Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Masahide Ohnishi

Makoto Inoue

Norimitsu Kurihara

Susumu Nishimoto

Katsuya Saitou

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.

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Fukui, Japan

Masahide Ohnishi