Other

Denso Corporation

Yoshiyuki Miki

Yuji Yamada

Kunio Ohashi

Hiroaki Okuchi

Masanori Kondo

Kenichi Nishimura

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

A filter is changed to change a response in swivel adjustment of a direction of an optical axis of each swivel light based on a steering angle variation of a steering angle of a steering wheel measured with a steering angle sensor. The direction of the optical axis of each swivel light is adjusted based on a swivel control angle obtained upon application of the filter. A weaker filter is selected if the steering wheel is quickly steered, and a stronger filter is selected if the steering wheel is slowly steered. By this filtering operation, the direction of the optical axis of each swivel light is adjusted in response to the steering operation of the steering wheel without causing an uncomfortable feeling to a driver.

Automatic optical-axis adjusting device for automatically adjusting directions of optical axes of front lights with respect to steering angle of steering wheel

A steering wheel is determined to be under a counter steering state when the following two conditions are both satisfied: (I) a steering angle measured with a steering angle sensor is equal to or greater than a predetermined angle; and (II) a steering direction does not coincide with a turning direction of the vehicle. The vehicle is determined to be under a slipping state when the following two conditions are both satisfied: (I) the steering angle is equal to or greater than the predetermined angle; (II) an absolute value of a change per unit time of a difference between a left wheel speed and a right wheel speed is equal to or greater than a predetermined value. Under both the counter steering state and the slipping state, adjustment of the optical axes of the swivel lights is stopped or modified.

Automatic optical-axis adjusting device for automatically adjusting optical axes of front lights of vehicle with reduced number of signals

In a vehicle headlight optical axis adjusting apparatus, inter-vehicle distance in each of divided zones is detected by a laser radar device. Desired optical axis raising angles for a vehicle headlight are calculated based on these inter-vehicle distances of the divided zones. The optical axis of the headlight is adjusted to the most downward pointing angle selected from among these angles, so that a driver of a preceding vehicle is not blinded.

Growing community of inventors

Susono, Japan

Yoshiyuki Miki