Patent Abstract:
A vehicle is provided, including a vehicle body; at least one vehicle element pivotally mounted to the vehicle, the vehicle element configured to pivot through an angle not more than 360 degrees; and a measuring arrangement configured to measure an angular velocity of the at least one vehicle element.

Full Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    The present invention is related to a vehicle including a measuring device configured to measure the angular velocity of at least one pivotally mounted vehicle element.  
         BACKGROUND INFORMATION  
         [0002]    It is believed that, in various operational situations, it may be advantageous to measure the angular velocity of at least one pivotally mounted vehicle element configured to be manually pivoted by a user not more than 360 degrees. Such pivotally mounted vehicle elements may include, for example, car doors, minivan lift gates, trunks, hoods, seats, tilt wheels, glove compartments, center bins, etc. The measured angular velocity information may then be, for example, stored on a storage unit situated within the vehicle, and later retrieved, for example, by a design engineer, who may use the information to obtain vital “use statistics” related to the automobile. These use statistics may include, for example, a number of times the mounted vehicle element is opened and/or closed, a peak angular velocity of the mounted vehicle element, an angular acceleration of the mounted vehicle element, etc. In this manner, the use statistics may help the design engineer better design various pivotally mounted vehicle elements.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0003]    It is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle, including a vehicle body; at least one vehicle element pivotally mounted to the vehicle body, the vehicle element configured to pivot through an angle not more than 360 degrees; and a measuring arrangement configured to measure an angular velocity of the at least one vehicle element.  
           [0004]    It is another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the at least one vehicle element includes at least one of a vehicle door, a lift-gate, a trunk, a hood, a seat-back, a tilt-wheel, and a glove compartment.  
           [0005]    It is still another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the measuring arrangement is configured to measure the angular velocity during at least one of an opening and a closing of the at least one vehicle element.  
           [0006]    It is yet another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the measuring arrangement includes an angular velocity encoder electrically connected to a frequency converter, the angular velocity encoder providing a signal to the frequency converter in accordance with the angular velocity of the at least one vehicle element, the frequency converter generating an analog output in accordance with a characteristic of the signal.  
           [0007]    It is still another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the signal includes a pulse train.  
           [0008]    It is yet another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the characteristic includes at least one of a pulse width and a period of the pulse train.  
           [0009]    It is still another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the measuring arrangement includes a piezoelectric gyroscope rate sensor configured to produce an analog output in accordance with the angular velocity of the at least one vehicle element.  
           [0010]    It is yet another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, further including at least one vehicle system, in which the measuring arrangement is configured to communicate angular velocity information to the at least one vehicle system in accordance with the angular velocity of the at least one vehicle element.  
           [0011]    It is still another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the at least one vehicle system includes a storage unit configured to store at least a portion of the angular velocity information.  
           [0012]    It is yet another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the storage unit includes at least one of a RAM, a hard disk, a flash memory, an EPROM, an EEPROM, and a mini-disk.  
           [0013]    It is still another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the at least one vehicle system further includes a peak detecting arrangement configured to detect a peak angular velocity of the angular velocity information.  
           [0014]    It is yet another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the peak detecting arrangement is configured to communicate the peak angular velocity to the storage unit, the storage unit being configured to store the peak angular velocity.  
           [0015]    It is still another object of the present invention to provide the vehicle described above, in which the at least one vehicle system includes a user interface arrangement configured to communicate the portion of the angular velocity information to at least one external device.  
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0016]    [0016]FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary vehicle according to the present invention, including a measuring arrangement for measuring the angular velocity of a vehicle door.  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary measuring arrangement according to the present invention.  
         [0018]    [0018]FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary optical shaft encoder.  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 4 illustrates another exemplary measuring arrangement according to the present invention.  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 5 illustrates a vehicle system according to the present invention configured to receive and process angular velocity information. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0021]    Referring now to FIG. 1, there is seen a vehicle  100  including a measuring arrangement  110  configured to measure the angular velocity of an opening and/or closing vehicle door  105  and to provide information in accordance with the measured angular velocity to at least one vehicle system  120  for further processing. As shown in FIG. 1, vehicle door  105  may be pivotally opened and/or closed in the direction of arrow  115  by an occupant wishing to enter/exit vehicle  100 .  
         [0022]    Referring now to FIG. 2, there is seen a first exemplary measuring arrangement  110  according to the present invention. Measuring arrangement  110  includes an angular velocity encoder  205  communicatively and electrically connected to a frequency converter  210 . In operation, the angular velocity encoder  205  provides a signal  215  to the frequency converter  210  in accordance with the angular velocity of at least one vehicle element (not shown), for example, vehicle door  105 . The frequency converter  210  then generates an analog output  220  in accordance with at least one characteristic of the signal  215 .  
