Denso Corporation

Nippondenso Co., Ltd.

Masanori Kondo

Yuji Yamada

Kunio Ohashi

Yoshiyuki Miki

Yasutoshi Horii

Hiroaki Okuchi

Kenichi Nishimura

Kanji Takeuchi

Takeshi Sawada

Yuuji Hashiba

Masao Abe

Jirou Hayashi

A DC motor is driven with a predetermined driving signal thereto before a headlight axis direction control is started by using a headlight axis control angle calculated on a basis of a variety of sensor information and a positional signal from a potentiometer. If there is no variation in the positional signal, a failure in the driving system of the DC motor is decided to exist. Therefore, for example, if failure detection is implemented when an ignition switch to start an engine is turned on, the failure in the driving system of the DC motor is detected before the headlight needs to be turned on. Thereby, reliability in the system for headlight axis direction control is able to be improved.

Automatic headlight axis direction control for vehicles

Output of each sensor arrangement is supplied to an ECU through a communication bus line. A value of a turning radius of a vehicle, which is used for adjusting directions of optical axes of swivel lights, is computed based on the output of each sensor arrangement in the ECU. When a majority of the computed values fall within a predetermined allowable range, the majority of the computed values are determined as normal, and the remaining of the computed values is determined as abnormal. The communication bus line is determined as abnormal when none of the output from the sensor arrangements is obtained. An optical axis control angle is computed based on the normal computed values and is used to drive actuators to adjust directions of the optical axes of the swivel lights.

Vehicle headlamp automatic adjusting device with sensor failure detection means

In a headlight optical axis adjusting apparatus and method for a vehicle, the shape of a road in front of the vehicle is detected by a CCD camera based on a change in lane marking line which indicates the lane width on the road, before the steering angle of a vehicle steering wheel is detected by a steering angle sensor. Left and right swivel lights of the vehicle are swiveled and adjusted based on the change in the lane marking line or the steering angle. The optical axis of the left or right swivel light is first swiveled and adjusted based on the change in the lane marking line. The driver's forward visibility can thus be improved before the driver turns the steering wheel.

Apparatus and method for automatically adjusting optical axis of vehicle headlights

An electric power steering device includes an output shaft connected to a steering mechanism of a steering system for power assisting the steering operation. The EPS includes a motor and a control circuit accommodated in a common motor housing. The motor housing comprises an end frame and a cup-shaped motor case hermetically covering the motor and the control circuit. The end frame is secured to a rack housing accommodating the steering mechanism, so that heat generated by the motor and the control circuit is transmitted to the rack housing.

Electric power steering device

Growing community of inventors

Nagoya, Japan

Masanori Kondo