Vehicle control device

Abstract

To provide a vehicle control device capable of appropriately controlling the acceleration when a vehicle automatically accelerates.SOLUTION: A processor 152 of an ECU 150 comprises: an occupant condition determination unit 152a that determines a condition of an occupant in a vehicle; an elapsed time determination unit 152c that determines an elapsed time since an operation input for switching to a mode in which the vehicle automatically accelerates is acquired; and an acceleration upper limit value setting unit 152d that sets an upper limit value of acceleration when the vehicle automatically accelerates in response to the operation input, on the basis of the condition of the occupant in the vehicle and the elapsed time.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 2

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] The present invention relates to a vehicle control device. [Background technology]

[0002] It is known that the upper limit of the acceleration / deceleration of a vehicle is changed depending on whether an occupant is present, whether the occupant is a child or an elderly person, and whether the occupant is standing (see Patent Document 1). [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0003] [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Publication No. 2020-093700 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0004] For example, when a vehicle is autonomously driving hands-off, the vehicle may automatically accelerate after a temporary driver input. In such a case, the unexpected acceleration may cause discomfort to the vehicle occupants. However, the technology described in the above patent document has a problem in that it is not possible to appropriately control acceleration in a driving situation in which the vehicle automatically accelerates.

[0005] Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle control device that can appropriately control acceleration when the vehicle automatically accelerates. [Means for solving the problem]

[0006] The gist of the present disclosure is as follows. (1) an occupant status determination unit that determines the status of an occupant in a vehicle; an elapsed time determination unit that determines an elapsed time since an operation input for switching the vehicle to an automatic acceleration mode is acquired; an acceleration upper limit setting unit that sets an upper limit of acceleration when the vehicle automatically accelerates in response to the operation input, based on the status of the occupants in the vehicle and the elapsed time; A vehicle control device comprising: [Effects of the Invention]

[0007] According to the present invention, a vehicle control device is provided that can appropriately control acceleration when the vehicle automatically accelerates. [Brief explanation of the drawings]

[0008] [Figure 1] 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a vehicle driving assistance system according to one embodiment; [Figure 2] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing functional blocks of a processor of an ECU. [Figure 3] 4 is a flowchart showing a process performed by a processor of the ECU at each predetermined control period. [Figure 4] 4 is a flowchart showing a process performed by a processor of the ECU at each predetermined control period. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0009] Hereinafter, several embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. However, these descriptions are intended to be merely examples of preferred embodiments of the present invention and are not intended to limit the present invention to such specific embodiments.

[0010] FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a vehicle cruise assist system 1000 according to one embodiment. The cruise assist system 1000 is mounted on a vehicle such as an automobile, and includes an on-board camera 110, a vehicle control device 120, an operation input device 130, a wireless terminal 140, and an electronic control unit (ECU; hereinafter, referred to as ECU) 150. The on-board camera 110, the vehicle control device 120, the operation input device 130, the wireless terminal 140, and the ECU 150 are communicably connected via an in-vehicle network conforming to a standard such as a Controller Area Network (CAN). The cruise assist system 1000 may assist the driver in driving by, for example, enabling the driver to drive with their hands off the steering wheel (hands-off driving). Examples of such driving include driving at or above level 2 or level 3 as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).

[0011] The vehicle-mounted camera 110 has a two-dimensional detector configured with an array of photoelectric conversion elements, such as a CCD or C-MOS, that are sensitive to visible light, and an imaging optical system that forms an image of the area to be photographed on the two-dimensional detector. The vehicle-mounted camera 110 photographs the interior space of the vehicle and generates an image representing the interior of the vehicle. The vehicle-mounted camera 110 photographs at a predetermined photographing interval (for example, 1 / 30 to 1 / 10 seconds). The vehicle-mounted camera 110 may be configured as a stereo camera and may be configured to obtain the distance to each structure on the image from the parallax between left and right images. Each time the vehicle-mounted camera 110 generates an image, it outputs the generated image to the ECU 150 via the in-vehicle network.

[0012] The vehicle control equipment 120 is various equipment related to vehicle control, and includes a drive device such as an internal combustion engine or an electric motor as a drive source for driving the vehicle, a transmission, a braking device for braking the vehicle, a steering device for turning the vehicle, and the like.

[0013] The operation input device 130 is a device into which a driver's operation is input, such as a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, brake pedal, or shift lever. The wireless terminal 140 is a communication interface with an external communication network, and receives signals transmitted from the outside to the vehicle, for example, signals related to operation input by remote control from a control center outside the system, and passes them to the ECU 150. The wireless terminal 140 also transmits signals related to the vehicle's operating state, images from the on-board camera 110, vehicle position information, and the like, received from the ECU 150, to the outside.

