Aisin Seiki Kabushiki Kaisha

Kabushiki Kaisha Meidensha

Fujitsu Corporation

Tomio Yasuda

Akio Hashimoto

Kohji Aoki

Masao Ohashi

Koji Aoki

Noboru Murakami

Toshiaki Kakinami

Kazuo Mori

Taneichi Kawai

Jun Sato

Shuzo Tanigaki

Ryuji Iizawa

Masayuki Sakaki

Katsuhiro Sano

Toshiyuki Takabayashi

Komazawa Osamu

Sugiyama Masanori

Toshiyuki Ichiyama

Kiyomi Hori

A wearing condition of a seat belt assembly is detected while considering a difference in a preferred mode of the seat belt assembly between the presence and the absence of a personnel who is seated upon a seat. In the prior art arrangement, in which a mechanical coupling of a seat belt assembly is considered alone, an alarm may be given off in the absence of the coupling. This may result in giving off an alarm for a vacant seat on which no personnel is seated. Such inconvenience is completely eliminated in accordance with the invention in which a decision differs between the presence or absence of a seating. The relationship between a webbing and a personnel sitting on the seat is analyzed, whereby an anomaly in the wearing condition such as sitting over the webbing after coupling the seat belt assembly can be detected.

Apparatus for detecting the wearing of a seat belt assembly

An onboard air discharge system includes a first electrode mounted on each of a plurality of onboard seats of a vehicle. A second electrode is disposed in relation to each of the first electrodes such that at least part of a personnel who is seated upon a seat on which the first electrode is mounted is interposed between the both electrodes. The presence or absence of a personnel is detected for each seat on the basis of a change in the capacitance formed between the first and the second electrode. Air ejection toward the seat for which the absence of a personnel has been determined is inhibited. When a personnel is seated upon a seat, there occurs a large change in the capacitance formed between the first and the second electrode. Such change depends on the dielectric permittivity of a personnel, and hence is greatly different from a corresponding change which would occur when a baggage or the like is placed on the seat, thus enhancing the accuracy with which the presence or absence of a personnel on the seat is detected. The air ejection is controlled on such reliable information indicating the presence or absence of a personnel, and hence the efficiency of air ejection is improved with an increased reliability.

Onboard air discharge system

A harm preventive mode for a vehicle is established upon detection of a condition that there is no occupant within the vehicle and the doors of the vehicle are closed, or an out-of-use condition of the vehicle, until the doors are unlocked by authentic unlocking means such as a door key. Measures which can be taken to prevent harm when the harm preventive mode is established include controlling the attitude of a driver's seat and/or steering wheel to reduce the spacing therebetween to resist against an attempted seating, energizing a horn or headlamp to bluff an aggressor or interrupting a fuel supply. In addition, various other conditions may be used in establishing the harm preventive mode. In this manner, a variety of effective measure to prevent harm to the vehicle can be taken.

Harm preventing apparatus for vehicle

The attitude (as well as the position) of a front one of onboard seats which are disposed one behind the other is controlled. To secure a space for allowing an occupant to be seated upon the rear seat, a retracting limit of an entire front seat and a rear tilting limit for its seat back are determined experimentarily to define an extent of variable attitudes. When an occupant is seated upon the rear seat, the attitude of the front seat is controlled responsive to a command to change the attitude while making a reference to the extent of variable attitudes. A retracting movement of the entire front seat which goes beyond the rear limit as well as a rearward tilting or reclining of the seat back of the front seat which goes beyond the rear tilting limit are both inhibited. In this manner, when an occupant is seated upon the rear seat, the comfortableness of such occupant is secured if the driver carelessly enters a command to change the attitude of the front seat, while preventing any oppression presented to the physical body or causing a stressed attitude of the occupant seated upon the rear seat.

Attitude control apparatus for onboard seat

A capacitive occupancy detector apparatus includes a personnel containment device having first and second electrodes which will define an electric field therebetween which will be intercepted by a person present in the containment device. A detecting device is provided for detecting the capacitance formed between the first and second electrodes and a processor is provided for storing the capacitance at predetermined periods. The difference between the last capacitance detected and a capacitance previously stored is detected to determine the presence of a person when the difference indicates an increase of the capacitance exceeding a first predetermined threshold. A second threshold is set based upon the capacitance which determines the presence of a person so that the subsequent determination of the absence of a person is based upon detecting a decrease of the capacitance with respect to the second threshold.

Capacitive occupancy detector apparatus

An emergency unlock assembly is provided for unlocking a lock mechanism associated with an onboard opening cover such as a boarding door, in response to the detection of an impact applied. The assembly includes means for detecting the presence or absence of an occupant within a vehicle. When the presence of an occupant is detected, the lock mechanism is unlocked in response to the detection of an impact applied. The lock mechanism is not unlocked in response to the detection of an impact applied in the absence of an occupant. This allows a rapid rescue of an inboard occupant in the event of an emergency while reliably preventing a casuality such as a theft of or articles placed in a vehicle in the absence of an occupant.

Emergency unlock assembly for onboard lock mechanism

A drive control system for driving an electrically driven window or sun roof is disclosed. A control unit drives a vehicle mounted device until it reaches a limit position when an ignition key is not inserted and when a door of the vehicle closes. Accordingly, a usual operation by a driver of the vehicle which occurs when he stops and gets out of the vehicle involves stopping the engine, withdrawing the ignition key, opening the door to get out of the vehicle, and closing the door. When it is desired to leave the window or sun roof in a half-open condition in order to prevent the parked car from overheating, the control unit stores any drive of a vehicle mounted device in response to an input when the ignition key is not inserted into the receptacle of the ignition switch, and controllably drives the vehicle mounted device until it reaches a limit position in response to a combination of the absence of the ignition key inserted into the receptacle, a closing of the door and the absence of stored information. Also an alarm unit is provided in combination with means which energizes the alarm unit whenever an induced current through a motor of a drive mechanism, when it is not energized, exceeds a given value. In this manner, an alarm is produced when a side window or sun roof is tampered open while the vehicle is parked.

