JPH08265107A - Multiple broadcast automatic station search device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To inhibit the automatic station search when a vehicle moves to an area where no radio wave reaches such as a tunnel, an indoor place or an underground place. CONSTITUTION: An external status discrimination section 8 receives information from a GPS reception section 9 always acquiring the position of a GPS satellite, discriminates whether or not the vehicle is located in an area where a radio wave reaches on the basis of the information and gives the discrimination information to a channel selection command section 7 sequentially. Upon receiving the information denoting that number of incorrectable errors from a decoding section 2 reaches a prescribed number of over within a prescribed period, the channel selection command section 7 discriminates whether or not the automatic broadcast station search is to be started on the basis of the discrimination information from the external status discrimination section 8, and starts searching other broadcast stations when the present position of the vehicle is placed in an area where a radio wave can reach and inhibits the station searching when the vehicle is placed in an area where a radio wave cannot reach.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a receiving device for automatic searching, and more particularly to a device for automatically searching multiplex broadcasting.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when a radio wave reception state is deteriorated, the degree of the deterioration is judged, and when it is significantly deteriorated, a receiving apparatus which automatically switches to another multiplex broadcasting station has been used. It is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No.

[0003]

However, in the multiplex broadcast receiving apparatus disclosed in the prior art, the tunnel or the indoor where radio waves do not reach from the state where the multiplex broadcast is normally received,
Even if the user moves to an area where radio waves cannot be received, such as underground, the automatic search operation is started. Therefore, even if it is located in an area where radio waves cannot be received, that is, an area where the radio waves of other broadcasting stations cannot reach, the automatic search operation is continued, which causes a discomfort to the listener. Had.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and it is an object of the present invention to prohibit the automatic searching operation when moving to an area where radio waves do not reach, such as a tunnel, indoors or underground. Is.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vehicle-mounted multiplex broadcast receiving device for determining deterioration of a radio wave reception condition and starting an automatic search in response to the determination operation. A means for detecting the position condition of the vehicle is provided, and the automatic search operation is restricted depending on the position condition of the vehicle and the reception condition of radio waves.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in a vehicle-mounted multiplex broadcast receiving device that determines deterioration of a radio wave reception condition and starts an automatic search in response to the determination operation, the vehicle position is detected by GPS satellite navigation. The GPS receiving means is provided to prohibit the automatic searching operation when the reception condition of the radio wave is deteriorated and the GPS receiving means cannot capture a predetermined number of GPS satellites or more.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in a vehicle-mounted multiplex broadcast receiving device that determines deterioration of a radio wave reception condition and starts an automatic search in response to the determination operation, the vehicle position is detected by GPS satellite navigation. GPS receiving means is provided to deteriorate the reception condition of radio waves, and the GPS receiving means reduces the number of GPS satellites.
The automatic search operation is prohibited when neither of them can be captured.

A fourth aspect of the present invention is a means for detecting the current position of a vehicle in an on-vehicle multiplex broadcast receiving apparatus for determining deterioration of a radio wave reception condition and starting an automatic search in response to the determination operation. And the road network information recording means in which the road network information is recorded, the position of the vehicle detected by the detecting means, and the road network information stored in the road network information storage means A map matching means for determining whether or not the radio wave can reach is provided, and when the radio wave reception condition is deteriorated and the map matching means determines that the radio wave is not reached, the automatic searching operation is performed. Is prohibited.

