Design and Implementation of Vehicle Navigation Systems

Vehicle Navigation System (VNS) is a complicated and integrated system. A reliable vehicle navigation system should integrate the wireless communication technologies, positioning technologies, embedded computer, geographic information database, and so on. The major purpose of the chapter is to help understanding the architecture of vehicle navigation system. This chapter first introduces the system requirements and system analysis, and show the system platform of vehicle navigation system. The system platform can be divided into six components. There are the digital map database, positioning devices, map-matching process, route planning process, route guidance process, human-machine interface, and wireless communication interface. The design issues and system communication of these components are detail illustrated in the chapter. Finally, the authors also present some vehicle navigation systems proposed in the past few years, and show the difference of these systems. The aim of vehicle navigation system is to guide the vehicle along the optimal path from the starting point to destination. A reliable vehicle navigation system can reduce the traffic chaos in the city and improve the transportation delay. In order to achieve reliable vehicle navigation system, the detail system requirements, system analysis, and system architecture are shown in the chapter. Each component of vehicle navigation system is briefly illustrated, and the system communication is also described. The authors also present the architecture of the proposed vehicle navigation system, and show the difference of these systems. Therefore this chapter helps understanding the architecture of vehicle navigation system.