Automatic temperature and humidity regulation – Ventilator type – Electrically actuated
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-09
2002-12-03
Wayner, William (Department: 3744)
Automatic temperature and humidity regulation
Ventilator type
Electrically actuated
C062S161000, C165S247000, C236S09100C, C454S258000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06488213
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This application is related to Japanese Patent Applications No. Hei. 11-307160 filed on Oct. 28, 1999, No. 2000-71060 filed on Mar. 9, 2000, No. 2000-84750 filed on Mar. 22, 2000, No. 2000-126160 filed on Apr. 26, 2000, No. 2000-213009 filed on Jul. 13, 2000, and No. 2000-213010 filed on Jul. 13, 2000, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle air conditioner with a control system which learns a blower voltage control operation due to a passenger's manual operation so that a blower voltage control characteristic corresponding to a passenger desire can be obtained.
2. Description of Related Art
In a vehicle air conditioner described in JP-A-5208610, a blower voltage control characteristic showing a relationship between a target air temperature blown into a passenger compartment and a blower voltage applied to a blower is stored in a control system, and the blower voltage control characteristic is corrected every time the blower voltage is manually set (changed). However, even when an air-blowing amount of a passenger's desire is not set, the blower voltage control characteristic is corrected every time the blower voltage is manually set. Accordingly, the blower voltage control characteristic does not correspond to the passenger's desire, and air-conditioning feeling is deteriorated.
In a vehicle air conditioner described in JP-A-6143970, a passenger's operation for setting an air amount, an air temperature or the like is learned by a control system, and an air-conditioning control characteristic is corrected by learning the passenger's operation. In this control system, environment conditions such as an outside air temperature and a sunlight amount entering into a passenger compartment are stored so that a passenger's sense relative to the environment conditions is reflected to the correction of the air-conditioning control characteristic. Regarding the sunlight amount, only when the sunlight amount detected by a sunlight amount sensor is changed more than a predetermined amount, the air-conditioning control characteristic is corrected. However, because the sunlight amount detected by the sunlight amount sensor is directly used, when a vehicle is in traveling between buildings in favorable weather, the detected sunlight amount is repeatedly greatly changed, and the air-conditioning control characteristic is repeatedly changed. Accordingly, a suitable air-conditioning performance is not obtained.
In a vehicle air conditioner described in JP-A-342325, when a manual change operation of set air temperature is performed, the manual change operation is directly learned in connection with environment conditions such as the outside air temperature and the inside air temperature, and air-conditioning control is performed based on the learned set temperature. However, all manual change operation of the set air temperature are directly learned to be used for the air-conditioning control, the next air conditioning control may be affected when the manual change of the set air temperature becomes larger.
In addition, in a vehicle air conditioner described in JP-A-6-106953, a blower voltage control characteristic stored in a ROM is learned and changed in accordance with a passenger's manual operation, and an air amount to be blown into a passenger compartment is controlled based on the learned and changed blower voltage control characteristic. Because the manual operator is generally the driver of the vehicle, the blower voltage control characteristic is made to correspond to the driver's desire. However, when the other passenger except for the driver is in the passenger compartment, the air amount, controlled based on the learned and changed blower voltage control characteristic, may be not suitable for the other passenger.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the foregoing problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle air conditioner with a control system correcting a control characteristic based on a manual set value of an air amount of a blower, which can prevent air-conditioning feeling from being deteriorated even when a passenger's desired air amount is not set.
It is an another object of the present invention to provide a vehicle air conditioner with a control system correcting a control characteristic in accordance with a passenger's operation, which improves a learning effect of the passenger's operation while a stable air-conditioning performance is obtained.
It is a further another object of the present invention to provide a vehicle air conditioner with a control system which learns and stores a passenger's set temperature in connection with an environment condition, and automatically controls an air conditioning state of a passenger compartment based on a stored set temperature. In the vehicle air conditioner, a rapid change of an air-conditioning control amount can be prevented, and a pleasant air conditioning control can be obtained.
It is a further another object of the present invention to provide a vehicle air conditioner with a control system correcting a control characteristic for an automatic control in accordance with a passenger's operation, in which the control characteristic can be corrected only to correspond to a predetermined passenger's desire.
It is a further another object of the present invention to provide a vehicle air conditioner with a manual operation of a predetermined passenger for which an air conditioning control is performed based on a learning pattern, which improves air conditioning performance for the other passenger except for the predetermined passenger.
According to an aspect of the present invention, in a vehicle air conditioner, a control system determines an air amount blown by a blower based on a control characteristic having a relationship between a control factor used for a temperature control of a passenger compartment and the air amount of the blower, and a set value of the air amount of the blower is manually controlled through a manual setting member. The control system corrects the control characteristic based on the set value due to the manual setting member. When the set value of the air amount of the blower is changed by the manual setting member, the control system determines a correction degree of the control characteristic in accordance with a determination whether a difference between a value of the control factor at the previous manual operation of the manual setting member and a value of the control factor at the present manual operation of the manual setting member is equal to or larger than a predetermined value. Specifically, the control system corrects the control characteristic without using the set value of the air amount at the previous manual operation, when the difference is smaller than the predetermined value. Alternatively, the control system corrects the control characteristic by using the mean value of the set value of the air amount at the previous manual operation and the set value of the air amount at the present manual operation, when the difference is smaller than the predetermined value. Accordingly, it can prevent an air-conditioning feeling from being deteriorated due to a mis-learning.
On the other hand, the control system stores a plurality of the set values due to plural manual operations of the manual setting member, and selects correction set values to be used for a correction of the control characteristic among the set values. Further, the control system corrects the control characteristic only based on the correction set values. Therefore, unnecessary information is not learned, and the control characteristic can be corrected in accordance with a passenger's desire.
According to an another aspect of the present invention, a vehicle air conditioner includes a sensor for detecting an environment condition relative to an air conditioning state of a
Ichishi Yoshinori
Kajino Yuichi
Kamiya Toshifumi
Kawai Takayoshi
Ohga Akira
Denso Corporation
Harness Dickey & Pierce PLC
Wayner William
LandOfFree
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