CN212125272U - Heater capable of detecting approach of human body - Google Patents

Abstract

A steering wheel/seat with a heater for detecting the approach of a human body, which is connected to a power supply of a vehicle, comprising: the device comprises a power supply, an electric heating module, a capacitance digital conversion circuit and a control module; the capacitance digital conversion circuit comprises a capacitance excitation signal circuit; the capacitance excitation signal circuit generates a high-frequency square wave excitation signal larger than 1 MHz; the electric heating module is composed of at least one first resistor body which generates heat through electric energy, and the first resistor body is connected with a power supply through a switch; a second resistor body which is provided adjacent to the first resistor body and is arranged near the first resistor body and is electrically insulated from the first resistor body; the center of the first resistor body is provided with one connecting joint, and the second resistor body is also provided with another connecting joint; the capacitance excitation signal circuit is connected to one of the connecting joint positions, and the capacitance digital conversion circuit is connected to the other connecting joint position; the capacitance digital conversion circuit is connected with the control module, and the control module outputs a logic signal for detecting the approach of a human body to the steering wheel or the seat.

Description

Heater capable of detecting approach of human body

Technical Field

The utility model relates to a join in marriage steering wheel heater device and the seat heating device who steers the steering wheel, especially still possess the human body and be close the detection function.

Background

Nowadays, steering wheels and car seats with heating function have become the basic equipment in cars. Steering wheel and seat heating technologies also tend to mature. Typically, the occupant may initiate heating of the steering wheel and seat by controlling the switches. However, sometimes the rider forgets to turn off the switch, resulting in unnecessary waste of energy. For this reason, those skilled in the art have begun to study heaters having a function of detecting the approach of a human body. Among them, japanese patent laid-open No. 2002-340712 discloses a detection device that realizes contact detection of a hand on a steering wheel using a characteristic that a frequency of an oscillation circuit changes according to a change in electrostatic capacitance. Japanese patent application laid-open No. 2008-24087 discloses a vehicle seat device that detects the presence or absence of a seated occupant using a seat heater. Patent document CN201480010578.3 discloses that one or two inductors are added to a heating wire loop for heating, and the capacitance is measured by using the added ac signal, thereby achieving the purpose of detecting the approaching state between a human body and a steering wheel. However, the above solutions have the problem that the detection sensitivity is low, and a high-power electronic component is required to be additionally added or the detection circuit is relatively complex, thereby potentially increasing the overall manufacturing cost.

Patent document CN201480010578.3 discloses a method for indirectly measuring the capacitance of a measured object by using a positive sine wave voltage signal as an excitation signal of the capacitance of the measured object, measuring a positive sine wave voltage division signal on the measured object, and performing smoothing filtering and AD conversion, which has low measurement sensitivity and cannot measure the capacitance change smaller than PF level, because the resistance of a high-power heating wire is small (generally smaller than 5 ohms) and the parasitic capacitance of a semiconductor electronic switch is large, the resistance of a measurement loop to ground is too small, and even if the switch is turned off, the positive sine wave voltage signal is bypassed to the ground, so that a useful signal can hardly be measured on the heating wire, therefore, an extra high-power high-inductance and an excitation signal frequency must be added to a power supply loop to increase the ac impedance of the measurement loop (this document suggests using a high-power inductance of 5M frequency and 10 uH), the large voltage change signal can be measured, although the document indicates that a high-power inductor can be added at one end of the heating wire, in practice, the measurement excitation positive sine wave signal bypasses from the other end to the ground, and the requirement of measurement sensitivity cannot be met due to the defect that a measurement circuit adopted by the measurement excitation positive sine wave signal is not high in sensitivity, and the requirement of the system on the sensitivity can be met only by connecting another high-power inductor in series at the other end. The high-power high-inductance inductor generally needs to be manufactured by winding a coil on a magnetic core, so that on one hand, the increased cost is high; on the other hand, it is also bulky and can hardly be arranged inside the steering wheel.