[0009]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the automatic searching operation is restricted depending on the position of the vehicle and the reception of radio waves. According to a second aspect of the present invention, the automatic searching operation is performed when it is determined that the reception condition of the radio wave is deteriorated and it is determined that the radio wave does not reach when the GPS receiving means cannot capture a predetermined number of GPS satellites or more. Ban.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, it is determined that the reception condition of the radio wave has deteriorated, and the GPS receiving means sets the GPS satellite to 1
If neither of them can be captured, it is prohibited to perform the automatic search operation when it is determined to be located in a place where radio waves cannot reach. Claim 4
The vehicle position is detected by the means for detecting the current vehicle position, and based on the road network information stored in the road network information storage means, it is determined whether or not the vehicle position is within the reach of radio waves. The automatic search operation is prohibited when it is determined that the reception condition of the radio wave is deteriorated and it is determined that the reception position of the radio wave is not reached.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a multiplex broadcast automatic locating apparatus of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. First, a first embodiment of an on-vehicle multiplex broadcasting automatic search device will be described. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 is a tuner section for selecting and receiving one broadcasting station from a plurality of FM multiplex broadcasting stations, 2 is a decoding section for decoding FM multiplex broadcasting, and 3 is an audio signal decoded by the decoding section 2. The audio output unit 4 which amplifies the audio and outputs the audio to a listener from a speaker (not shown) or the like 4 is a data reconstructing unit that assembles the packetized character information and auxiliary information decoded by the decoding unit 2 into the original information. The composition unit 5 is an LCD or CR for displaying the character information extracted by the data reconstruction unit 4.
A display unit composed of T etc., 6 is an operation unit equipped with a selection switch for a listener to select an arbitrary broadcasting station and a switch for selecting whether or not to perform an automatic searching operation, and 7 is an operation unit. The tuning instruction unit that performs the tuning operation of the receiving broadcasting station instructed by the unit 6 and supplies information such as the frequency of the broadcasting station to the tuner unit 1. An external situation determining unit for identifying the situation of the position of the own vehicle, and a GPS receiving unit 9 for obtaining the current position using a GPS (Global Positioning System) satellite.

Normally, when receiving an FM multiplex broadcast, a listener of the multiplex broadcast automatic searching apparatus of the present invention selects a desired broadcast station from the operation unit 6. The tuning instruction unit 7 supplies information such as the frequency of the broadcasting station selected by the operation unit 6 to the tuner unit 1. The tuner unit 1 sets the reception frequency based on the frequency information from the tuning instruction unit 7, and receives the FM multiplex broadcast desired by the listener via the antenna.

The FM multiplex broadcast received by the tuner unit 1 is separated into an audio signal and a multiplex signal by the decoding unit 2 after frequency demodulation. After separation, the audio signal is output by the audio output unit 3
To the data reconstructing unit 4 by further A / D converting the multiplexed signal including other character information and additional information, and performing various signal processing such as de-scramble processing, de-interleave processing and error correction. Is supplied to. In addition, when an uncorrectable error is detected in the decoding unit 2,
The number of occurrences is counted, and when it exceeds a predetermined value, a signal notifying that effect is supplied to the channel selection instructing section 2.

The audio information separated by the decoding unit 2 is amplified by an amplification unit (not shown) in the audio output unit 3 and output by a speaker (not shown). Further, the character information, the additional information, etc., which are decoded after being separated by the decoding unit 2, are reconstructed by the data reconstructing unit 4 so as to become normal data when the information has a packet structure, Information is displayed on the display unit 5. Although not shown, the output of the data configuration unit 4 may be stored in a storage unit using a memory such as a RAM or another medium (writable optical disk or hard disk).

Next, the F when the automatic search operation is designated
Reception of M multiplex broadcasting will be described. The listener of the multiplex broadcast automatic searching apparatus of the present invention selects a desired broadcasting station by the operation unit 6 and further designates the automatic searching operation. When the reception state of the radio wave is good, the operation for receiving the above-mentioned normal FM multiplex broadcast is performed.

When the reception condition of the radio wave is deteriorated, an uncorrectable error occurs in the decoding section 2. The uncorrectable error is detected, the number of occurrences thereof is counted, and when the count value becomes equal to or more than a predetermined value within a predetermined time, information for notifying the fact is supplied to the channel selection instruction unit 7. On the other hand, the GPS receiver 9 can be seen by the receiver at present and can be used for positioning.
The current position is successively detected by recognizing the PS satellite. Normally, the current position is detected using 3 to 4 GPS satellites. The GPS receiving unit 9 sequentially supplies the external situation determining unit 8 with information indicating whether a GPS satellite is currently captured (visible) or information indicating where the current position is.

Based on the information from the GPS receiving unit 9, the external situation determining unit 8 determines whether or not the GPS satellite is currently visible, that is, whether or not it is located in an area (outdoors) where radio waves reach, whether a tunnel or The position of the vehicle is determined whether it is located in an area where radio waves do not reach, such as indoors or underground (closed place), and if even one GPS satellite can be captured, it is located in an area where the radio waves reach (outdoors). Then, it is determined that the GPS satellite is 1
If neither of them can be captured, it is determined to be located in an area where radio waves do not reach (closed place) such as a tunnel, indoors, or underground. This determination information is sequentially supplied to the tuning instruction unit 7.

