Mitsubishi Electric Corporation

Subaru Corporation

Keisuke Takayama

Yusuke Shimazu

Kentarou Yamasaki

Makoto Kinoshita

Yuta Muramatsu

Takeshi Hatomura

Masayuki Kakuda

Hideaki Nagata

Koji Yamashita

Yuji Motomura

Takashi Ikeda

Hiroyuki Morimoto

Osamu Morimoto

Takeshi Sugimoto

Tomotaka Ishikawa

Toru Koide

Kosuke Tanaka

Shinichi Wakamoto

Yusuke Sato

Koji Azuma

Tetsuya Yamashita

So Nomoto

Daisuke Shimamoto

Hiroyuki Tachibana

Jun Yoshida

Takashi Ogawa

Yuki Ogawa

Masayuki Komatsu

Daisuke Sakai

Kensaku Hatanaka

Kunihiro Morishita

Takehiro Koyano

Satoshi Nomura

Satoshi Akagi

Kenta Murata

Hiroki Hirosaki

Kei Yanagimoto

Naoki Barada

Tadahiko Inaba

Fumihito Takeuchi

An automated driving enabled vehicle includes a travel controller, an automated driving indicator lamp, and a lamp controller. The automated driving indicator lamp is switched on perceptibly from outside the vehicle on the occasion of automated driving. The lamp controller acquires, during the execution of the automated driving, information regarding a surrounding moving body present around the vehicle. The lamp controller makes a lighting control of the automated driving indicator lamp during the execution of the automated driving, in response to presence of any surrounding moving body around the vehicle executing the automated driving.

Automated driving enabled vehicle

A hot water supply apparatus includes a heat pump device in which a compressor and a heat exchanger are connected, a heat medium circuit connected to the heat pump device via the heat exchanger, a tank that stores water after the water exchanges heat with a heat medium of the heat medium circuit, two tank-temperature detection units attached at different heights to the tank and each detects a temperature of water in the tank, and a controller that controls, by using a value detected by each of the two tank-temperature detection units, a temperature of water in the tank. The controller sets a target hot water supply temperature based on a stored-hot-water temperature detected by one of the two tank temperature detection units and a within-tank temperature difference that is a difference between temperatures within the tank detected by the two tank-temperature detection units.

Hot water supply apparatus

An automated driving enabled vehicle includes a travel controller, an automated driving indicator lamp, and a lamp controller. The automated driving indicator lamp is configured to be switched on perceptibly from outside the vehicle on the occasion of automated driving. The lamp controller is configured to start a lighting control of the automated driving indicator lamp that has been off, before the vehicle makes a departure by the automated driving, on the condition that the vehicle is about to make the departure by the automated driving from a parked or stopped state with the automated driving indicator lamp off.

An automated driving enabled vehicle includes a travel controller, an automated driving indicator lamp, and a lamp controller. The automated driving indicator lamp is switched on perceptibly from outside the vehicle on the occasion of automated driving. On the occasion of switching of a driving state of the vehicle from the automated driving to manual driving, the lamp controller switches off the automated driving indicator lamp after changing a lighting state of the automated driving indicator lamp from a first lighting state during the execution of the automated driving to a second lighting state different from the first lighting state.

An automated driving enabled vehicle includes a travel controller, an automated driving indicator lamp, and a lamp controller. The travel controller controls the travel of the vehicle by automated driving in a normal movement mode and in an automatic parking mode. The normal movement mode includes allowing the vehicle to travel, and the automatic parking mode includes parking the vehicle by the automated driving in a parking lot. The lamp controller controls a lighting state of the automated driving indicator lamp during the execution of the automated driving to a first lighting state in the normal movement mode, and to a second lighting state different from the first lighting state in the automatic parking mode.

An automated driving enabled vehicle includes a travel controller, an automated driving indicator lamp, and a lamp controller. The automated driving indicator lamp is switched on perceptibly from outside the vehicle on the occasion of automated driving. The lamp controller acquires, during the execution of the automated driving, attribute information regarding a place being traveled by the vehicle. The lamp controller makes a lighting control of the automated driving indicator lamp during the execution of the automated driving, in accordance with the place being traveled by the vehicle executing the automated driving.

An automated driving enabled vehicle includes an automated driving indicator lamp, one or more lamps, and a lamp controller. The automated driving indicator lamp is configured to be switched on perceptibly from outside the vehicle on the occasion of automated driving of the vehicle. The one or more lamps are provided on the vehicle separately from the automated driving indicator lamp. The lamp controller is configured to start to switch on the automated driving indicator lamp that has been off, before starting to switch on the one or more lamps, on the condition that the vehicle is about to make a departure by the automated driving from a parked or stopped state with the automated driving indicator lamp and the one or more lamps off.

An automated driving enabled vehicle includes a travel controller, an automated driving indicator lamp, and a lamp controller. The lamp controller switches off the automated driving indicator lamp during the execution of automated driving, on the condition that the vehicle executing the automated driving is traveling in an exclusive place for the automated driving. On the condition that a surrounding moving body is present around the vehicle while the vehicle is traveling by the automated driving in the exclusive place for the automated driving, with the automated driving indicator lamp off, the lamp controller switches the automated driving indicator lamp back on during the execution of the automated driving, in accordance with attributes of the surrounding moving body with respect to the exclusive place for the automated driving.

