Communications: electrical – Selective – Having indication or alarm
Patent
1984-10-23
1987-01-20
Rowland, James L.
Communications: electrical
Selective
Having indication or alarm
73517R, 73517A, 364426, B60Q 1100, G01P 15125, G06F 1550
Patent
active
046382895
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD AND BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to an accident data recorder. When mounted in a motor vehicle, accident data, recorders are intended to record and preserve for later use, data or conditions which were present or occur within a limited period of time before the accident and are relevant for investigating the accident. They are known in a variety of designs, substantially as mechanically operating short distance recorders.
For example, short distance recorders (manufacturer Kienzle) or color disc tachographs (Company Hasler AG) comprise a drive from the transmission through a flexible shaft for graphically/mechanically recording the rotation of the drive wheels. What can be recorded is only the speed before the accident without any additional data, and it proved particularly problematic with such mechanical short distance recorders recording the travelled distance or the speed, for example, by scratching a curve into an ink-coated disc, that no data can be obtained after the wheels got locked, thus just when a thorough data recording is needed.
Further known are so-called tachographs with an electro-mechanical data storage, using plastic films in the form of a circle and capable of recording a great amount of data due to an arrangement of discs one above the other. Here again, no values are recorded after the wheels are locked.
It may also be considered known to store data in a short time recorder electromagnetically or in a purely electrical way, by using a preferably multitrack endless magnetic tape driven in response to travel, or continuously, and storing pulses or speed-dependent signals, or by using a counter for electronically evaluating pulses delivered from a wheel-driven transmitter and storing the pulse times.
In any case, in all short time recorders having to perform some mechanical movement, the problem arises that no unperturbed operation can be ensured through a sought minimum operating time, and that, on the other hand, short time accident data recorders intrinsically must be designed to continuously receive a great amount of data which practically must exceed the capacity of the recorder and become superfluous after the predetermined period of time if no accident occurs. In consequence, an accident data recorder must operate continuously but be so designed that from a certain point of time, which simply cannot be predicted and may be will never occur, data concerning an event and relating to a preceding period of time are made available for evaluation.
Finally, a device is known for registering operating data of a vehicle (German Pat. No. 23 22 299) working as an accident data recorder and eventually storing the data in digital form in at least one intermediate memory. This prior art device comprises a not particularly specified acceleration meter for lengthwise accelerations and an acceleration meter for transverse accelerations, and is designed to pick up wheel rotation by means of an inductive sensor and after amplification, convert the detected values to a digital signal. The acceleration meters are followed by amplifiers for high and low gain, so that altogether four analog measured acceleration values are obtained which are supplied, through an analog multiplexer and an intermediate sample-and-hold circuit, to a single analog-to-digital converter and therefrom, under the control of the corresponding multiplexed control signal transmitter, to two shift registers for accelerations, in a manner such that a first register contains the data for small acceleration, and the other register the data for high acceleration. A third shift register receives the pulses of the travelling speed of the vehicle. Upon supplying new data to the shift registers, which is effected in a sequence that is timed by the control signal generator, the respective oldest data are automatically lost. The prior art device thus starts from the assumption that with a sufficiently large amount of shift register stages, upon a collision signal and failure of the timing pulses, still a satisfac
REFERENCES:
patent: 3226981 (1966-01-01), Mullins
patent: 3781824 (1973-12-01), Caiati
patent: 4180724 (1979-12-01), Councilman et al.
Capati Anne Marie F.
Licentia Patent-Verwaltungs-GmbH
Rowland James L.
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