[0014] The ECU 150 is one aspect of a vehicle control device according to the present disclosure. The ECU 150 includes a processor 152, a memory 154, and a communication interface 156. The processor 152 includes one or more central processing units (CPUs) and their peripheral circuits. The processor 152 may further include other arithmetic circuits such as a logic operation unit, a numerical operation unit, or a graphics processing unit. The memory 154 includes, for example, a volatile semiconductor memory and a non-volatile semiconductor memory, and stores data related to the processing according to this embodiment. The communication interface 156 includes an interface circuit for connecting the ECU 150 to an in-vehicle network.

[0015] Meanwhile, for example, during the above-described hands-off driving, if there is an obstacle such as a parked vehicle ahead of the route along which the vehicle is traveling, the vehicle will decelerate. In this case, if there is a temporary steering input by the driver of the vehicle (driver override) or a steering input by remote control from outside the system, and the vehicle turns and the road ahead of the vehicle becomes clear, the driving assistance system 1000 will accelerate the vehicle. In this case, there is a possibility that the unexpected acceleration will cause discomfort to the vehicle occupants.

[0016] For this reason, driving assistance system 1000 changes the upper limit of the vehicle acceleration depending on the status of the occupants in the vehicle. The upper limit of the acceleration is set to a higher value when there are no occupants, including the driver, in the vehicle than when there is a driver in the vehicle. Also, the upper limit of the acceleration is set to a higher value when only the driver is in the vehicle than when there are other occupants in addition to the driver in the vehicle. Also, when there are other occupants in addition to the driver in the vehicle, the upper limit of the acceleration is set to a lower value when there are standing occupants than when all occupants are seated. Also, when there are standing occupants in the vehicle, the upper limit of the acceleration is set to a lower value when there are young children or elderly people standing than when there are no young children or elderly people standing.

[0017] Furthermore, since the degree of discomfort experienced by the occupant due to acceleration decreases with time after the steering or other operational input is performed, the upper limit of acceleration is set to a smaller value immediately after the steering or other operational input is performed than after a certain time has elapsed since the operation. Note that the upper limit of acceleration may be set only when an operational input is received via driver override or remote control. Furthermore, steering is one example of an operational input, and the operational input may also be related to an accelerator operation, a brake operation, or a shift operation.

[0018] 2 is a schematic diagram showing functional blocks of the processor 152 of the ECU 150 for performing the above-described processing. The processor 152 of the ECU 150 has an occupant status determination unit 152a, an operation input acquisition unit 152b, an elapsed time determination unit 152c, and an acceleration upper limit value setting unit 152d. Each of these units of the processor 152 is a functional module realized by, for example, a computer program running on the processor 152. That is, the functional blocks of the processor 152 are configured by the processor 152 and a program (software) for causing the processor 152 to function. The program may be recorded in the memory 154 included in the ECU 150 or in an externally connected recording medium. Alternatively, each of these units of the processor 152 may be a dedicated arithmetic circuit provided in the processor 152.

[0019] The occupant status determination unit 152a determines the status of occupants in the vehicle. The occupant status determination unit 152a determines whether or not a person is present in the vehicle based on an image of the interior of the vehicle generated by the in-vehicle camera 110. If a person is present in the vehicle, the occupant status determination unit 152a determines whether or not the vehicle driver or a person other than the driver is present, whether or not a standing occupant is present, whether or not the standing occupant is a child or an elderly person, etc. In this case, for example, the occupant is detected from the image by template matching between a template image and the image generated by the in-vehicle camera 110, or by inputting the image generated by the in-vehicle camera 110 into a classifier trained on machine learning for object detection, and the status of the occupant is determined. Furthermore, whether or not a standing occupant is present may be determined based on the output signal of a seating sensor, the output signal of a sensor that detects whether a seat belt is fastened or unfastened, or the like.

[0020] The occupant status determination unit 152a may use, as the classifier, a segmentation classifier that is trained in advance to output, for each pixel of an input image, the likelihood that an object is represented by that pixel for each type of object that may be represented by that pixel, and to identify the object with the highest likelihood as being represented.The occupant status determination unit 152a may use, as such a classifier, a deep neural network (DNN) having a convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture for segmentation, such as a fully convolutional network (FCN).

[0021] The operation input acquisition unit 152b acquires an operation input for switching the vehicle to an automatic acceleration mode. Examples of such an operation input include the above-mentioned operation input by driver override or operation input by remote control from outside the system. The elapsed time determination unit 152c determines the elapsed time since the operation input acquisition unit 152b acquired the operation input.

[0022] The upper acceleration limit setting unit 152d sets an upper limit of acceleration when the vehicle automatically accelerates in response to an operation input, based on the status of the occupants in the vehicle and the elapsed time.