         [0023]    Angular velocity encoder  205  may include, for example, any arrangement configured to generate a signal in accordance with the measured angular velocity of the vehicle element. Referring now to FIG. 3, there is seen an exploded view of an exemplary angular velocity encoder  205  including an optical rotary angular velocity encoder  305 . Encoder  305  includes a housing  320  containing a shaft  335  connected to a glass disk  315  with equally spaced markings  330   a ,  330   b ,  330   c , . . . ,  330   n , a light source  310  mounted on one side of the glass disk  315 , and a photo detector  325  mounted on the other side of the glass disk  315 . The shaft  335  may be rigidly connected to a hinge point on a pivotally mounted vehicle element, such that the shaft  335  rotates with a pivoting motion of the vehicle element.  
         [0024]    In operation, the rotating shaft  335  causes the glass disk  315  to rotate, which causes markings  330   a ,  330   b ,  330   c , . . . ,  330   n , to intermittently obscure the passage of light between the light source  310  and the photo detector  325 . The photo detector  325  converts the intermittent light into associated electrical pulses. Since the markings  330   a ,  330   b ,  330   c , . . . ,  330   n , are uniformly distributed, encoder  305  generates a pulse in response to a measurable incremental move in position. In this manner, the number of generated pulses per unit time is directly proportional to the angular velocity of the shaft  335  and, as such, the angular velocity of the vehicle element.  
         [0025]    The frequency converter  210  is configured to generate an analog output  220  in accordance with a characteristic of the signal  215  communicated by the angular velocity encoder  205 . For example, if the angular velocity encoder  205  communicates signal  215  as a pulse train, frequency converter  210  may, for example, generate an analog output  220  in accordance with the period and/or pulse width of the pulse train  215 . In this manner, analog output  220  may exhibit an electrical characteristic in accordance with the angular velocity of the vehicle element.  
         [0026]    Referring to FIG. 4, there is seen another exemplary measuring arrangement  400  according to the present invention.  
         [0027]    In this embodiment, a piezoelectric gyroscope rate sensor  405  replaces the angular velocity encoder  205  and the frequency converter  210  of the exemplary embodiment discussed above with respect to FIG. 2. A piezoelectric angular velocity sensor, such as the piezoelectric rate gyroscope CRS-O3 produced by Silicon Sensing Systems, Japan, operates to convert forces produced by rotational motion directly into a signal representing angular velocity and/or angular rate. Specifically, the rotational motion of, for example, a pivotally connected vehicle element, produces Coriolis forces, which couple vibration to a point 45 degrees relative to the pivoting axis (e.g., a pivoting door hinge of door  105 ).  
         [0028]    It is believed that piezoelectric gyroscope rate sensor  405  is advantageous in that it may be cheaper to produce, may have enhanced accuracy compared to encoder based designs, may be more robust, since the piezoelectric gyroscope rate sensor  405  lacks complex moving parts, and may not require signal conditioning, such as that required with the exemplary embodiment discussed above with respect to the angular velocity encoder  205 .  
         [0029]    It should be appreciated that, although the exemplary measuring arrangements  110 ,  400  are described above for measuring the angular velocity of opening and/or closing vehicle door  105 , exemplary measuring arrangements  110 ,  400  may be used to measure the angular velocity of other vehicle elements pivotally mounted to the vehicle  100 , such as, for example, minivan lift gates, trunks, hoods, seats, tilt wheels, glove compartments, center bins, etc.  
         [0030]    Referring now to FIG. 5, there is seen an exemplary vehicle system  120  according to the present invention configured to process the analog output  220  associated with the angular velocity of, for example, the opening and/or closing vehicle door  105 . Vehicle system  120  includes peak detector  505  and storage unit  510 , each of which is electrically and communicatively coupled to analog output  220 . User interface  515  is provided to permit access of angular velocity information  525  stored in the storage unit  510 .  
         [0031]    The storage unit  525  is configured to store discrete and/or continuous angular velocity information  525  obtained from the analog output  220 . Storage unit  525  may include, for example, any arrangement operable to store the angular velocity information  525 , such as a hard disk, an EPROM, an EEPROM, a flash memory, a random access memory (RAM), a mini-disk, etc. In this manner, the storage unit may record a “history” of use concerning, for example, the pivotally mounted vehicle door  105 . Once stored, the angular velocity information  525  may be retrieved via the user interface  515 , for example, by a design engineer, as described in more detail below.  
         [0032]    Peak detector  505  is configured to detect a peak angular velocity from the discrete and/or continuous angular velocity information  525  from the analog output  220 . For this purpose, peak detector  505  communicates the greatest and/or smallest angular velocity measured to the storage unit  510  for storage and subsequent retrieval. Once communicated, the greatest and/or smallest angular velocity measured may, for example, overwrite a previously stored greatest and/or smallest angular velocity measurement. In this manner, the storage unit  510  may store, not only the history of the angular velocity information  525 , but also the peak angular velocity (great and/or small), which may be useful in better designing, for example, the vehicle door  105 .  
         [0033]    The user interface  515  is configured to permit a user (not shown), for example, a design engineer, to retrieve the angular velocity information  525  from the storage unit  510 , for example, via communications cable  520  connected to an external computer (not shown). As described above, the design engineer may use the angular velocity information, for example, to better design the vehicle door  105 .

Technology Classification (CPC): 1