Communications: electrical – Land vehicle alarms or indicators – Internal alarm or indicator responsive to a condition of the...
Reexamination Certificate
1998-11-03
2001-11-13
Lefkowitz, Edward (Department: 2632)
Communications: electrical
Land vehicle alarms or indicators
Internal alarm or indicator responsive to a condition of the...
C340S459000, C345S007000, C359S630000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06317037
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed toward an instrument panel for use in a motor vehicle, and more specifically, toward an instrument panel having a sharp, easy-to-read display.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Vehicle instrument panels are generally located behind the steering wheel of a motor vehicle and include a number of gauges or other displays for providing a driver with information about vehicle conditions. Many of these instruments include a background display with markings relevant to a condition being monitored and a pointer that turns to point to various ones of the markings based on information provided to the pointer by a sensor. For example, if the condition being monitored is vehicle speed, the markings on the background will indicate rate of speed in miles or kilometers per hour, and the pointer will turn to point at various ones of these rates based on information provided by a speed sensor. Generally, such instruments include a gauge motor having a rotary output shaft that can be rotated by the motor. A pointer is connected to the rotary output shaft so that it can be made to point in any direction by controlling the gauge motor. When the sensor indicates a certain rate of speed, for example, it provides this information to a controller which in turn causes the gauge motor to position the pointer point to the appropriate background marking.
Viewing these instruments while driving requires a driver to take his eyes off the road for a certain period of time, focus on the instruments, interpret the information provided, and then return his gaze to the road. If the instruments are not easy to read and logically arranged, it will be difficult to read them quickly and accurately, and therefore, the driver will spend a disproportionate amount of time looking at the instruments instead of the road. It is therefore important that the information on the instrument panel be highly visible and easy to read.
The instruments that are consulted most frequently, such as the speedometer and the tachometer, are generally located directly in front of a driver on the instrument panel. These instruments must be large enough to be read quickly, yet compact enough to physically fit in the limited space available in the small panel area immediately in front of the driver. Because of the size of the components behind the dashboard display area, it may also be necessary to space the instruments further apart than would be optimal for layout purposes, resulting in wasted space as viewed from the viewing position of the driver. The area behind the instrument panel also contains other important vehicle components, such as air vents, structural members, and other electrical components which must fit into this limited space. Great care must be taken, therefore, when designing the layout of an instrument panel to provide an easily readable display of information necessary to a driver while leaving adequate space for the other vehicle components. In addition, the more tightly the various components are packed behind the display, the more time will be required for proper assembly, leading to increased assembly and later maintenance costs. It would therefore be desirable to provide an easy-to-read vehicle display that consumed less of the valuable room behind the instrument panel than current displays and that allowed the displays of different instruments to be placed in close proximity to one another.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
These problems and others are addressed by the present invention which comprises a compact and easy-to-read instrument display in which various instruments or elements of instruments appear on the instrument panel as images of remotely located devices. In this manner, a bulky instrument or instrument element may be physically removed from behind the instrument panel to make room for other devices, yet still appear to be located on the instrument panel through the projection of its image thereupon. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, an instrument comprising a background display element and a pointer element for pointing to various portions of the background display element are used. The pointer element includes a gauge motor having a rotary output shaft with a pointer supported and rotated by the shaft. The background display element is located behind a partially reflective screen or combiner in front of an instrument panel, and the pointer and gauge are located beneath the brow of the dashboard, generally above and in front of the combiner. Both elements are illuminated. Because the combiner is only partially reflective, some light can pass through it in either direction without being reflected. Therefore, the background display can be seen through the combiner from the driver's viewing location, and at the same time, the reflection of the pointer can also be seen reflected in the combiner which combines the two images into one. The background display and the pointer are arranged so that the image of the pointer is superimposed over the background display. This results in the creation of a virtual instrument comprising the pointer and the background display which appears to be located entirely on or behind the combiner in front of the driver. The image of the pointer will appear to stand apart from the background display producing a somewhat three-dimensional affect and making the display easier to read. In a second embodiment of the invention, the background display is located in the brow of the dashboard and the pointer is located behind the partially reflective combiner to produce a similar effect.
In a third embodiment of the invention, both the pointer and the background display of an instrument are located beneath the brow of the dashboard, and their image is viewable in the partially reflective combiner. This arrangement frees up a large amount of room behind the instrument panel and still provides an easy-to-read instrument that stands out from the black background behind the partially reflective combiner. In another aspect of this embodiment, a second illuminated instrument is placed behind the partially reflective combiner and the image of the first instrument is superimposed over the second instrument. In this manner an instrument such as an odometer, for example, can be made to appear on the face of a second instrument, such as a speedometer, even though it would not be practical to physically mount the odometer in such close proximity to the speedometer because of the space normally occupied behind the panel by the speedometer gauge motor. One or more gauge-based instruments could also be made to appear on the face of another gauge-based instrument, even thought this too would be difficult to accomplish if all the instruments were physically located behind the face of the instrument panel.
In a fourth embodiment of the invention, the easy-to-read appearance of the instruments of the previous embodiments can be simulated by placing both the background display and the pointer of an instrument behind a partially reflective screen which functions as a dead-front lens so that the instrument is not visible until illuminated by a source of light. In this manner, a vehicle can be equipped with an instrument panel having some of the advantages of the panels described above at a much lower cost and that can be installed in a more conventional manner.
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide a vehicle instrument panel having easy-to-read instruments.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an instrument panel having at least one instrument wherein some elements of the instrument are located remotely from the instrument panel.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an instrument panel wherein an image of an instrument or instrument element is projected on a partially reflective screen on the instrument panel.
It is still another object of the invention to provide an instrument panel wherein the image of a first instrument or instrument element is superimposed over a second
Ayres Craig A.
Hall Douglas
Atoma International Corp.
Clark Hill PC
Lefkowitz Edward
LandOfFree
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