Denso Corporation

Nippondenso Co., Ltd.

Nippon Soken, Inc.

Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.

Denso International America, Inc.

Asmo Co., Ltd.

Yoshihisa Sato

Susumu Akiyama

Masakazu Takeichi

Takao Saito

Katsunori Ito

Koji Kato

Hisanaga Matsuoka

Yuji Hirabayashi

Atsushi Suzuki

Masumi Kinugawa

Tiaki Mizuno

Toshitaka Yamada

Hiroyuki Kani

Satoshi Suzuki

Tomohisa Kishigami

Muneaki Matsumoto

Masayuki Kobayashi

Katsuhiko Torii

Taketo Harada

Toshihiro Hattori

Justin McBride

Tomoaki Abe

Hirohiko Yanagawa

Kengo Yamamura

Takeshi Enya

Takeo Tsuzuki

Michael Wiegand

Masachika Kamiya

Ikuo Hayashi

Yasuhiro Kawashima

Hiroaki Shimizu

Kenichi Mori

Tetsuya Enokizaka

Kiyonari Oda

Katsuhiro Ina

Seiji Kawai

Tetsuo Tanigawa

Toshihiro Wakamatsu

Norifumi Matsukawa

Noriaki Terashima

Makihiro Ishikawa

Manabu Maeda

Hidehiko Kawakami

Christian Arthur Trager

Thomas J Keeling

Kiyoshi Yamamoto

Masato Okuda

Kenji Tomita

Kiyonari Kojima

Christopher M Kurpinski

Akio Nakano

Naoki Maeda

Isao Aichi

Tanemichi Chiba

Kazunori Sakai

Masato Kume

Michihiro Matsuura

Hiroshi Honda

Kengo Sugiura

Hiroshi Ogura

Mikito Yagyu

Masafumi Yamaura

Yugi Hirabayashi

Lisa Marie Brown

Jeffrey Edward Angeliu

Kouji Katou

Hideo Mitsuoka

Akihiro Nakamura

Hitoshi Ouchi

Katsonori Ito

Information is displayed by irradiating a visible light on a specific position based on at least one of vehicle state information, vehicle surrounding information, and vehicle interior information. For example, the visible light is irradiated on a target switch based on signals indicating an on/off state of a headlamp operation switch and an on/off state of a key switch. A usercan easily confirm the target switch and unerringly operate the target switch. A visible light irradiatoris arranged in a vehicle compartment and irradiates the visible light to display information in the vehicle compartment. The information can be provided for the userin a novel manner.

Interior information display apparatus and light irradiation apparatus used for the same

A projector projects a visible laser beam onto a region of a vehicle compartment. A control unit controls a direction of projecting the visible laser beam to provide information to at least one occupant in the compartment. The control unit expands the region of an object to which the visible laser beam is projected when the seatbelt has been fastened.

Visible in-vehicle laser beam projector providing variable projection region as function of seatbelt fastening status

A visible laser beam projection system for a vehicle projects visible laser beam onto an instrument panel in a vehicle compartment. The instrument panel is provided with highly reflecting portions, which are scattered on the upper surface of the instrument panel. The highly reflecting portions having a diffuse reflectivity for the wavelength of a visible laser beam higher than that of other portions of the instrument panel. The visible laser beam is projected to the highly reflecting portions.

Visible laser beam projection system and method of mounting visible laser beam projection device

A visible laser beam projection system determines a target point of position to which a visible laser beam is to be projected, a start point and a trajectory from the start point and the target point based on data of conditions inside and outside of a vehicle. The system starts projecting the visible laser beam from the start point, moves the visible laser beam while it is being projected along the trajectory and stops the projection of the visible laser beam. The start point, target point and the trajectory may be changed depending on contents to be indicated.

Visible in-vehicle laser beam projection system with controlled trajectories to guide vehicle operator

A system for assisting the alignment of a hitch pin mounted on the rear of a vehicle with a hitch socket mounted on the front of a trailer. The system includes a camera mounted to the vehicle and positioned to capture an image rearwardly of the vehicle. A video display is contained within the vehicle which displays the image captured by the camera. A processor is also contained in the vehicle which calculates a preferred path of travel of the vehicle to position the hitch pin in alignment with the hitch socket. The processor is programmed to provide instructions to an operator of the vehicle of the required steering to maintain the vehicle on the preferred path of travel. The processor recalculates the preferred path of travel whenever the vehicle veers from the preferred path of travel by a preset threshold.

System for assisting the attachment of a trailer to a vehicle

An ultrasound sensor for a vehicle has a housing which is fixedly arranged at a vehicle inner side of a periphery member of the vehicle, an ultrasound vibrator for sending and receiving ultrasound, and an ultrasound transferring member which is constructed of a different material from that of the housing to have an acoustic impedance with a medium value between an acoustic impedance of the ultrasound vibrator and that of the periphery member. The ultrasound vibrator is accommodated in the housing and fixed to an end portion of the housing, which faces the periphery member. The ultrasound transferring member is arranged at the end portion of the housing, and contacts both the ultrasound vibrator and the periphery member of the vehicle.

