Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Hideharu Takemoto

Masao Nagano

Masahide Yokoo

Kenji Matsumoto

Osamu Hasegawa

Osamu Saito

Kenji Watanabe

Taichi Ogawa

Eiji Agatsuma

Yoshio Hosono

Akihito Ohtsu

Hiroya Umeyama

Masaki Amakai

An air inlet is provided at the bottom of a vehicle to open downwardly. The air inlet is connected by a first tube to an air cooler for a PDU and a down converter. A fan for inputting the flow of air and turning its direction 90 degrees is connected at the downstream of the air cooler. The fan is further connected by a second tube to an exhaust outlet. The air inlet is located above a fuel tank thus to prevent any object jumping up from the road surface from straightforwardly entering the air inlet while the vehicle is running. The exhaust outlet is located above a silencer and can thus be prevented from being frozen in the winter. Using the above arrangement, the present invention embodies an air intaking and exhausting apparatus in an air cooling system for air cooling the PDU and the down converter at higher efficiency without the help of the air cooler mounted in the interior of the vehicle.

Air-intaking and exhausting apparatus in air cooling system for PDU and down-converter

Eight storage battery cells 11.sub.1 to 11.sub.8 making up a storage battery cell group 2 can be connected selectively to a voltage-correcting storage battery 12 through nine cell change-over switches 13.sub.1 to 13.sub.9, four polarity-inverting switches 14.sub.1 to 14.sub.4 and a current-limiting resistor 15. When the voltages of two or more of the storage battery cells 11.sub.1 to 11.sub.8 are different, the voltages of each of the storage battery cells 11.sub.1 to 11.sub.8 can be equalized by then transferring the charge from a storage battery cell high in voltage to the voltage-correcting storage battery 12 and by transferring the charge of that voltage-correcting storage battery 12 to a storage battery cell low in voltage. As a result, the voltage difference due to the performance variations among the individual storage battery cells 11.sub.1 to 11.sub.8 can be obviated thereby to increase the working voltage range of the storage battery cell group 2 as a whole.

Storage battery voltage control apparatus

A process for evaluating a remaining capacity of a battery includes the steps of measuring a discharge current and output voltage from the battery during discharging of the battery, calculating a maximum output value of the battery based on a characteristic of the variation in discharge current and output voltage determined from the measured values of the discharge current and output voltage, and evaluating the remaining capacity of the battery based on the calculated maximum output value. The evaluation of the remaining capacity of the battery by this process is prohibited in a sudden-load-varying state in which the variation in load of the battery during discharging of the battery exceeds a predetermined limit level. Thus, it is possible to properly evaluate the remaining capacity of the battery without obtaining or using unstable voltage information of the battery immediately after the load varies suddenly, thereby leading to an enhanced accuracy of evaluation of the remaining capacity.

Process for evaluating remaining capacity of battery

In estimating the residual capacity of a battery according to the maximum output estimating process, a reference point is established in advance at the intersection of a plurality of current/voltage characteristic linear curves corresponding to various residual capacities of the battery or in an area in the vicinity of the intersections of the curves. A current/voltage characteristic linear curve is determined so as to pass through the reference point and a measured operating point of the battery which corresponds to the present discharging current and output voltage values measured when the battery is discharged. Then, a maximum transfer power value of the battery is determined from the current/voltage characteristic linear curve thus determined, and the present residual capacity of the battery is estimated from the maximum transfer power value.

Method of estimating residual capacity of battery

Growing community of inventors

Saitama, Japan

Hideharu Takemoto