Patent ID: 7868572

Claim:
A seatbelt apparatus, comprising: a belt reel around which a belt is wound; a motor which rotationally drives the belt reel; a transmitting device which transmits a driving power between the belt reel and the motor; a controller which drives the motor while controlling an electricity to be supplied to the motor; a rotation-detection device which detects a rotational position of the belt reel and consumes a varying amount of electrical current depending upon the rotational position of the belt wheel, the rotation-detection device including at least one hall element and a magnetic pole ring with a first pole and a second pole, the magnetic pole ring being rotationally coupled to the belt reel, wherein: the rotation-detection device outputs, in accordance with rotational position of the belt reel, a plurality of outputs including signals indicating a first state in which the current consumption by the rotation-detection device is larger than a predetermined value because of a close proximity of the at least one hall element to the first pole of the magnetic pole ring, and a second state in which the current consumption by the rotation-detection device is smaller than the predetermined value because of a distant proximity of the at least one hall element to the first pole of the magnetic pole ring; and the controller executes a first motor-driving process to rotate the motor until the rotation-detection device outputs the signal indicating the second state so as to reduce the current consumption of the rotation-detection device.