An automated driving enabled vehicle includes a travel controller, an automated driving indicator lamp, and a lamp controller. The travel controller controls travel of the vehicle while switching a travel control state between automated driving and manual driving. The automated driving indicator lamp is switched on perceptibly from outside the vehicle on the occasion of the automated driving. The lamp controller makes a control to switch on the automated driving indicator lamp to indicate that the travel control state is the automated driving, during execution of the automated driving in which the travel controller controls the travel of the vehicle by the automated driving. The lamp controller changes, during the execution of the automated driving, a lighting state of the automated driving indicator lamp in response to a change in the travel control state or a change in travel environment, or both.

A settings data storage stores unique serial numbers and information regarding a plurality of patterns for alternately switching between normal operation for operating at high capacity and suppressed operation for operating at low capacity each unit time. A pattern specifier determines information for a pattern set in accordance with even and odd serial numbers. A water-heating heat amount determiner determines a heat amount necessary for water heating. A water heating scheduler establishes a water heating plan based on information regarding the pattern determined by the pattern determiner and the water-heating heat amount as determined by the water-heating heat amount determiner. A water heating controller alternately switches between normal operating and suppressed operation to heat water in accordance with the water heating plan established by the water heating scheduler.

Hot-water supply unit and hot-water supply system

A heat pump device includes a compressor, a motor, a shell, a muffler, a heat exchanger, a housing, a blower, a first insulating material, and a second insulating material. The compressor compresses refrigerant. The motor drives the compressor. The shell houses the motor and the compressor. The compressor is connected to the muffler, which is further connected to heat exchanger. The housing has first and second spaces. The shell, the heat exchanger, and the muffler are disposed in the first space. The blower is disposed in the second space. The muffler is entirely located within a space between the shell and the first heat exchanger. The first insulating material at least partially cover the discharge muffler and the first heat exchanger. The second insulating material at least partially cover the shell. The first insulating material has a higher thermal resistance than the second insulating material.

Heat pump device with separately spaced components

A heat pump device includes a compression mechanism for compressing refrigerant, a motor for driving the compression mechanism, a shell housing the compression mechanism and the motor, a discharge muffler located outside the shell, a first pipe connecting the compression mechanism to the discharge muffler, and a thermal insulator (a first thermal insulating material and a second thermal insulating material). The shell and the discharge muffler are spatially located next to each other without being in contact with each other. The thermal insulator is at least partially located in a space where a distance between an outer surface of the shell and an outer surface of the discharge muffler is minimum.

Heat pump device

A heat pump system includes: a compressor for compressing refrigerant; a first heat exchanger for exchanging heat between the refrigerant compressed by the compressor and a heating medium; a second heat exchanger for exchanging heat between the refrigerant compressed by the compressor and the heating medium; a first pipe through which the refrigerant is fed from the compressor to the first heat exchanger; a second pipe through which the refrigerant returns from the first heat exchanger to the compressor; a third pipe through which the refrigerant is fed from the compressor to the second heat exchanger after returning from the first heat exchanger; and switching apparatus for switching a flow of the heating medium between a first mode and a second mode. The heating medium flows through the first heat exchanger and the second heat exchanger in series in the first mode. The heating medium flows through the first heat exchanger and the second heat exchanger in parallel in the second mode.

Heat pump system

A two-stage refrigeration apparatus includes a high-stage refrigeration cycle including a high-stage-side refrigerant circuit including a high-stage-side compressor, high-stage-side condenser, high-stage-side expansion valve, and high-stage-side evaporator connected by pipes, a low-stage refrigeration cycle including a low-stage-side refrigerant circuit including a low-stage-side compressor, low-stage-side condenser, low-stage-side receiver, low-stage-side expansion valve, and low-stage-side evaporator connected by pipes, a cascade condenser including the high-stage-side evaporator and low-stage-side condenser, a receiver heat exchanging portion configured to cool the low-stage-side receiver, and a high-stage refrigeration cycle controller configured to perform controlling so as to activate the high-stage-side compressor when estimating a low-stage-side refrigerant will reach a supercritical state while the low-stage-side compressor is defrosted on the basis of the pressure of the low-stage-side refrigerant.

Binary refrigeration apparatus

An air-conditioning apparatus includes a intermediate heat exchangers operating as a condenser or an evaporator and allows each intermediate heat exchanger to exchange heat between a refrigerant heated or cooled in a refrigeration cycle on a heat source side and a heat transfer medium flowing through a heat transfer medium circuit on a use side such that heat energy produced on the heat source side is transmitted to use side heat exchangers. A controller calculates the heat transfer medium temperature difference between a heat transfer medium inlet and outlet temperatures. When a detected value of a heat transfer medium temperature detecting device deviates from a predetermined range, the controller changes the target heat transfer medium temperature difference and controls a heat transfer medium flow control device, such that the heat transfer medium temperature difference reaches the changed target heat transfer medium temperature difference.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Keisuke Takayama