[0023] 3 is a flowchart showing the processing performed by processor 152 of ECU 150 at each predetermined control cycle. In FIG. 3, upper limits A, B, BB, C, CC, D, DD, E, and EE are upper limit values ​​of acceleration. The magnitude relationships among the upper limit values ​​are A>B>C>D>E, and also B>BB, C>CC, D>DD, and E>EE.

[0024] First, the occupant status determination unit 152a determines whether or not there is a person in the vehicle (step S10). If there is no person in the vehicle, the acceleration upper limit setting unit 152d sets the upper limit of acceleration to A (step S12).

[0025] If it is determined in step S10 that a person is present in the vehicle, the occupant status determination unit 152a determines whether or not any person other than the driver is present in the vehicle (step S14). If it is determined that no person other than the driver is present in the vehicle, the elapsed time determination unit 152c determines whether or not a certain time has passed since the operation input acquisition unit 152b acquired the operation input (step S16). If it is not within the certain time since the operation input was acquired, the acceleration upper limit value setting unit 152d sets the upper limit value of acceleration to B (step S18). On the other hand, if it is within the certain time since the operation input was acquired in step S16, the acceleration upper limit value setting unit 152d sets the upper limit value of acceleration to BB (step S20). The certain time may be, for example, about 10 seconds.

[0026] If it is determined in step S14 that a person other than the driver is present in the vehicle, the occupant status determination unit 152a determines whether or not there is any occupant standing in the vehicle (step S22). If there is no occupant standing in the vehicle, the elapsed time determination unit 152c determines whether or not a certain time has passed since the operation input acquisition unit 152b acquired the operation input (step S24). If it is not within the certain time since the operation input was acquired, the acceleration upper limit value setting unit 152d sets the upper limit value of acceleration to C (step S26). On the other hand, if it is within the certain time since the operation input was acquired in step S24, the acceleration upper limit value setting unit 152d sets the upper limit value of acceleration to CC (step S28).

[0027] If it is determined in step S22 that there is an occupant standing inside the vehicle, the occupant status determination unit 152a determines whether the occupant standing inside the vehicle is a small child or an elderly person (step S30). If the person standing inside the vehicle is neither a small child nor an elderly person, the elapsed time determination unit 152c determines whether a certain time has passed since the operation input acquisition unit 152b acquired the operation input (step S32). If the certain time has not passed since the operation input was acquired, the acceleration upper limit value setting unit 152d sets the upper limit value of acceleration to D (step S34). On the other hand, if the certain time has passed since the operation input was acquired in step S32, the acceleration upper limit value setting unit 152d sets the upper limit value of acceleration to DD (step S36).

[0028] If the person standing in the vehicle in step S30 is a child or an elderly person, elapsed time determination unit 152c determines whether or not a certain time has passed since operation input acquisition unit 152b acquired the operation input (step S38), and if the certain time has not passed since acquisition of the operation input, upper acceleration limit setting unit 152d sets the upper limit of acceleration to E (step S40). On the other hand, if the certain time has passed since acquisition of the operation input in step S38, upper acceleration limit setting unit 152d sets the upper limit of acceleration to EE (step S42).

[0029] FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the processing performed by processor 152 of ECU 150 at each predetermined control cycle, and illustrates an example in which step S50 is added to FIG. 3 . In step S50, elapsed time determination unit 152c determines whether or not a predetermined time has elapsed since operation input acquisition unit 152b acquired the operation input. If the predetermined time has elapsed since acquisition of the operation input in step S50, the subsequent processing of FIG. 3 is performed. The predetermined time of step S50 is, for example, about 30 seconds, which is longer than the fixed times of steps S16, S24, S32, and S38 of FIG. 3 . As described above, in the processing of FIG. 4 , if the predetermined time has elapsed since acquisition of the operation input, it is considered that the occupant will not feel uncomfortable due to inadvertent acceleration, and therefore the processing of FIG. 3 is not performed.

[0030] As described above, according to this embodiment, the upper limit of acceleration when the vehicle automatically accelerates is controlled according to the occupant's condition and the elapsed time after the operation input, thereby preventing the occupant from feeling uncomfortable. [Explanation of symbols]

[0031] 110 In-car camera 120 Vehicle control equipment 130 Operation input device 140 Wireless Terminals 150 Electronic Control Unit (ECU) 152 processors 152a Occupant status determination section 152b Operation input acquisition unit 152c Elapsed time determination unit 152d Acceleration upper limit setting unit 154 memory 156 Communication Interface 1000 Driving Assistance System

Claims

[Claim 1] an occupant status determination unit that determines the status of an occupant in the vehicle; an elapsed time determination unit that determines an elapsed time since an operation input for switching the vehicle to an automatic acceleration mode is acquired; an acceleration upper limit setting unit that sets an upper limit of acceleration when the vehicle automatically accelerates in response to the operation input, based on the status of the occupants in the vehicle and the elapsed time; A vehicle control device comprising:

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