The invention creates the adopted capacitance digital conversion circuit (CDC), such as DAI7142 and ADI7147, adopts a delta-sigma modulation mode to directly convert the value of the measured capacitance into a digital value by charging and discharging the measured capacitance for many times and comparing the value with a reference capacitance (see US Patent Number:5,134,401), and can improve the measurement sensitivity of the capacitance to an fF pole, so that the relatively small inductive reactance (nH level) formed by a circuitous heating wire under a high-frequency condition can be utilized to slightly improve the impedance of a measurement loop, the requirement of a measurement system on the capacitance measurement sensitivity can be met, and therefore, any additional high-power electronic device is not required to be added, and the cost and the installation difficulty are effectively reduced.

In the aspect of detecting human body approach, the capacitance detection technology has the characteristics of simple circuit structure, low cost and the like, but has the high requirement on detection resolution due to small capacitance change, and meanwhile, the capacitance detection is easily influenced by the environment.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to overcome the defects of the prior art, and provides a vehicle steering wheel or seat heater which has a simple circuit structure, fully utilizes resistance wires required by heating of a product, gives out the cost advantage of capacitance detection in the aspect of human body approach, overcomes the defect that the capacitance detection is easily influenced by the environment, fully considers the characteristics that the consistency of automobile products in mass production is difficult to ensure at low cost, and develops a universal human body approach sensor which does not need to be calibrated one by one for different vehicle types.

The invention discloses a heater which has a heating function and a sensor for detecting the approach of a human body, is suitable for a steering wheel or a seat of an automobile, is used for the steering wheel/seat connected with an automobile power supply, and comprises: the device comprises a power supply, an electric heating module, a capacitance digital conversion circuit and a control module; the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit comprises a capacitance excitation signal circuit; the capacitance excitation signal circuit generates a high-frequency square wave excitation signal larger than 1 MHz; the electric heating module is composed of at least one first resistor body which generates heat through electric energy, and the first resistor body is connected with a power supply through a switch; a second resistor body which is adjacent to the first resistor body and is arranged near the first resistor body but is mutually electrically insulated; the center of the first resistor body is provided with one connecting joint, and the second resistor body is also provided with another connecting joint; the capacitance excitation signal circuit is connected to one of the connecting joint positions, and the capacitance digital conversion circuit is connected to the other connecting joint position; the capacitance digital conversion circuit is connected with the control module, and the control module outputs a logic signal for detecting the approach of a human body to a steering wheel or a seat.

The electric heating resistance wires for heating the steering wheel or the seat have various choices, and comprise metal electric heating wires, metal silk-screen circuits or carbon fibers. Generally speaking, the steering wheel and the seat are provided with heating resistance wires in a partitioning manner, each area is provided with an electrothermal resistor body, the steering wheel is generally divided into a left area and a right area, even a front area and a rear area, and the seat, the seat and the backrest can be divided into a plurality of areas; the more partitions, the better basic condition is provided for the partitions to detect the approach of the human body. Sometimes, in a heating area, more than one heating resistor is used, and a plurality of heating resistors are connected to the automobile battery; generally, the length of the resistor body is several meters, and the arrangement on a steering wheel or a seat adopts a circuitous arrangement mode, which lays a foundation for the existence of the inductance thereof, and of course, brings about the characteristic that the consistency of each product is difficult to ensure industrially.

One of the gist of the present invention is to use a resistor body necessary for electric heating of a steering wheel or a seat, use one resistor body as one electrode (first electrode) of a capacitor, tap at the center thereof, and connect a capacitance detection circuit; the second main idea of the present invention is to try to construct another electrode (second electrode), which has two options, namely, another heating resistance wire itself or a wire not used for heating, which is additionally arranged near the first electrode; the third main idea of the invention is to fully utilize the mature capacitance digital conversion circuit (CDC circuit) in the prior art, build a circuit which has strong anti-interference ability and simple structure and is suitable for products such as steering wheels and the like which are difficult to have redundant space on a common metal framework; if the second electrode is an additionally arranged wire electrode which is not used for heating, the capacitor digital conversion circuit is connected to the wire, and the wire is actually an overhead electrode wire. The capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit comprises a capacitance excitation signal circuit; the selective capacitance excitation signal circuit generates a high-frequency square wave excitation signal larger than 1Mhz, and more preferably, the high-frequency square wave excitation signal is larger than 6 MHz.

