Data processing: generic control systems or specific application – Specific application – apparatus or process – Product assembly or manufacturing
Reexamination Certificate
1998-11-06
2001-10-02
Grant, William (Department: 2121)
Data processing: generic control systems or specific application
Specific application, apparatus or process
Product assembly or manufacturing
C700S090000, C160S16810V, C126S701000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06298273
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention relates to a control device which provides a mobile means of protection against the suns rays, assuring the displacement of the solar protection means from a first position, among at least two predetermined positions, to a second position, according to the variation in the amount of sunshine.
PRIOR ART
Positioning devices are known which provide solar protection as a function of the amount of sunshine. The device according to document DE 30 39 644 changes the orientation of blades of a venetian blind as a function of the height of the sun above the horizon. In document WO 92/00557, a device is shown which enables the automatic positioning of a blind as a function of illumination and temperature.
In order to avoid untimely movement of the solar protection means for brief variations in the intensity of sunshine, variations due, for example, to the passage of clouds, the control devices are equipped with a tempering means such that such variations in the amount of sunshine do not affect the solar protection means. For the user, the control device reacts with a certain delay. According to the user, the delay may be considered either as insufficient, the user considering, in the second case, that the displacement of the solar protection means is still untimely. The control device shall not be therefore satisfactory for all users.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has as a principal goal the creation of a control device capable of adapting itself to the user, particularly to the user's behavior.
To that end, the control device according to the invention is characterized in that it comprises a logic which breaks down the movement from the first to the second position into at least two steps separated by an interval of time and is capable of fractional modification of this interval, and includes a means by which activation during said interval activates the following step and reduces said interval by a fraction and of which the activation after said interval and during the progress of the following step, increases such interval by a fraction.
Said means may constitute, for example, a stop key “STOP” in a manual control box of the solar protection means.
This means, optionally comprising an assembly of keys of the manual control box, gives a control order to rise or to descend during such interval having the effect of reducing the interval, while the activation of the stop key after such interval and during the progression of the following step having the effect of increasing the interval. One such embodiment corresponds to the general attitude adopted by the user who would like to manually position a sliding shutter or a venetian blind if the automation reacts too slowly.
According to an embodiment of such invention, the logic is designed, and respectively programmed, in such a way that the movement is controlled by at least two steps only when the variation of the intensity in the sunshine produces an inverse sense as the monotone variation due to the singular course of the sun. In the case of a modification of sunshine due to the singular course of the sun, it is not, in effect, generally necessary to modify the speed of the adaptation, in stages, of the position of the solar protection means. On the contrary, when there is a modification of the amount of sunshine in an inverse sense, that is to say, provoked for example by the passage of clouds, specifically by the appearance of a cloud in a cloudy sky, the user shall sense a change of position in the solar protection means.
In the preferred embodiment of the invention, in which the logic is comprised of a memory in which a staged positioning function of the solar protection means is stored as a function of the intensity in sunshine and comprising some voluntary control means essentially taking positioning priority over the solar protection means, the logic is capable of modifying in stages the function of the registered position in response to a manually introduced positioning order. The logic shall not respond in all cases to such order if the order is given outside of said interval. This permits the user to modify to his liking the positioning function. The voluntary control means shall be in general the control keys for raising and lowering the solar protection means.
According to an embodiment of the logic of the control device, the logic is comprised of a command interpreter for the powering of the motor, the command interpreter assuring the control of the position of the solar protection means in said interval and executing the manual positioning orders, a course interpreter having as a purpose learning the course of the step motor for each cycle of the raising-lowering operation and of delivering to the command interpreter the minimum-maximum position of the solar protection means, a position estimator tasked with calculating the assumed position of the solar protection means as a function of the different movement requests furnished by the command interpreter to the motor, between the minimum and maximum positions, and of communicating to the command interpreter the different levels of positions of the position function, at least one decision block which is associated with a solar panel, this decision block allowing as much the output positions that it has previewed of the positions in the positioning function, the said outputs being connected to the command interpreter, and an associated training block of the decision block, the training block being tasked with progressively modifying the position function each time that the user intervenes manually.
The device can among other things be eventually equipped with several decision blocks and a decision block selector, in that the time and date stamp means for the introduction of the date and the time in the decision block, the latter being in the case laid out in such a manner to modify the positioning function as a function of the amount of sunshine at the date and time, these variables being divided in portions determining a succession of discrete levels.
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patent: 5760558 (1998-06-01), Popat
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Search Report France.
Grehant Jean-Pierre Bernard
Jacquel Dominique
Bahta Kidest
Conte Robert F. I.
Grant William
Lee Mann Smith McWilliams Sweeney & Ohlson
Somfy
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