Nissan Motor Company Limited

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Hiroyuki Nomura

Kiyoshi Yamaki

Masanori Mizote

Teruo Kawasaki

Hideoki Matsuoka

Takashi Oka

Kazuyuki Mori

Takaaki Mogi

Hiroshi Inoue

Isao Yamamoto

Yoshiyuki Etoh

Kinichiro Nakano

Kiyoshi Yoshida

Jian Chen

Mikio Takeuchi

Kouichi Kogawa

Hidetaka Suzuki

Hitoshi Takeda

Hiroshi Yano

Akitoshi Mimura

Norimasa Kishi

Hiroshi Tanaka

Kouichi Suzuki

Toru Futami

Kazunori Noso

Yasuhiro Shiraishi

Yasuhisa Takeuchi

Takahiro Manabe

Mikio Nozu

Yasuhito Osada

A system and method for automatically controlling a vehicle speed to a desired cruise speed are disclosed in which in addition to a control unit and a throttle actuator through which an opening angle of an engine throttle valve is adjusted so that the vehicle speed detected by a vehicle speed sensor coincides with a target cruise speed set by a vehicle driver through a set switch, a vehicle speed determining circuit is provided for determining whether the vehicle speed detected by the vehicle speed sensor exceeds a lowest speed limit above which the cruse control by the control unit and throttle actuator becomes effective. When the vehicle speed is below the lowest speed limit, the power supply to the throttle actuator is interrupted so that the cruise control by means of the throttle actuator is cancelled.

System and method for automatically controlling a vehicle speed to a

A system and method for automatically controlling a vehicle speed to a desired cruise speed includes an inhibit switch connected in parallel to a line between a power supply and a main self hold power supply switch (self-hold type) of an automatic cruise controlling system. When the vehicle speed is below a predetermined value, the inhibit switch is open so that the automatic cruise speed controlling system cannot receive power via the main, switch. Thus, wasteful comsumption of power is reduced.

System and method for automatically controlling vehicle speed to a

A cruise control system for an automotive vehicle with a manual or automatic transmission, includes an inhibition circuit. The inhibiting circuit blocks communication between a power supply and an actuator and/or a controller when the manual transmission is set in a predetermined gear or when the automatic transmission is set in a driving range other than the drive range, so as to inhibit the controller from operating in the cruise control mode. When the vehicle is provided with an automatic transmission which is selectively set in first, second, third or fourth gear while the shift lever is set in the drive range position, the cruise control system includes a first inhibiting circuit which blocks the communication when the shift lever is set in a position other than the drive range position, and a second inhibiting circuit which blocks the communication when the automatic transmission is set in either the first or second range while the shift lever is set in the drive range position.

Cruise control system for automotive vehicle

A system and method for automatically controlling a vehicle speed to a desired cruise speed are disclosed in which a vehicle speed sensor which output an analog quantity corresponding to a current vehicle speed is provided, a vehicle speed determining circuit which derives the current vehicle speed on the basis of the analog quantity derived from the vehicle speed sensor and determines whether the derived current vehicle speed is below a predetermined speed above which the cruise speed control run is appropriate is furthermore provided independently of a control unit of the system. When the vehicle speed determining circuit outputs a determination signal indicating that the current vehicle speed is below the predetermined speed and the control unit outputs a predetermined control command signal, a power supply line connected to a throttle valve actuator is, at first, interrupted. Then, the power supply to the control unit is interrupted.

System and method for automatically controlling vehicle speed to desired

A system and method for automatically controlling a vehicle speed to a desired cruise speed are disclosed in which whether a microcomputer of a control unit is enabled to perform a cruise speed control is determined on the basis of a plurality of determining factors and a power supply of a throttle actuator for actuating an engine throttle valve so as to adjust an opening angle of the throttle valve is enabled only when all of the determining factors satisfy a condition of enabling the cruise speed control via the actuator and is disabled when at least one of the determining factors does not satisfy the condition.

A system and method for automatically controlling a vehicle speed to a desired cruise speed are disclosed in which whether after any one of command and release signals is outputted from the corresponding set/cruise, acceleration, resume, brake, clutch, and cancel switches, a control unit outputs a corresponding receipt signal via a corresponding output port is determined, whether the contents of the control command signals presently outputting through the respective control valves are equal to inverted levels at the respective control valve is determined, and a power supply to control valves for adjusting an operating variable of an engine driving force adjusting mechanism and the control unit is interrupted when at least one of the results of determinations indicates a negative result. In addition, when the control unit outputs the control command signals to the control valves to increase the vehicle speed, a subroutine of monitoring a cruise speed control enable state from the vehicle speed, command switches, release switches, and flag indicating the cruise control state in the control unit is executed.

A flexible printed circuit substrate is bent in a flattened rectangular C-shape and electronic parts generating heat are mounted on the inner surface of a central portion of the C-shaped substrate. Then a radiating heat-sink plate is adhered on the outer surface of that central portion. Temperature-sensitive electronic parts are mounted on one end portion of the C-shaped substrate and parts consisting of a power supply circuit are mounted on the other end portion. Then the entire assembly is accommodated in a housing having a connector.