Through the technical scheme, even if the consistency difference of wound products is large, the consistency of the installation structure is difficult to ensure, and the consistency of the distributed stray capacitance of the resistor body is caused.

The resistance wire is provided with a center tap and is connected with the CDC circuit, because the resistor body generally has the length of several meters, the absolute center is very difficult, according to the design, the center tap is preferably the center of the resistor body, for the convenience of installation, the deviation of the center in the length direction is within 5%, the detection resolution ratio is not influenced too much, namely, the center tap is positioned in the position interval of 45% -55% of the total length, and the excellent detection performance can be ensured;

in order to better realize the detection of human body approach and reduce the influence of an automobile battery serving as a power supply in a heater loop on the small change of capacitance caused by human body approach, on the basis of the scheme, a time-sharing detection method is further added, namely, when the resistor body works and is heated, the detection is not carried out, and when the heating is cut off, the capacitance detection of human body approach is carried out.

Compared with the prior art, the heater has a simple circuit structure, and changes little to the mature heating technology of the passenger car. The center of the resistor is connected with a connector, the capacitor exciting signal and the capacitor digital conversion circuit are connected with the connector, and a high-frequency signal is loaded. And then, the inductive impedance formed by winding the heating wire can be utilized to provide a very good capacitance signal detection basis for the resistor body connected into the automobile battery, so that the condition that the palm of the human body approaches or holds the steering wheel can be detected. And through setting up two resistive elements for form mutual capacitance's scheme between two resistive elements makes detection accuracy higher, and the ability of anti-jamming is also stronger. The device can also be widely applied to various vehicle types, and further debugging is not needed after installation. In a similar way, for the seat, whether the human body sits or not can be detected through inductive impedance formed by winding the heating wire, and a front judgment result is provided for an automobile safety airbag circuit.

Drawings

Fig. 1-1 is a front view of the present heater disposed on a steering wheel.

Fig. 1-2 are side views of the present heater disposed on a steering wheel.

Fig. 1-3 are rear views of the present heater disposed on a steering wheel.

Fig. 2 is a schematic view of the heater arranged on a car seat.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a resistor in the heater.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of self capacitance measurement.

Fig. 5 is an equivalent circuit diagram of the resistor of the heater under direct current.

Fig. 6 is an equivalent circuit of the resistor of the heater according to the present invention with an ac signal.

Fig. 7 shows an example in which another heating resistor is used as the second electrode.

FIG. 8 shows an embodiment incorporating a non-heated electrode.

Fig. 9 is an equivalent circuit diagram corresponding to fig. 7.

Fig. 10 is an equivalent circuit diagram corresponding to fig. 8.

Fig. 11 is a schematic diagram of the detection capacitance of the present heater.

Fig. 12 is a timing chart of time-sharing measurement of the resistor in the present heater.

Fig. 13 is an equivalent circuit diagram of the resistor in the heating stage of the heater.

Fig. 14 is an equivalent circuit diagram of the resistor in the present heater at the measurement stage.

Detailed Description

Fig. 1-1, 1-2, 1-3 show a schematic view of the structure of the steering wheel. Wherein the upper surface D-1 of the steering wheel is divided into two areas A and B, and the lower surface D-2 is divided into a subarea C. The electric heating module in the sensor detection system which has the heating function and detects the approach of a human body is arranged on the steering wheel. The electric heating module is composed of a resistor body which generates heat by electric energy. Fig. 3 shows the resistor 1 and the resistor 2. The resistor body 1 includes: and the metal electric heating wires, the metal silk-screen circuit or the carbon fibers are arranged on the steering wheel in a roundabout manner. Preferably, the steering wheel is divided into three areas a, B, C. Each area is respectively provided with a heater with a function of detecting the approach of a human body, and further, the concentrated heating part can be determined according to the position of a human hand on a steering wheel.

