JPH10246640A - Information display device for vehicles - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To raise attentiveness (recognition) of an operator (a driver) to movers being possible obstacles. SOLUTION: When a mover 64 comes in outer peripheral visible zones 61, 62 of a central visible zone 60 of an operator 32, a luminescent sport 66 is indicated by being superimposed by a HUD(head up display) method or the like relative to the mover 64. The luminescent sport 66 can be sensed easily, so that the mover can be detected earlier by the peripheral visible zones 61, 62 having weak visibility (lower sensitivity) than the central visible zone 60.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vehicle information display device for accurately displaying, to a driver (driver) of a vehicle, information relating to, for example, a moving object existing in the traveling direction of the vehicle. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When driving a vehicle, a driver constantly
It is necessary to pay attention to the speed of the own vehicle, the front, rear, left and right of the own vehicle, and quickly and surely grasp information necessary for steering, such as road conditions, presence or absence of people and vehicles, and their movements.

[0003] The information necessary for maneuvering is recognized by the pilot's eyes and ears.
There are rearview mirrors and side mirrors, and recently,
By using a so-called HUD (headup display) technology, an auxiliary digital display of a speed (own vehicle speed) and the like is also performed on a front windshield.

[0004] As a vehicle information display device for informing a driver of a vehicle of information relating to a moving object or the like present in the traveling direction of the vehicle, there is a technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 6-230132.

In this technique, a portion including the operator's eye is irradiated with an infrared illumination light, and an infrared camera photographs the operator's eyeball. The gaze direction is detected from the captured image, and the observation area of the pilot is set in an area corresponding to the gaze direction on the front windshield. On the other hand, the position direction of the obstacle around the vehicle is detected using the infrared radar head, and an alarm mark is displayed between the position direction of the detected obstacle and the center of the observation area.

In the above publication, the warning mark is displayed near the operator's line of sight so that the appearance of an obstacle can be surely known, and the warning mark is displayed in any direction from the center of the observation area. Since the direction of the obstacle is indicated by the presence or absence, it is described that the obstacle can be easily confirmed.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a vehicle information display device capable of accurately displaying information relating to an object present in a traveling direction of a vehicle or the like so as to inform a pilot in an auxiliary manner. The purpose is to do.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a vehicle information display device capable of improving the visual acuity (attention) of a driver's peripheral vision. In addition, peripheral vision is
A visual acuity is good, but an area that exists outside the central vision near the visual axis with a narrow recognition area (recognition range and recognition zone).

[0009]

According to the present invention, there is provided a vehicle information display device mounted on a vehicle, comprising: an object information detecting means for continuously detecting an object outside the vehicle; and an information display unit for displaying information on the detected object. Information display means for displaying, a viewpoint position detection means for detecting a viewpoint position of a pilot on the information display section, and output information of the object information detection means, the information display means, and the viewpoint position detection means. Display control means for controlling the information display by the information display means, wherein the display control means compares the position of the detected object with the detected viewpoint position, and determines the position of the detected object. If the detected viewpoint position is outside a certain range, the information on the detected object is displayed in the direction of the object on the information display unit, and the detected object is displayed in a certain range of the detected viewpoint position. In some cases within, and controlling the information relating to the object and the detected so as not to appear on the information display unit.

According to the present invention, when the position of the detected object is out of the fixed range of the detected viewpoint position, information on the detected object is displayed on the information display unit, and the detected object is displayed on the detected viewpoint. When the position is within a certain range, control is performed so that information on the detected object is not displayed on the information display unit.

That is, when the detected object is within a certain range of the detected viewpoint position, the detected object is included in the visual field where the pilot's gaze is high (good visual acuity).
Do not display information about detected objects. On the other hand, if the detected object is outside a certain range of the detected viewpoint position,
The driver's sight is relatively low (the sight is relatively poor)
Since the detected object is in the field of view, information on the detected object is displayed.

[0012] This makes it possible to accurately display information relating to an object existing in the traveling direction of the vehicle or the like, and to inform the pilot in an auxiliary manner.

