Mitsumi Electric Company Ltd.

Sony Corporation

Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Subaru Corporation

Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha

Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.

Hitachi-Kokusai Electric Inc.

Konami Co., Ltd.

Takashi Takeda

Junji Takeshita

Takashi Suzuki

Satoru Akiyama

Eiichi Shiraishi

Akiko Asami

Yoichi Ohshige

Shintaro Ikeda

Ryu Sukigara

Akihiro Nishizawa

Akio Koresawa

Ryota Kageyama

Takeshi Yamaguchi

Daisuke Suzuki

Norihito Kawaguchi

Takatoshi Itagaki

Minoru Ogata

Nobuhito Tanaka

Koji Koshimizu

Yoshihiro Satake

Tsutomu Yamauchi

Koichi Murano

Yohei Watanabe

Hiroshi Hamada

Koji Yano

Tetsuya Ito

Keiki Yamada

Haruo Ishizuka

Yukihiko Ogata

Yoji Kaneko

Yoshihisa Tadokoro

Tomoyuki Haganuma

Naoyuki Matsumoto

Yoshio Yoshiura

Shintaro Abe

Keiichi Koike

Tamotsu Nakazawa

Hideo Kuo

Kanichi Yoshino

Sadasuke Kurabayashi

Kiyoshi Iyori

Kosuke Kunishi

Kouichirou Sakamoto

Youichi Ushida

Minoru Omori

Koichiro Sakamoto

A braking control apparatus includes a contact determiner and a collision brake processor. The contact determiner is configured to determine whether a collision determination on a contact of a vehicle is satisfied. The collision brake processor is configured to cause a brake device of the vehicle to generate a braking force to achieve a predetermined deceleration rate of the vehicle if the contact determination is satisfied. The collision brake processor is configured to, upon determining that the brake device is in a predetermined pre-contact braking state immediately before the contact determination is satisfied, set a deceleration rate of the vehicle after the contact determination is satisfied to a value larger than in a case where the collision brake processor does not determine that the brake device is in the predetermined pre-contact braking state.

Braking control apparatus

A vehicle theft deterrent apparatus includes a driver verifier, a steering torque detector, an actuator, and a steering controller. The steering torque detector is configured to detect steering torque input by a driver to a steering system. The actuator is configured to generate drive torque to be given to the steering system. The driver verifier is configured to verify whether driver information obtained from the driver matches registered information registered in advance. The steering controller is configured to control the drive torque generated by the actuator based on the steering torque. In a case where the driver verifier determines that the driver information does not match the registered information, the steering controller is configured to permit the driver to steer until a vehicle drives a set distance, and then to cause the actuator to generate the drive torque prohibiting the driver from steering.

Vehicle theft deterrent apparatus

A secondary battery protection apparatus includes a temperature sensitive element and a secondary battery protection circuit with a first terminal coupled to an external device and the temperature sensitive element to control charge and discharge using a switching circuit to protect a secondary battery from temperature, and a conversion circuit of the secondary battery protection circuit is controlled such that a first input of a comparison circuit to compare a voltage against a threshold is electrically coupled to the first terminal of the secondary battery protection circuit, the voltage corresponding to a change in temperature of the secondary battery.

Secondary battery protection apparatus and battery pack including temperature sensitive element

A braking control device includes a stop holding controller and an uneven-ground traveling determination unit. After the vehicle makes a stop and a brake operation performed by a driver who drives the vehicle is canceled, the stop holding controller is configured to perform execution of a stop holding control that includes holding braking force of the vehicle and canceling the braking force in response to a predetermined start operation performed by the driver. The uneven-ground traveling determination unit is configured to determine whether the vehicle is traveling on an uneven ground. The stop holding controller is configured to disable the execution of the stop holding control in a case where the uneven-ground traveling determination unit determines that the vehicle is traveling on the uneven ground.

Braking control device

A vehicle control apparatus includes a contact detector, an attitude stabilization processor, and a steering intention determining unit. The contact detector is configured to detect a contact of a vehicle with an object. The attitude stabilization processor is configured to execute an attitude stabilization control that generates a yaw moment at a vehicle body on the basis of a deviation between a target yaw rate and an actual yaw rate. The steering intention determining unit is configured to determine a presence of a driver's intention to perform steering. The attitude stabilization processor is configured to stop the generation of the yaw moment by the attitude stabilization control or reduce the yaw moment to be generated by the attitude stabilization control, in a case where the steering intention determining unit determines that the driver's intention to perform the steering is absent after the detection of the contact by the contact detector.

Vehicle control apparatus

A vehicle controller includes a collision detector, a braking controller, a motional state detector, and a minor collision determiner. The collision detector is configured to detect a collision between a vehicle and another object. The braking controller is configured to cause a braking device of the vehicle to generate a braking force in accordance with the detecting of the collision by the collision detector. The motional state detector is configured to detect a motional state of the vehicle. The minor collision determiner is configured to determine, based on an output from the motional state detector, that a minor collision occurs that is a collision not detected by the collision detector. The braking controller is configured to cause the braking device to generate the braking force if the collision detector does not detect the collision and the minor collision determiner determines that the minor collision occurs.