When the tuning instruction section 7 receives from the decoding section 2 information that there are many uncorrectable errors, it starts the automatic station search of the broadcasting station based on the judgment information from the external situation judging section 8. Determine whether to do. When the determination information from the external situation determination unit 8 is information indicating that the current position is located in an area (outdoors) where radio waves reach, the tuning instruction unit 7 may change the received electric field strength or cause multipath interference. It is determined that the reception state of the radio wave has deteriorated, and a search operation for finding another currently audible broadcasting station, that is, a search station search operation is started. When a new FM multiplex broadcasting station is found by the search station search operation, the search section search operation is completed, and the tuner unit 1 is fixed so as to receive the frequency.

On the other hand, the channel selection instructing section 7 includes an external situation determining section 8
If the judgment information from is that the current position is located in an area where radio waves do not reach (closed place), the search operation to search for another broadcasting station is prohibited and the search operation is performed. Absent. Note that the audio output may be muted while it is located in an area where radio waves do not reach (closed place).

Further, in the first embodiment, when the GPS receiving unit 9 can catch even one GPS satellite, it is determined that the GPS receiving unit 9 is located in an area (outdoors) where radio waves can reach. When more than three (3) GPS satellites are captured, it is determined that they are located in an area (outdoors) where radio waves reach, and when less than a preset number of GPS satellites can be captured, radio waves in tunnels, indoors, underground, etc. It may be determined that it is located in an area that cannot be reached (closed place). As a result, GPS satellites such as tunnels with one side open are
However, it is possible to handle areas where radio waves do not reach, thus improving the accuracy of automatic search control.

Next, a second embodiment of the on-vehicle multiplex broadcasting automatic tuning apparatus will be described. In FIG. 2, the tuner section 1,
The decoding unit 2, the audio output unit 3, the data reconstructing unit 4, the display unit 5, the operation unit 6, and the channel selection instructing unit 7 perform the same operations as those in the first embodiment, and therefore their explanations are omitted. Reference numeral 8 denotes an external situation determination unit that identifies the current vehicle position situation based on information from a map matching unit 10 to be described later, and 10 is a map matching unit that obtains the current position by map matching processing.

The map matching processing is performed from the current position data of the vehicle detected by the vehicle position detecting means and a recording medium in which road network information is recorded via a recording medium (eg optical disk, IC card) control device. A process (called map matching) is performed to compare the read road network information and to estimate the position of the vehicle on the road network. In the road network information, the road network is represented by nodes (nodes) and branches (links) connecting the nodes. The nodes are mainly intersections, but also include inflection points of roads (interpolation points for approximating a road that is not a straight line with a plurality of line segments). Therefore, the link includes not only the actual roads between the intersections but also the inflection points of the roads described above. There are roughly three types of map matching. The first and most basic method is open loop (also called dead reckoning), which seeks the ring closest to the vehicle and converges the current position on the link. The second method is called a network search type, in which the links are regarded as mutually connected networks, and the link on which the own vehicle is likely to exist when the vehicle passes through the node is calculated. If the calculated result is logically different from the previous result, go back and correct the previous result. The third method is called a pattern matching type, in which image processing is performed between the traveling locus of the own vehicle and the road information, and the locus is adjusted to a highly correlated link. Also, there is a method in which the first to third methods are combined.

By this map matching process, the attributes of the road on which the current vehicle is located are identified. That is, it is possible to recognize whether the current position is located in an area where radio waves reach (outdoor) or in an area where radio waves do not reach (closed place) such as a tunnel, indoor, or underground. Normally, when receiving an FM multiplex broadcast, the same processing as in the first embodiment is performed.

Next, F when the automatic search operation is designated
Reception of M multiplex broadcasting will be described. The listener of the multiplex broadcast automatic searching apparatus of the present invention selects a desired broadcasting station by the operation unit 6 and further designates the automatic searching operation. When the reception state of the radio wave is good, the operation for receiving the above-mentioned normal FM multiplex broadcast is performed.

