Denso Corporation

Akihisa Izuhara

Shinji Aoki

Yuji Honda

A vehicle air conditioner controls the air-conditioning automatically based on sensors detecting environmental conditions regarding the air-conditioning of a vehicle and based on an operational portion operable by a passenger. One of the sensors is a sunlight sensor for detecting the amount of sunlight incident into the vehicle. A signal detected by the sunlight sensor is modified to have a time constant by a time constant process. The modification is based on the elevation angle of the sunlight and the inside air temperature of the vehicle. The modified signal is used for automatic control of the air-conditioning.

Vehicle air conditioner with automatic air-conditioning control

The air conditioning controller for controlling a vehicle air conditioner provided for a vehicle equipped with a navigation system includes a solar radiation sensor disposed in a front part of the vehicle, the solar-radiation direction calculating means which computes presence or absence of solar radiation entering the vehicle and an entering direction on the basis of solar position information determined from a solar position retrieval map and road information including information of structures around the road, and the solar-radiation amount calculating means for determining the solar radiation amount on based on the calculation results of the solar-radiation direction calculating means and the detected value of the solar radiation sensor. Further, the solar-radiation amount calculating means determines the solar radiation amount by correcting the detected value of the solar radiation sensor.

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Nishio, Japan

Akihisa Izuhara