Patent ID: 9587534
Date: 2017-03-07
CPC Classifications: F01M,G01F,G07C

Claim:
1. An oil pan comprising: an oil pan bottom; one or more oil pan walls extending a height between the oil pan bottom and a top of the oil pan walls; a reservoir configured to hold oil, the reservoir defined by the one or more oil pan walls and the oil pan bottom; three or more capacitance sensors, each capacitance sensor coupled to a portion of the one or more oil pan walls and each configured to sense a capacitance; and a processor configured to determine an oil level in the oil pan based on sensed capacitances from each of the three or more capacitance sensors, wherein the processor is further configured to: interpret the sensed capacitances from each of the three or more capacitance sensors as coordinates in space; define a plane of a surface of the oil; and determine the oil level based on the coordinates, the plane defined by the processor, and a center coordinate of the oil pan.