When the reception condition of the radio wave is deteriorated, an uncorrectable error occurs in the decoding section 2. The uncorrectable error is detected, the number of occurrences thereof is counted, and when the count value becomes equal to or more than a predetermined value within a predetermined time, information for notifying the fact is supplied to the channel selection instruction unit 7. On the other hand, the map matching unit 10 sequentially detects where the current position is located by the map matching process, and sequentially obtains information indicating where the current position is and what kind of state the external position determination unit 8 is. Is being supplied to.

The external situation judging section 8 is based on the information from the map matching section 10 and receives radio waves (outdoors).
The position situation of the vehicle is determined whether the vehicle is located at or in an area (closed place) where radio waves do not reach, such as a tunnel, indoors, or underground, and the signals are sequentially supplied to the tuning instruction unit 7. Tuning instruction section 7
When receiving the information that the uncorrectable error frequently occurs from the decoding unit 2, determines based on the determination information from the external situation determination unit 8 whether or not to start the automatic station search of the broadcasting station.

If the judgment information from the external situation judging unit 8 is information indicating that the current position is located in an area (outdoors) where radio waves reach, the tuning instruction unit 7 changes the received electric field strength and multipath. It is determined that the radio wave reception state has deteriorated due to interference or the like, and a search operation for finding another currently audible broadcasting station, that is, a search station search operation is started. When a new FM multiplex broadcasting station is found by the search station search operation, the search section search operation is completed, and the tuner unit 1 is fixed so as to receive the frequency.

On the other hand, the channel selection instructing section 7 includes an external situation determining section 8
If the judgment information from is that the current position is located in an area where radio waves do not reach (closed place), the search operation to search for another broadcasting station is prohibited and the search operation is performed. Absent. Note that the audio output may be muted while it is located in an area where radio waves do not reach (closed place).

[0029]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the vehicle equipped with the receiving device of the present invention limits the automatic searching operation according to the situation of the position of the vehicle. it can. According to the present invention, in the vehicle equipped with the receiving device of the present invention, the reception condition of the radio wave deteriorates, and the GPS
Since the automatic searching operation is prohibited when a predetermined number of satellites cannot be acquired, the automatic searching operation can be controlled with high accuracy.

In claim 3 or claim 4, when the vehicle equipped with the receiving apparatus of the present invention is located in an area where radio waves do not reach, the automatic search operation is prohibited, so that useless search operation is prevented. As a result, the listener's discomfort can be reduced. It can also be easily combined with the navigation system.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram showing a second embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Tuner part 2 Decoding part 3 Audio output part 4 Data reconstruction part 5 Display part 6 Operation part 7 Tuning instruction part 8 External situation judging part 9 GPS receiving part 10 Map matching part

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A vehicle-mounted multiplex broadcast receiving device for determining deterioration of a radio wave reception condition and starting an automatic search in response to the determination operation, is provided with a means for detecting the position condition of the vehicle. A multi-broadcast automatic searching device characterized in that the automatic searching operation is restricted depending on the position situation and the reception condition of radio waves. 2. A vehicle-mounted multiplex broadcast receiving device for determining deterioration of a radio wave reception condition and starting an automatic search in response to the determination operation, wherein GPS reception detects a vehicle position by GPS satellite navigation. Means for disabling radio wave reception conditions and prohibiting the automatic search operation when the GPS receiving means cannot capture a predetermined number of GPS satellites or more. 3. A vehicle-mounted multiplex broadcast receiving device for determining deterioration of radio wave reception status and starting an automatic search in response to the determination operation, wherein GPS reception for detecting a vehicle position by GPS satellite navigation. Means for disabling the radio wave reception condition, and prohibiting the automatic search operation when the GPS receiving means cannot capture any GPS satellites. 4. A means for detecting the current position of a vehicle in a vehicle-mounted multiplex broadcast receiving device, which determines deterioration of a radio wave reception condition and starts an automatic search in response to the determination operation, and a road. By the road network information recording means in which network information is recorded, the position of the vehicle detected by the detection means, and the road network information stored in the road network information storage means,
When a map matching means for determining whether or not the vehicle is located in a place where radio waves reach is provided, the reception condition of radio waves deteriorates, and it is determined by the map matching means that the vehicle is located in a place where radio waves do not reach. Is a multi-broadcast automatic searching device characterized by prohibiting automatic searching operation.