Drive control system for vehicle mounted, electrically driven devices

Improved electric power steering equipment includes an electric motor as a driving device therefor wherein wetness detecting means is adapted to minimize reduction in the torque necessary for the steering operation to thereby improve the steering feeling of a driver. The wetness detecting means detects the degree of wetness of a vehicle or a road surface adjacent to the vehicle. The equipment according to the present invention also includes a control means for driving the electric motor in response to the steering torque detected by a torque detecting means and the degree of wetness detected by the wetness detecting means. Thus, wetness on a road is directly or indirectly detected by the wetness detecting means and based on the detecting results thereof, additional torque necessary for the steering operation is controlled, and therefore a driver can drive a vehicle with a relatively constant steering feeling at all times, regardless of various running states of the vehicle.

Electric power steering equipment

A power transmission device of a motor-driven power steering system is provided which comprises a driving gear mounted on the outside of a shaft transmitting a force given from a steering wheel to a steering mechanism and rotatable about the shaft, a first connecting member including at least one gear for coupling the driving gear and a driving shaft of an electric motor, a second connecting member coupled to one out of the shaft and the driving gear, and a buffering member having elasticity coupled to the other out of the shaft and the driving gear and to the second connecting member. Preferably, the second connecting member has a cylindrical portion secured on the outside of the shaft and projections, and the driving gear has holes for receiving the buffering member and the projections.

Power transmission device of motor-driven power steering

In an electric power steering apparatus including an input shaft, an output shaft and an electric motor for imparting a steering torque to the output shaft, a torque sensor includes a torsion bar provided between the input shaft and the output shaft. A movable member converts the output of the torsion bar into an axial movement of the same. The axial movement varies an electrostatic capacitance formed between an end of the movable member and an electrode plate held stationary, and the variation of the capacitance is utilized for controlling the electric motor in driving the output shaft.

Electric power steering apparatus

An electric motor driven power steering system is provided. The motor is prevented from operating at low torque command levels. After a first predetermined level of command torque is reached, the motor is controlled to generate torque at a predetermined rate less than the torque actually commanded by the vehicle driver. After a second predetermined level of commanded torque is reached, the motor is controlled to generate torque in accordance with the level of torque command. Thus, the phenomenon known as 'hunting' and instability of the system at low torque levels are virtually eliminated. The system operates smoothly over its full range of operation and is not affected by rough road surface conditions.

Motor-driven power steering system having a stable output torque

A power steering system makes use of an electric motor to produce an auxiliary torque added to the torque which is applied to the steering wheel of a vehicle by the driver. The system includes a motor driver for driving the motor and a motor braking circuit for braking the motor. When the torque manually applied to the steering shaft of the vehicle is greater than a predetermined reference torque, an electronic control apparatus causes the motor driver to energize the motor according to the difference between these two torques. When the former torque is less than the reference torque, the control apparatus causes the motor braking circuit to brake the motor. In this way, the torque that the driver of the vehicle must apply to steer the vehicle is maintained equal to the reference torque, irrespective of the vehicle velocity. The reference torque is set by means of a variable-resistor.

Motor-driven power steering system

A power steering system uses an electric motor to produce an auxiliary torque which is added to the torque applied to the steering wheel of a vehicle by the driver. The torque applied by the driver is detected by sensors. The system includes a control apparatus to control the operation of the motor according to the output signal from the sensors. The system further includes a closed electrical loop for feeding a signal corresponding to the output from the motor back to the input side of the loop. A variable-resistor is placed so that the amplification factor of an amplifier included in the loop can be changed by the resistor. The knob attached to the variable-resistor is disposed on the dashboard of the vehicle such that it can be reached by the driver's hand. This permits the driver to change the servo ratio, i.e., the ratio of the output torque of the power steering system to the input torque applied by the driver, while the vehicle is in motion.

Motor driven power steering system

The steering power transmitting equipment of the present invention comprises a steering gear mechanism having a steering wheel, an upper steering shaft, lower steering shaft and steering gear box, the steering gear mechanism having a torque sensor fixed on the upper steering shaft, a bracket disconnectably fixed to the steering gear box, an electric motor supported on the bracket, a driven gear which is driven by the electric motor and fixed coaxially to the lower steering shaft and an electric controller. The electric controller controls the rotating speed and rotating direction of the electric motor corresponding to the torque and the torque direction inputted by the torque sensor. The power steering gear mechanism is easily mounted on or demounted from standard manual steering equipment without requiring any large scale remodelling of the steering equipment.

Steering power transmitting equipment

An abnormally high vacuum pressure of a vacuum interrupter is detected from outside of the interrupter in response to electromagnetic wave signals generated by an electric discharge derived in response to a voltage difference and depending upon Paschen's law. Since the above-mentioned electric discharge is quite different from so-called partial discharge, even when the fixed and movable contacts are closed (i.e., under hot-line condition), it is possible to detect poor vacuum pressure on the basis of the electric discharge existing between the fixed and movable contact rods including two contacts and the main shield, as well as when the two contacts are open. The vacuum monitor according to the present invention comprises a rod or loop antenna fixedly or movably disposed near a conductive material of or connected to the vacuum interrupter and a detection section including, in particular, a 2 to 20 KHz band-pass filter.

Growing community of inventors

Kasukabe, Japan

Tomio Yasuda