Vehicle controller

A vehicle control apparatus includes a braking controller individually controlling braking forces of braking devices for left and right front and rear wheels, a side collision detector detecting a side collision against a vehicle, and a yaw behavior detector detecting yaw behavior of a vehicle body. If the yaw behavior detected after the side collision is such that a rear of the vehicle body shifts away from a collision side relative to a front thereof, the braking controller executes yaw amplification control to cause the braking device for the collision-side front wheel to generate a braking force larger than the remaining wheels. If the detected yaw behavior is such that the front shifts away from the collision side relative to the rear, the braking controller executes the yaw amplification control to cause the braking device for the collision-side rear wheel to generate a braking force larger than the remaining wheels.

A secondary battery protection circuit for protecting a secondary battery, including: a low-voltage detecting circuit configured to detect a voltage across the secondary battery that is lower than a second voltage for low voltage detection, the second voltage being set to be lower than a first voltage for overdischarge detection; and a switching circuit configured to cause a gate of a charge control NMOS transistor to be fixed at a potential at a high side power supply terminal, upon detecting, by the low-voltage detecting circuit, that the voltage across the secondary battery is lower than the second voltage for low voltage detection.

Secondary battery protection circuit, secondary battery protection apparatus and battery pack

A secondary battery protection circuit for controlling charge and discharge using a switching circuit to protect a secondary battery from temperature is provided. The switching circuit is configured to be provided in a charge-and-discharge path between the secondary battery and an external device. The secondary battery protection circuit includes a detection terminal configured to be electrically connected, via a resistor, to between the switching circuit and the external device. The secondary battery protection circuit includes a first terminal configured to be electrically connected to a temperature detection terminal of the external device. The secondary battery protection circuit includes a second terminal to which a temperature sensitive element is configured to be electrically connected, the temperature sensitive element having a characteristic value varying in accordance with a change in temperature of the secondary battery.

Secondary battery protection circuit, secondary battery protection apparatus, battery pack and temperature detection circuit

A rechargeable battery protection circuit protects a rechargeable battery, using two NMOS transistors inserted in series in a current path between a battery cathode and a positive terminal connected to load or power terminal of a charger. The protection circuit includes a booster circuit that generates a control voltage, using input capacitances of the NMOS transistors having gates connected to charge and discharge control terminals, respectively. A driving circuit sets the output state of the control terminals to a high level, by supplying the control voltage to the control terminals, a detection circuit detects a battery state and outputs a detection state, and a control circuit operates the driving circuit based on the detection state, so that the output state of the control terminals is selected by the driving circuit to at least one of three states including a high level, a low level, and a high-impedance state.

Rechargeable battery protection circuit, rechargeable battery protection device, battery pack, and method of controlling rechargeable battery protection circuit

It is assumed that some railway vehicles each include a control device and other railway vehicles include no control devices and that one or more control devices may be included in a train information. If only one control device is included in the train formation, there is no problem. However, if two or more control devices are included therein, it means that multiple control systems exist therein, so that it is necessary to determine a control system consistently. When a train is activated and started for operations or when railway vehicles are coupled together or divided, a management server, which has the smallest IP address value assigned, for example, by a DHCP and which exhibits the highest processing speed, controls, as a main management server, all of such systems. Even if any trouble occurs in a network or in a network device, the management system is automatically reconstituted.

Intra-formation network system, intra-formation network management method, and management apparatus

An information processing system, method for use with the system, information providing system, and method for use with the system, an information processing apparatus, method for use with the apparatus, a doll, an object, a program storage medium, and a program for authenticating users reliably are provided. A user acquires beforehand a doll called Pochara the Good Friend incorporating an IC chip that stores a user ID for authenticating the user. When the user mounts the doll on a platform connected to a personal computer, the user ID is read from the IC chip by a reader housed in the platform and transmitted over the Internet to a Pochara service server. The server has a Pochara database holding personal information about users of the service. The transmitted user ID is checked against the personal information in the database for authentication. This invention applies advantageously to servers offering services through networks.

Object device including an IC chip

A battery protection circuit for protecting a secondary battery, the battery protection circuit not having a CPU, includes a non-volatile memory into which characteristics data determining protective characteristics of the battery protection circuit are writable; and a protection operation circuit which performs a protection operation of the secondary battery based on the characteristics data read out of the non-volatile memory.

Battery protection circuit, battery protection apparatus, and battery pack

An information processing system, an information processing method for use with the system, an information providing system, and information providing method for use with the system, an information processing apparatus, an information processing method for use with the apparatus, a doll, an object, a program storage medium, and a program for authenticating users reliably are provided. A user acquires beforehand a doll called Pochara the Good Friend incorporating an IC chip that stores a user ID for authenticating the user. When the user mounts the doll on a platform connected to a personal computer, the user ID is read from the IC chip by a reader housed in the platform and transmitted over the Internet to a Pochara service server. The server has a Pochara database holding personal information about users of the service. The transmitted user ID is checked against the personal information in the database for authentication. This invention applies advantageously to servers offering services through networks.

Information processing system

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Takashi Takeda