Ultrasound sensor

An ultrasonic sensor mounting structure includes an ultrasonic sensor and a wall member to which the ultrasonic sensor is mounted. The ultrasonic sensor includes an ultrasonic transducer and a vibrating surface. An inner surface of the wall member has a fixation portion where the ultrasonic sensor is fixed, a touch portion where the ultrasonic transducer touches, and a location mark portion that indicates location of the fixation portion. An outer surface of the wall member has a vibration portion as the vibrating surface of the ultrasonic sensor. The vibration portion is positioned opposite to the touch portion. The ultrasonic sensor can be accurately mounted in a desired location on the wall member without a reduction in a sensor characteristic, because the location mark portion does not overlap the touch portion.

Ultrasonic sensor mounting structure

An ultrasonic sensor includes an inner case mainly made of plastic and having a shape of a cylinder with a bottom portion. A conductive film is attached to the bottom portion. An electrode formed at a surface of the piezoelectric vibrator is attached to the conductive film to be electrically connected with the conductive film. Therefore, by connecting leads with the conductive film and another electrode at the other side of the piezoelectric vibrator, the electric conduction between an external circuit and both electrodes at both surfaces of the piezoelectric vibrator is ensured.

Ultrasonic sensor

An obstacle detection system has multiple ultrasonic sonars. When a threshold value used for determining an existence of an obstacle is compared with a receiving signal having been amplified at a predetermined gain, the sonar having a receiving mode is provided with the gain which is higher than that of the sonar having a sending/receiving mode. Thus, the sensitivity of the sonar having the receiving mode can be improved so that a continuous sound field of the sonar is broadened. Accordingly, the distance of the border of the continuous sound field of the obstacle detection system from the vehicle can become substantially even.

Obstacle detection system

An object detector capable of reliably detecting objects around a vehicle is mounted on a wall of a bumper of a vehicle. Thicknesses of the bumper and of a bottom surface portion of a housing are less than one-half the wavelength of ultrasonic waves generated by a piezoelectric vibrator. This suppresses the reflection of ultrasonic waves by the bumper and by the bottom surface portion of the housing, and enhances the ultrasonic wave propagation efficiency, making it possible to reliably detect objects positioned around the vehicle.

Ultrasonic object detector

In an apparatus for detecting a distance and improving the SN ratio of received signals, an angular frequency (&#x3c9;) of sinusoidal wave signals generated by a sinusoidal wave generator is brought into synchronism with an angular frequency (&#x3c9;) of burst pulse signals, and signals received by a transmitter/receiver microphone are orthogonally demodulated by using sinusoidal wave signals of the synchronized angular frequency. A microcomputer adds up the vectors of the demodulated signals for only a period of time equal to a section of transmitting the transmission waves from the transmitter/receiver microphone. A distance to a body is detected by using the received signals of which the vectors are added up.

Apparatus for detecting a distance and apparatus for detecting a body

A vehicle-surroundings monitor apparatus according is provided with a sensor having a transmission/reception means for transmitting an ultrasonic wave to surroundings of a vehicle and receiving a reflected ultrasonic wave from the surroundings, a transmission circuit for generating an ultrasonic wave to be transmitted from the transmission/reception means, and a reception-processing means for processing an ultrasonic wave received by the transmission/reception means, and a control means for supplying a power-supply voltage to the sensor. A power-supply voltage supplied by the control means to the sensor is split into a power-supply voltage to be supplied to the transmission circuit and a power-supply voltage to be supplied to the reception-processing means.

Vehicle-surroundings monitor apparatus

An ultrasonic sensor for emitting ultrasonic waves and for receiving the waves reflected from objects is mounted on a mounting member such as a bumper of an automotive vehicle. A through-hole for inserting a front portion of the ultrasonic sensor is formed in the bumper. The ultrasonic sensor is connected to an inner surface of the bumper using a fixing member so that a vibrating front surface of the ultrasonic sensor is exposed to the front side of the bumper. A front periphery of the through-hole which is rough due to machining burrs or the like is covered with a masking member formed separately from the mounting member. Thus, the ultrasonic sensor is easily mounted on a bumper without damaging its ornamental design.

Structure for mounting ultrasonic sensor on mounting member

An obstacle detection device for a vehicle notifies the driver of an obstacle approaching rapidly in the rear side by sound when a detected velocity of the obstacle relative to the vehicle is larger than a threshold velocity. It does not notify the driver of the obstacle by sound when the detected relative velocity is smaller than the threshold velocity.

Obstacle detection device

A plurality of ultrasonic sensors is provided in both front and rear bumpers of a vehicle to detect obstacles around the vehicle. Each sensor sets up a transmission frequency of an ultrasonic pulse signal that should be set up in a frequency adjustment circuit and a center frequency in filter processing in a filter circuit in response to a frequency setting frame transmitted from an EMU. The EMU stores a combination of the transmission frequency and the center frequency for each ultrasonic sensor.

Growing community of inventors

Nagoya, Japan

Yoshihisa Sato