Apparatus for controlling a system, such as a vehicle screen wip

Details Apparatus for controlling a system, such as a vehicle screen wip Apparatus for controlling a system, such as a vehicle screen wip

1996-04-15

1998-05-26

Ip, Paul

Electricity: motive power systems

Periodic, repetitious or successive operations control of...

318444, 318DIG2, 318466, 1525017, H02P 104, B60S 108, G05B 1919

Patent

active

057571554

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of governing a system such as a vehicle screen wiping system. It also relates to a governing apparatus for performing the method of the invention, and to a governed system of the simultaneous or synchronised type, for wiping a glass surface of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
It provides a solution to the problems presented by the development of governed electromechanical systems, and in particular systems for wiping glass surfaces of vehicles, such as the front windshield or the rear window of the vehicle.
Due to the particular technical and economic environment of the automotive market, the development of any new electromechanical product for the equipment of a vehicle has to satisfy severe requirements, especially in terms of costs, development time, simplicity of manufacture, operation and maintenance.
Screen wiping systems are known in the state of the art which comprise an electric drive motor, such as a direct current motor which always rotates in the same direction, and a mechanism for converting the rotary motion of the motor into oscillating motion of one or a plurality of screen wipers. Such a converting mechanism consists for example of an arrangement comprising a linkage of the parallelogram type, or with an integral crank system.
However, the technical requirements of screen wiping are such that systems constructed in this way have to be specially developed for each particular application, that is to say for each type of vehicle.
Thus, the profile of the windshield, the nature of the screen wipers, and the speed and aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle which is equipped with the system, are parameters which usually make it necessary to recommence study of the screen wiping system, and to provide a new industrial manufacturing facility for the said system.
Now, since the screen wiping function is not within the direct perception of the consumer, the manufacturer is led into a tendency to minimise the cost of this particular automotive function, and the extra cost and additional time involved are therefore not acceptable.
In order to overcome these drawbacks, it has also been proposed to design a governed system in which its control law is easily adaptable to specifications other than those called for by one particular product.
In particular, in an earlier proposal in a French patent, No. 2 655 301, a governed screen wiping apparatus, especially for a screen wiping system such as is shown in FIG. 3, each blade 31 or 32 is applied on a glass 30 and is actuated by an independent electric motor 33 or 34, the control law of which is pre-recorded in a trajectory table which is read at a predetermined rate.
With such an apparatus it is possible to propose systems which are adaptable for vehicles of various types. In this connection, it is possible to define a control law which is adapted to each type of vehicle, in the form of a command signal pre-recorded in a table, and held in a memory of a computer 35.
However, apparatuses of this kind do make it necessary to take control precautions that will guarantee the immunity of the system from, especially, variations in the load to which the screen wipers may be subject.
In this connection, the control law has to take into account perturbations applied externally to the physical system, without any prior knowledge of these latter. It is accordingly necessary to define an apparatus which is both stable and robust against external perturbations, which is one of the problems solved by the present invention.
Moreover, in those systems that have a plurality of screen wipers for wiping the windshield, and given that two screen wipers are controlled independently, it is necessary to consider the case in which these two screen wipers are subjected to different stresses and run the risk of interfering with each other. It is therefore necessary to provide a circuit for inhibiting the control signal for each screen wiper, in order to prevent it from rea

REFERENCES:
patent: 4742285 (1988-05-01), Sasaki
patent: 5177418 (1993-01-01), Muller
"Electronic windshield wiper system I: modelling and validation". Int. J. Vehicle Design, vol. 12, No. 2, 1991.

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