[0013] By displaying the information on the detected object in a blinking manner, the pilot can be informed supplementarily even in a field of view where the gaze of the pilot is relatively low.

[0014] Further, by making the certain range variable, an accurate range corresponding to each operator can be obtained.

Further, the predetermined range is defined as a range corresponding to the pilot's central vision, and the outside of the predetermined range is defined as a range corresponding to the pilot's peripheral vision, thereby providing an accurate range corresponding to the pilot. be able to.

[0016]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a vehicle information display device 10 according to this embodiment, which is mounted on an automobile as a vehicle.

The vehicle information display device 10 includes an object information detecting unit 12, a vehicle information detecting unit 14, an external world information detecting unit 16, and a visual line detecting unit (viewpoint position detecting unit) 19.
And four detection means.

The vehicle information display device 10 is provided with a predetermined video signal representing information on an object detected based on information output from the object information detecting means 12, the vehicle information detecting means 14, and the external world information detecting means 16. Display information generating means 18 for generating a video signal;
Output information and mask range setting means 2
6, a video control means 22 also functioning as a video mask means for determining whether or not to output (whether to mask) according to the set value of 6, and a front window as a display which outputs the video signal output from the video control means 22 Information display means 24 for displaying an image on the shield.

The video control means 22 and the display information generating means 18 constitute a display control means 20.

As the object information detecting means 12, for example, a stereo camera can be used. The object information detection unit 12 using a stereo camera, for example, installs left and right video cameras at a so-called base line distance on the left and right sides of a dashboard, and shoots an object in front of the vehicle in the traveling direction. Then, the outputs of the left and right cameras are stored in an image memory, and the vehicle of the moving object is determined based on a triangulation method (binocular stereovision) according to a corresponding area on the image memory of the moving object. The moving object information is obtained by continuously calculating the relative position based on the position, and is output to the display information generating means 18.

As the object information detecting means 12, for example, an infrared radar can be used instead of a stereo camera. By using the infrared radar, it is possible to detect only the position information of the infrared light emitter such as a person.

As the vehicle information detecting means 14, a pulse encoder for detecting the rotation of a wheel, a yaw rate sensor mounted on an axle, or the like can be used. By detecting the output of the pulse encoder per unit time,
The traveling speed of the vehicle can be detected by detecting the vehicle speed and integrating the yaw rate (angular velocity) output from the yaw rate sensor. These vehicle information is supplied to the display information generating means 18.

The outside world information detecting means 16 detects the amount of light in the outside world and supplies information for discriminating between day and night to the display information generating means 18. If the object information detecting means 12 is a device using a stereo camera, the external information detecting means 16 can determine day or night from the detected exposure amount.
When a stereo camera is not used, a general optical sensor can be used.

If the information display means 24 uses a HUD (headup display), the line-of-sight detecting means 19 includes a part including the head 33 of the pilot 32 as shown in FIG. Vehicle 28 to shoot
Line-of-sight measurement camera 3 arranged on dashboard 30
4 and a projector 40 for displaying information on the detected object as an image in an information presentation area 38 surrounded by a dotted line on the front windshield 36.

It should be noted that the information display means 24 is an HMD (Hea)
3A and 3B, the head 3 of the pilot 32 can be used.
3, a transmissive liquid crystal display device 42, a line-of-sight measuring camera 46 and a head position direction sensor 4 integrally attached to a support 44 of the transmissive liquid crystal display device 42.
8 and a half mirror 50 disposed in front of the transmission type liquid crystal display device 42 and integrally therewith. The line-of-sight measurement camera 46 measures the information of the eye 35 reflected by the half mirror 50, and detects the line-of-sight direction (viewpoint position). The detected gaze direction is calibrated by the head position direction sensor 48. That is, the head 3 of the pilot 32
It is possible to calculate the range of the field of view (viewing field) from the direction in which the eye 35 is facing (the visual axis) based on the direction in which the eye 3 is facing. Note that the field of view (field of view) corresponds to the angle of view in the case of a photographic lens.

In the information display means 24 of the example shown in FIG.
Is displayed as an image in the information presentation area 38 of FIG.

