Iee International Electronics and Engineering S.a.

Matthias Massing

Werner Bieck

Driss Chabach

Alain Schumacher

Thomas Wittkowski

Michael Olk

Raphaël Bennes

Joost Ortjens

Baptiste Fagart

Sung-Guen Kim

A planar carrier for mounting on a rim of a steering wheel without wrinkles, the planar carrier including a portion of planar flexible foil of roughly rectangular shape having two longitudinal sides and two lateral sides, wherein the length B of the lateral sides is 0.96 to 1.00 times the perimeter of the rim, and wherein N cut-outs per unit length are provided on each of the longitudinal sides. The cut-outs of one side are located in a staggered fashion relative to opposing cut-out portions on the opposite side. The optimum shape and size of the cut-outs may be determined as described. The planar carrier may be implemented as a heat carrier, a heating device and/or a sensing device.

Planar flexible carrier for use in steering wheel heating and/or sensing

Foil-based PTC heaters are self-regulating, i.e. do not need any electronic control unit (ECU) to limit the maximum heating current. In order to establish different heating power levels the present invention proposes to choose different PTC ratio/onset characteristics. In addition, the print design of the PTC ink can be adjusted accordingly.

PTC heating device without electronic power control

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Munich, Georgia

Matthias Massing