Nissan Motor Company Limited

Haruto Tanaka

Kiyoshi Yamaki

Hidetaka Suzuki

Masaharu Asano

Shigeo Aono

Junsuke Kuroki

Namio Irie

Kazunobu Kawabata

Yasuhisa Takeuchi

An automotive height control system for an automotive vehicle includes an actuator disposed within a vehicle suspension system for adjusting the vertical dimension between a vehicle body and a wheel axle. The actuator is connected to a controller to receive a control signal which orders adjustment of the vehicle height. The height control system further includes a damping characteristics controller cooperative with the actuator for adjusting damping characteristics of the suspension system according to the vehicle height. In addition, the system is provided with a vehicle height sensor which monitors the height of the vehicle from the road surface and provides a vehicle height indicative signal. A fail-safe system detects abnormal height conditions as indicated by the vehicle height indicative signal to produce a fail-safe signal. The actuator and the damping characteristics controller respond to the fail-safe signal by equalizing their internal pressures.

Automatic level control system for automotive vehicle with fail-safe

An ultra-sonic distance sensor system includes means for measuring the elapsed time between transmission of ultra-sonic waves and receipt of the return wave reflected by an object which reflects ultra-sonic waves and the distance to which is to be measured. A correction value is derived on the basis of the rate of change of the signal level of a receiver signal output by an ultra-sonic receiver. On the basis of the derived correction value, the resultant distance value or the measured elapsed time value is corrected to ensure accurate measurement of the distance to the object can be ensured. This allows more precise height control for a vehicle when the distance detector is applied to a height control system of an automotive vehicle.

Ultra-sonic distance sensor system and method with correction feature

A road map display system for an automotive vehicle displays a mark representative of a vehicle's position and direction. The mark is positioned at the center of a display screen and the coordinate system of the map is transformed depending on the vehicle's direction so that the mark indicative of the direction is always directed upward along the y-axis of the display. The system further includes a scale selector which is manually operable. Depending on the selected map scale, the displayed map is magnified or reduced.

Road map display system with indication of a vehicle position

A road map display system comprises a map memory for storing map image data, a sensor for detecting the travelling distance and travelling direction and outputting a signal representative of the angular offset between the direction of travel and an axis of a map coordinate system, an arithmetic means for calculating the map coordinates of a point halfway between the vehicle position and the destination, a coordinate transforming means which transforms the map image data to a display coordinate system, the origin of which lies halfway between the vehicle and the destination and the y-axis of which lies parallel to the direction of travel, a display memory in which the map data and symbols representing the destination and the position and the direction of travel of the vehicle are stored in terms of the display coordinate system, and a display means displaying the information stored in the display memory on the display screen.

Road map display system with indications of a vehicle position and

A display of images on a screen which is installed in an automotive vehicle for displaying the driving direction and location of the automotive vehicle within a graphic pattern, such as a drive map, comprising: (a) a screen device; (b) a first memory unit in which data of a graphic pattern to be displayed on said screen device is stored; (c) a second memory unit in which at least one word and mark to be superimposed on the graphic pattern and those positional data on the graphic pattern are stored; (d) a signal generator which outputs a command signal to rotate the graphic pattern on said screen unit by an angle with respect to an original position; (e) a shift circuit which shifts the positions of all words and marks stored in said second memory unit to those rotated at the angle corresponding to the command signal from said signal generator; and (f) an image control unit which controls the display of graphic pattern rotated by the angle corresponding to the command signal from said signal generator on said screen unit and controls the superimposition of at least one word and mark stored in said second memory unit on the position of the graphic pattern shifted by said shift circuit.

System for maintaining an orientation of characters displayed with a

An automatic vehicle height-adjusting system is applied to a vehicle including a sprung mass and an unsprung mass in contact with a road surface, the sprung mass being supported on the unsprung mass via a spring or the like. The system includes a sensor, which senses the distance between the sprung mass and the road surface and generates a distance signal indicative thereof. In response to the distance signal, a first discriminator or comparator determines whether or not the distance is less than a first predetermined value, and generates a first comparison signal indicative thereof. In response to the distance signal, a second discriminator or comparator determines whether or not the distance is greater than a second predetermined value, and generates a second comparison signal indicative thereof. The second predetermined value is chosen to be greater than the first predetermined value. In response to the first and second comparison signals, a control mechanism increases the height of the sprung mass with respect to the unsprung mass when the distance is less than the first predetermined value, and decreases the height of the sprung mass with respect to the unsprung mass when the distance is greater than the second predetermined value.

Automatic vehicle height-adjusting system

According to the method, a plurality of sensor signals are generated related to vehicle operating parameters. Interruption signals are produced in response to certain sensor signals and cause execution of a main control program to be interrupted. Data related to the main control program are transferred to an auxiliary memory. An interruption processing program is executed in a non-interruptible state to determine the source of the interruption signal, after which an interruption program related to the received interruption signal is executed. The interruption program is interrupted in response to each additional interruption signal and data related to the interrupted interruption program is stored in an auxiliary memory. The interruption processing program is then re-executed and a FLAG is stored identifying the interruption program related to each additional interruption signal. Execution of the interruption program related to the first interruption signal is then continued and followed by execution of interruption programs related to the additional interruption signals in an order determined by the stored FLAGs.

Method for program control of components of an automotive vehicle

Mixture ratio control for internal combustion engines supplies a constant current into an exhaust gas sensor to develop a voltage of a substantial magnitude in proportion to the initial high value of the gas sensor internal impedance during low temperature conditions. The voltage so developed decreases as a function of time corresponding to the decrease of the internal impedance with temperature. A voltage detector is provided to trigger the control system to operate in a closed loop mode when the gas sensor voltage is reduced to a level below a first threshold level. Responsive to the output of the voltage detector the supplied current is momentarily interrupted to allow the gas sensor voltage to drop rapidly to a level which is higher or lower than a second threshold level depending on the concentration of the sensed gas in the exhaust system. A second detector senses this voltage drop relative to the second threshold to determine whether the gas sensor output represents rich or lean condition. The reference point of the closed loop is raised or lowered in response to the output of the second detector and further decreased as a function of time such that the reference point lies within the range between maximum and minimum peak values of the gas sensor output signal.

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Yokohama, Japan

Haruto Tanaka