It should be noted that the head position direction sensor 48 is provided in the information display means 24 utilizing the HUD shown in FIG.
This is unnecessary because the eye gaze measurement camera 34 can photograph the head 33 and the eyes 35 together.

The mask range setting means 26 comprises a volume and an up / down switch.
9 viewpoint position (viewpoint direction) of the pilot 32 detected by
It is possible to vary a mask range (fixed range) described later, which is defined by the absolute value of the difference between φ and the azimuth θ of the moving object detected by the object information detecting means 12. The mask range is also stored as a default value in a storage unit (not shown) in the display control unit 20.

Each of the above-described units such as the display control unit 20 is provided with a microcomputer functioning as a control, storage, and determination unit as necessary.

Next, the operation of the example of FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. The control subject is the display control means 20.

First, the display information generating means 18 constituting the display control means 20 fetches vehicle information such as the vehicle speed and the traveling direction of the own vehicle from the vehicle information detecting means 14 and moves the moving object from the object information detecting means 12. It takes in object information such as direction and moving speed, and furthermore, external world information detecting means 1
6. External information such as the amount of light is fetched from Step 6 (Step S1).
Among them, the vehicle information and the object information are taken in every very short fixed time, for example, every 0.01 second.

Next, the display information generating means 18 calculates a predicted position of the object and the vehicle (own vehicle) after a predetermined time from the acquired object information and the vehicle information, and calculates the predicted position of the object (other vehicle) from the predicted position. It is determined whether or not the vehicle, the person, or another moving object) can be an obstacle to the vehicle (also referred to as the own vehicle) 28 (step S2).

If the determination in step S2 is affirmative, the display information generating means 18 superimposes the object determined to be an obstacle on the front windshield 36 constituting the information display means 24. The image control means 2 generates an image (bright point image or blinking image of a bright point) signal and
Feed to 2.

The image control means 22 fetches the azimuth θ (°) of the object, which is the azimuth information of the moving object based on the current traveling direction of the vehicle 28, calculated in step S2 (step S3). Line-of-sight direction information based on the traveling direction of the vehicle 28 is input from the line-of-sight information output from the detection unit 19 as a line-of-sight direction (also referred to as a viewpoint position, a viewpoint direction, or a visual axis direction) φ (°) (step S).
4).

Then, the video control means 22 performs the following (1)
It is determined whether or not the absolute value of the difference between the azimuth θ of the object and the line-of-sight azimuth (the visual axis direction) φ shown in the equation exceeds a certain range (threshold) α (°) (step S5).

| Θ−φ |> α (1) The fixed range α is selected to be, for example, α = 5 °. This fixed range is preferably set in accordance with the visual characteristics of the person, in this case, the pilot 32, but in general, as shown in FIG. 5, the human vision is roughly around the visual axis. Central vision (also referred to as central vision range or central vision zone) 60 and peripheral vision (also referred to as peripheral vision range or peripheral vision zone) 61 and 62 outside the central vision can be divided. 60 to 10 ° (± 5 ° to line-of-sight direction φ)
Then, the peripheral visions 61 and 62 are about + 5 ° to + 90 ° and about −5 ° to −90 ° with respect to the line-of-sight azimuth φ. The central vision 60 has good visual acuity but a narrow recognition area, while the peripheral visions 61 and 62 have a characteristic that the visual acuity is not as good as the central vision 60 but the recognition area is wide. As shown in FIG. 5, a certain range ± α is set in the central viewing zone 60 here.

When the determination in step S5 is satisfied, that is, the azimuth θ of the object 64 (the azimuth in the traveling direction of the vehicle 28 is set to 0 ° as a reference) is α = 5 ° more than the line-of-sight azimuth φ.
If the distance is wider than the above, the pilot 32 may not recognize the object 64, and therefore, as shown in FIG. The information of the point 66 is displayed on the information display means 24 (on the information presentation area 38 of the front windshield 36 or the transmission type liquid crystal display device 42, respectively) (step S6).
It is preferable that the bright spot display be a blinking bright spot display or a predetermined color display in order to draw more attention.

