Electricity: motive power systems – Automatic and/or with time-delay means – Movement – position – or limit-of-travel
Reexamination Certificate
2002-08-01
2004-03-23
Duda, Rina I. (Department: 2837)
Electricity: motive power systems
Automatic and/or with time-delay means
Movement, position, or limit-of-travel
C318S282000, C318S286000, C318S468000, C318S568170, C200S501000, C345S184000, C307S010400
Reexamination Certificate
active
06710565
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a manual inputting device which is used, for example, for manipulation of an electric apparatus mounted on a vehicle and is capable of imparting a manipulation feeling to a manipulator who manipulates a manipulating member in response to a rotational quantity or a rotational direction of the manipulating member such as a knob which is manually manipulated.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, electric apparatuses such as an air conditioner, a radio, a television set, an audio set and the like are mounted on an automobile, for example. To manipulate these electric apparatuses using different manipulation means respectively, this may hamper the driving of the automobile. Accordingly, to prevent the interruption of driving, the temperature control of the air conditioner, the control of a tuner of the radio, the control of sound volume and sound quality of the television set, the radio and the audio set are performed using a single manual inputting device. As this type of manual inputting device, there has been known a manual inputting device which enhances the operability of a manipulating member which is manually manipulated, for example, a knob by imparting a given manipulation feeling to the knob gripped by a manipulator in response to a rotational amount and a rotational direction of the knob, for example.
The conventional manual inputting devices is explained in conjunction with the drawing hereinafter.
FIG. 9
is an explanatory view for explaining a basic constitution of the conventional manual inputting device.
The conventional manual inputting device includes a knob
80
which is manually operated, a motor
10
which imparts a given manipulation feeling in response to a rotational direction and a rotational amount of the knob
80
, a detection means which detects the rotational amount of the knob
80
and a control means which controls the motor
10
in response to a detection result obtained from the detection means.
The detection means is constituted of a large pulley
200
which is fixed to an output shaft
11
of the motor
10
, a small pulley
201
, a belt
202
which is wound around the large pulley
200
and the small pulley
201
and an encoder
30
.
The encoder
30
includes a code plate
31
which is provided with a plurality of slits not shown in the drawing along a circumference thereof and is integrally rotated with the small pulley
201
and a light emitting section
35
and a light receiving section
36
which are arranged to face each other in an opposed manner while sandwiching the code plate
31
. The light receiving section
36
outputs detection signals corresponding to the rotational direction and the rotational amount of the knob
80
to a control unit
100
which constitutes the control means of the motor
10
.
The control unit
100
includes an input section
101
to which the detection signals are inputted from the light receiving section
36
, a memory
103
which prestores control signals of the motor
10
corresponding to the detection signals in a form of a table, an arithmetic operation section
102
which reads out the control signals stored in the memory
103
in response to the detection signals and an output section
104
which outputs the control signals read out by the arithmetic operation section
102
to the motor
10
.
With respect to the conventional manual inputting device having such a constitution, when the knob
80
is rotated, the code plate
31
is rotated by way of the large pulley
200
and the small pulley
201
. Then, the light receiving section
36
receives light from the light emitting section
35
which has passed through the slit and outputs the detection signal to the input section
101
of the control unit
100
. In the arithmetic operation section
102
, the control signal is read out from the memory
103
in response to the detection signal. This control signal is outputted to the motor
10
from the output section
104
. Accordingly, the motor
10
transmits a rotational force to the knob
80
by way of the output shaft
11
in response to the rotational amount and the rotational direction of the knob
80
.
With respect to the knob
80
to which the rotational force is imparted in the above-mentioned manner, when a manipulator turns the knob
80
in the direction that the sound volume is increased at the time of adjusting the sound volume of a radio, for example, the rotational force in the direction opposite to such a rotational direction is imparted to the knob
80
by the motor
10
so that a feeling of resistance is imparted to the manipulator. On the other hand, when the manipulator turns the knob
80
in the direction which lowers the sound volume, the rotational force in the direction equal to the rotational direction is imparted to the knob
80
by the motor
10
so that the manipulator receives a feeling of acceleration.
With respect to the conventional manual inputting device, in an attempt to make the device compact and light-weighted, since the large pulley
200
and the small pulley
201
are arranged in parallel, it is possible to make these large pulley
200
and small pulley
201
small-sized. However, when the small pulley
201
is made excessively small, a contact area with the belt
202
is reduced so that the transmission efficiency of rotation from the large pulley
200
is lowered. Accordingly, there exists a limit in the reduction of the size of the small pulley
201
. Further, when the rotation of the knob
80
is detected while increasing the resolution to some extent, since the resolution is determined by a ratio between the diameter of the small pulley
201
and the diameter of the large pulley
200
, along with the fact that the reduction of size of the small pulley
201
is impossible, the diameter of the large pulley
200
is liable to be increased.
Further, when the size of the knob
80
is increased to some extent to facilitate the gripping thereof, the motor
10
which is directly connected to the knob
80
is forced to output a torque which matches the size of the knob
80
. Accordingly, the motor
10
is also liable to become large-sized.
In view of the above-mentioned circumstances, it is difficult to make the conventional manual inputting device small-sized and light-weighted and hence, the conventional manual inputting device is not suitable for installing the device in a limited space in the inside of an automobile or the like.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned drawbacks and it is an object of the present invention to provide a manual inputting device which can make the device small-sized and light-weighted.
To achieve the above-mentioned object, the manual inputting device of the present invention includes: a manipulating member which is manually operated and transmits signals corresponding to a rotational amount derived from the manual manipulation; a motor which imparts a given feeling of manipulation to the manipulating member in response to the rotational amount derived from the manual operation; the manual inputting device of this invention further includes a planetary gear mechanism having a sun gear, planet gears, a ring gear, a carrier and a carrier shaft; a fixing member which fixes the ring gear of the planetary gear mechanism; detection means which detects a rotational amount of an output shaft of the motor; and control means which controls rotation of the motor in response to a detection result of the detection means, wherein an output shaft of the motor is integrally formed with the sun gear, and the manipulating member is integrally formed with the carrier shaft of the planetary gear mechanism.
In the manual inputting device having such a constitution, when the manipulating member is rotated in the clockwise direction, for example, the carrier shaft, that is, the carrier which is rotated integrally with the manipulating member is rotated in the clockwise direction. Here, since the ring gear is always fix
Alps Electric Co. ,Ltd.
Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione
Duda Rina I.
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