Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Katsuya Saitou

Makoto Inoue

Norimitsu Kurihara

Hitokazu Shitanaka

Ryoichi Taniuchi

Susumu Nishimoto

Masahide Ohnishi

The present invention aims at providing a rotation angle detector capable of detecting and storing information for a direction and an angle of rotation of steering wheel while maintaining a condition of reduced power consumption from a battery, when an engine is not running. In achieving the object, the invention discloses a structure, wherein the detector keeps a control means ( ) including a memory unit ( ) in a memory back-up mode when an ignition switch ( ), i.e. a main switch, is turned off, switches a power supply for sensor elements ( ), ( ) and ( ) into a mode of low consumption of current, which is smaller than that of the normal current by a control signal of the control means ( ), and allows the control means ( ) to activate the sensor elements ( ), ( ) and ( ) operative in the normal mode after a confirmation of an output signal from at least one of the sensor elements ( ) and ( ) when the steering wheel is moved, and thereby the detector is capable of detecting the direction and the angle of rotation out of the information for rotation of the steering wheel.

Rotation angle detector for detecting a rotational position of a steering wheel of a vehicle

A multifunctional switching apparatus, preferably used as a steering switch, comprises a first switching section selecting a specific combination from a plurality of combinations resulting from any possible combination between operating functions of a second switching section and operating functions of a third switching section. The second and third switching sections are operable independent of each other in the specific combination selected by the first switching section. One operating key is provided to control a plurality of switching sections. A display of the operation key is provided to make the judgement of operational function of each switch section easy.

Multifunctional switching apparatus and a vehicle operating system using

Growing community of inventors

Fukui, Japan

Katsuya Saitou