Electronic circuit apparatus

To avoid pinched fingers, a verbal 'Stop Window' command causes a stop and momentary reversal of window motion. A spoken-instruction controlled system for an automotive vehicle which can stop a moving device such as a door window closing device after having driven it reversely for a fixed period when a spoken instruction is inputted thereto through a microphone. In the system according to the present invention, even if there exists a time delay from when the driver utters the spoken instruction to when the device stops perfectly, it is possible to stop the device at or before a position at which the driver utters the spoken instruction. The system according to the present invention comprises at least one motor reversing controller and a timer unit, in addition to the conventional spoken-instruction controller including at least one switch, at least one motor stop controller and a speech recognizer.

Spoken-instruction controlled system for an automotive vehicle

A device is disclosed for intermittent connection of a wiper drive motor to a power source. The device comprises first means for providing a control signal with its magnitude increased with increasing vehicle running speed, and second means for providing a first signal for a predetermined period of time and a second signal for a period of time variable according to the magnitude of the control signal. Means is provided for connecting the wiper drive motor to the power source in response to the first signal and for disconnecting the wiper drive motor from the power source in response to the second signal.

Wiper intermittent motion control device

A navigation instrument comprises a first counter for counting travelling distance from a start point, a second counter for counting travelling time from starting, a means for setting a scheduled average vehicle speed, an arithmetic means for calculating average vehicle speed, the deviation of travelling distance from the scheduled distance and the deviation of travelling time from the scheduled time, and a display means for displaying the result of calculation. The first counter is capable of subtractively counting travelling distance in response to switching operation of a switching means which is incorporated to the first counter. The first counter is also incorporated with a means for stopping navigating operation which is operative when the first counter counts down the travelling distance until a given value.

Navigation instrument

A device senses changes in a frequency or speed to be displayed. A display control circuit controls the time interval for updating the display, according to the magnitude of a sensed change in the frequency or speed, thereby avoiding flickering of the display, as well as improving the accuracy and up-to-dateness of the frequency or speed displayed.

Frequency and speed display device

The digital display device of a vehicle is provided with a control facility for controlling other vehicle mounted electric equipment such as a warning device, an auto-door lock mechanism, or the like. The control is effected by using a control signal intended for turning on a particular segment of an indicating portion of the digital display indicator.

Digital display device of vehicle use

A navigation instrument for use with a roadway vehicle comprises an arithmetic means producing three data signals showing the average speed of the vehicle, the deviation of the travelling distance from a scheduled one, and the deviation of the travelling time from a scheduled one, and a display means for displaying the three data sequentially fed from the arithmetic means through a signal selector means. The arithmetic means includes travelling distance/time deviation accumulating means for adding the deviation of the travelling distance/time with respect to the average speed initially set to the deviations of the travelling distance/time whenever the average speed is altered. Thus, the navigation instrument of the present invention makes it possible to calculate and display the travelling distance/time deviation accumulated value when the average speed of the vehicle is altered on the way of vehicle travelling.

A multifunction electronic meter for a vehicle can display selectively plural measured informations of fuel amount, cooling water temperature, oil pressure, battery voltage and the like of a vehicle on a single display section, the displayed informations being accompanied respectively with combinations of symbolmarks and surrounding frames thereof for identifying and warning those informations. The principal information of, for instance, fuel amount is ordinarily displayed, while the remaining informations are displayed selectively as occasion demands, for instance, in response to the occurrence of an emergency. When plural emergencies are simultaneously caused, the information corresponding to the lastly caused emergency is displayed intermittently together with the symbolmark, while only the symbolmarks and the frames of the informations corresponding to the previously caused emergencies are displayed continuously. Consequently, the most requisite measured information can be ordinarily noticed by a driver, as well as the remaining informations which are noticeable as occasion demands, regardless of the desired simplicity of configuration of an instrument panel of the vehicle.

Multifunction electronic meter for vehicle

A digital display type tachometer for an automobile for numerically displaying a rotation speed of the engine comprises a numeric character display device having display sections for 1000's, 100's, 10's and 1's digits, the 1's digit display section being constructed to display always '0', a counter for counting pulses generated in synchronism with the rotations of the engine to produce a BCD signal depending on the rotation speed, and decoding/driver means for decoding the BCD signal into decimal numeric character signals for 1000's, 100's and 10's digits and driving the 1000's, 100's, and 10's digit display sections by these character signals, respectively. The digital display type tachometer further comprises means for detecting whether the rotation speed of the engine is higher than 1000 rpm and producing a detection signal when the rotation speed is higher than 1000 rpm and means for controlling in response to said detection signal the 10's digit display section to display '0', whereby when the rotation speed of the engine is higher than 1000 rpm the rotation speed of the engine is displayed only with 1000's and 100's digits, while when the rotation speed of the engine is lower than 1000 rpm, the rotation speed is displayed with 100's and 10's digits.

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Fujisawa, Japan

Hiroyuki Nomura