sound indication portion
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-073936 | Mar 2009 | JP | national |
| 2009-073937 | Mar 2009 | JP | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/JP2010/054089 | 3/11/2010 | WO | 00 | 9/14/2011 |