When the pilot 32 confirms the bright spot display, the pilot 32 turns the line of sight φ to the direction in which the bright spot 66 is displayed, that is, the azimuth θ of the object 64 (φ ≒).
θ). At this time, when the processes from step S1 to step S5 are continuously performed and the line-of-sight azimuth φ of the pilot 32 does not satisfy the expression (1), in other words,
As shown in FIG. 6, when the object 64 enters the central vision zone 60 of the pilot 32, the determination in step S5 is not satisfied, and the display is masked so as not to display the bright spot 66 ( (Step S7: see FIG. 6).

Thereafter, the processing of steps S1 to S7 is repeated.

As described above, according to the above-described embodiment, basically, the azimuth θ of the moving object outside the vehicle is continuously detected by the object information detecting means 12. On the other hand, the gaze detecting means 19
To detect the line-of-sight direction φ of the pilot 32. The difference in the azimuth is compared with a fixed value ± α corresponding to the central vision 60, and if the difference is outside the range of the fixed value ± α, the detected object 6
In the direction of 4, the bright spot 66 is displayed so as to be superimposed on the object 64, and the pilot 32 moves the direction of the object 64 (the direction of the bright spot 66) θ.
Is turned on, the display of the bright spot 66 is masked (not displayed).

In this way, by superimposing (superimposing) and displaying the bright spot 66 in the direction of the moving object 64 in the peripheral visions 61 and 62, the visual acuity (cognition) of the peripheral visions 61 and 62 having weak visual acuity is reduced. As a result, it can be increased.

The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, but can adopt various configurations without departing from the gist of the present invention.

[0044]

As described above, according to the present invention, information relating to, for example, an object present in the traveling direction of a vehicle or the like, for example, a potential obstacle may be displayed accurately to assist the operator. Can be informed.

According to the present invention, when an object which may become an obstacle enters the peripheral vision zone of the pilot, a bright spot is superimposed on the information display section in the direction of the object. Since the object is displayed in such a manner, an object existing in the peripheral vision zone can be recognized early.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example in which the example of FIG. 1 is applied to a display device of the HUD system.

3A and 3B are diagrams illustrating an example in which the example of FIG. 1 is applied to an HMD type display device, wherein FIG. 3A is a front view and FIG. 3B is a side view.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the example of FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a state in which a bright spot is displayed in a manner superimposed on a direction of an object viewed by peripheral vision by an operator.

FIG. 6 is a diagram provided to explain a case where an operator comes to view an object with central vision.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Information display apparatus for vehicles 12 ... Object information detection means 18 ... Display information generation means 19 ... Gaze detection means 20 ... Display control means 22 ... Video mask means 24 ... Information display means 28 ... Vehicle (own vehicle) 32 ... Operator (Driver) 33 Head (head) 34, 46 Eye-gaze measuring camera 35 Eye 38 Information presentation area 40 Projector 42 Transmissive liquid crystal display device 50 Half mirror 60 Central vision zone 61, 62 Peripheral vision Zone 64: Object 66: Bright point θ: Object direction φ: Line-of-sight direction

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An information display device for a vehicle mounted on a vehicle, comprising: object information detection means for continuously detecting an object outside the vehicle; information display means for displaying information on the detected object on an information display unit; Viewpoint position detecting means for detecting a pilot's viewpoint position on the information display unit; and fetching output information of the object information detecting means, the information display means, and the viewpoint position detecting means, and information obtained by the information displaying means. Display control means for controlling display, wherein the display control means compares the position of the detected object with the detected viewpoint position, and the position of the detected object is within a certain range of the detected viewpoint position. When it is outside, the information on the detected object is displayed in the direction of the object on the information display unit, and when the detected object is within a certain range of the detected viewpoint position, the The vehicle information display apparatus and controls the information relating to the out object so as not to appear on the information display unit. 2. An information display device for a vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the display of the information on the detected object is a blinking display. 3. An information display device for a vehicle according to claim 1, wherein said predetermined range is variable. 4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined range is a range corresponding to the central vision of the pilot, and the outside of the predetermined range is a range corresponding to the peripheral vision of the pilot. Characteristic vehicle information display device.