Refrigeration – Automatic control – Of external fluid or means
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-12
2001-01-09
Wayner, William (Department: 3744)
Refrigeration
Automatic control
Of external fluid or means
C236S049300, C236S09100C, C454S313000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06170274
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
The present application is related to, and claims priority from, Japanese Patent Application Nos. 10-130686, 10-357159, and 11-78198, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to generally to vehicle air-conditioning systems, and particularly to a system in which at least an air-conditioning parameter, such as a conditioned air blowout speed or direction, is automatically changed based on sensed conditions to increase the comfort of occupants within a vehicle passenger compartment.
In Japanese Utility Model Publication No. Hei. 7-54010 there is proposed a vehicle air-conditioning system for changing the blowout direction of conditioned air blown from an outlet by imparting an oscillating motion to movable louvers in a swing grill. A switch for setting a time during which the movable louvers are temporarily stopped from swinging is provided at the front of the swing grill. Through the swing louver device, a desired swing state can be obtained by a vehicle occupant setting a swing pause time with the pause time selection switch.
However, with conventional swinging louver devices, it has been very troublesome for the vehicle occupant to have to change the swing pause time via manual operation of the pause time selection switch every time an air-conditioning load influence, such as the amount of solar radiation entering the vehicle, changes. That is, manually adjusting the swing pause time shorter when incident solar radiation is weak, and manually adjusting the swing pause time longer when incident solar radiation is strong, is difficult.
Furthermore, obtaining an optimal swing state with respect to air-conditioning load factors which change slowly as air-conditioning proceeds, such as passenger compartment temperature, are still more complicated. That is, when the passenger compartment temperature is high the swing pause time needs to be set to a relatively long time, and when the passenger compartment temperature is low the swing pause time needs to be set to a relatively shorter time. Manual adjustment therefore becomes even more difficult.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle air-conditioning system with which it is possible to obtain a comfortable blowout state of conditioned air at all times both with respect to air-conditioning load factors which change frequently, like solar radiation strength, and with respect to air-conditioning load factors which change slowly, like passenger compartment temperature, by automatically setting louver swing control times corresponding to different air-conditioning loads.
To achieve this and other objects, the present invention provides a vehicle air-conditioning system with an air-conditioning unit having an outlet for blowing conditioned air toward an air-conditioning zone. In the unit, a blowout state of the conditioned air blown from the outlet is changed by a blowout state changing device. An actuator for imparting an oscillating motion to the blowout state changing device. An air-conditioning load detector detects an air-conditioning load of the air-conditioning zone, while a blowout state controller controls the actuator to pause or slow the oscillation of the blowout state changing device for a predetermined time in an occupant direction, when the air-conditioning load detected by the air-conditioning load detecting means is above a predetermined value.
The present invention includes several embodiments, each of which includes a blowout state control device for controlling the actuator to thereby automatically control the blowout of conditioned air. The blowout control device control controls the actuators based on any number of parameters, including incident solar radiation information, so that conditioned air is blown toward, or away from, a particular passenger, for a predetermined amount of time based on the parameters.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5039008 (1991-08-01), Sugawara et al.
patent: Y2-58-37694 (1983-08-01), None
patent: 61-39610 U (1986-03-01), None
patent: 62-201337 U (1987-12-01), None
patent: 5-32124 (1993-02-01), None
patent: Y2-7-54010 (1995-12-01), None
Ichishi Yoshinori
Kajino Yuichi
Kamiya Toshifumi
Kawai Takayoshi
Samukawa Katsuhiko
Denso Corporation
Harness Dickey & Pierce PLC
Wayner William
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