The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 01, 2000
Filed:
Sep. 25, 1998
Peter A Hochstein, Troy, MI (US);
ITT Automotive Electrical Systems, Inc., Auburn Hills, MI (US);
Abstract
The basic windshield assembly 10 is well known and includes an outer layer 12 of glass and an inner layer 18 of glass with a sheet of transparent plastic 24 sandwiched between and bonded to the layers 12 and 18 of glass. A metal oxide coating 26 is disposed between the outer layer 12 of glass and the plastic sheet 24 as well known in the art and is transparent for filtering light, and is also electrically conductive. Accordingly, the assembly 10 is characterized by an isolated section, generally indicated at 28, of the coating 26 being electrically separated from the remainder of the coating 26 for capacitively sensing the presence of moisture on the outer surface 14 of the outer layer 12 of glass. The isolated section 28 of the coating 26 comprises a first plurality of electrodes 30 and a second plurality of electrodes 32, the first 30 and second 32 plurality of electrodes being parallel, interdigitized or interleaved and spaced from one another. The capacitance may detected by a known circuit attached directly to the electrodes 30 and 32 or through a capacitive coupling with the electrodes.