Referring to fig. 5 to 6, in the present heating system, the power source 3 is connected to the first resistor 1 through a switch. The first resistor body 1 converts electric energy in the power source 3 into heat energy to heat the steering wheel and/or the seat. A connection terminal 5 is provided near the center of the first resistor 1. A capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit is connected to the connection joint 5. When the direct current of the power supply 3 passes through the resistor 1, an equivalent circuit thereof is as shown in fig. 5. The resistor body 1 is divided into two resistors 1-1 and 1-2 by the connection joint 5. When a high-frequency ac signal is applied to the connection terminal 5, the equivalent circuit of the resistor 1 is as shown in fig. 6, and the resistor 1 arranged in a winding manner generates equivalent inductances 1-3 and 1-4 in the high-frequency signal.

Referring to fig. 7, a second resistor 2 is further provided in the vicinity of the first resistor 1. The second resistor body 2 is adjacent to the first resistor body 1 but electrically insulated from each other. A connection terminal 5 is provided near the center of the first resistor 1. The second resistor 2 also has a connection terminal 5. Two connecting joints are respectively connected with a capacitance digital conversion circuit, wherein a capacitance excitation signal circuit 4-2 is connected to one connecting joint 5, a capacitance digital conversion circuit 4-1 is connected to the other connecting joint 5, the two parts can be interchanged, and the scheme of connecting the excitation signal circuit 4-2 to the first resistor body 1 is illustrated in figures 7 and 9, and at the moment, the capacitance digital conversion circuit 4-1 is connected to the second resistor body 2; while fig. 8 and 10 show the connection of the excitation signal circuit 4-2 to the second resistor body 2, the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit 4-1 is connected to the first resistor body 1. As shown in fig. 7, a capacitance excitation signal circuit 4-2 is connected to the connection terminal 5 of the first resistor, and a capacitance digital conversion circuit 4-1 is connected to the adjacent second resistor. When the first resistor body 1 is under a high-frequency signal, it forms an electric field which diverges outwards. At this time, the second resistor body 2 adjacent to the first resistor body 1 receives the electric field radiated from the first resistor body 1, and the mutual capacitance Cx is formed between the first resistor body 1 and the second resistor body 2. Referring to fig. 11, when a human hand approaches the steering wheel, a part of the electric field between the first resistor 1 and the second resistor 2 flows to the ground through the human body, and further affects the capacitance value of the mutual capacitance Cx between the first resistor 1 and the second resistor 2. The capacitance digital conversion circuit 4-1 converts the detected high-frequency alternating current signal and outputs the high-frequency alternating current signal to the control module. The control module may calculate the capacitance value of the mutual capacitance Cx between the first resistor 1 and the second resistor 2 based on the detected high-frequency ac signal. When the capacitance value of the mutual capacitance Cx changes to a certain extent, the control module can infer that the hand approaches the steering wheel and output a logic signal.

Similarly, referring to fig. 8, the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit 4-1 is connected to the connection terminal 5 of the first resistor body 1, and the capacitance excitation signal circuit 4-2 is connected to the connection terminal 5 of the adjacent second resistor body 2. Similarly, at high frequency signals, the second resistor body 2 forms an electric field that diverges outward. At this time, the first resistor 1 adjacent to the second resistor 2 receives the electric field emitted from the second resistor 2, and a mutual capacitance is formed between the first resistor 1 and the second resistor 2. The manner of detecting whether the human body is approaching is the same as the first embodiment, and therefore, the description thereof is omitted.

The second resistor body 2 may be a conventional resistance wire, a metal screen printing circuit, or a carbon fiber, or may be an electrode wire arranged in a suspended manner as shown in fig. 8 and 10 to save cost. The connection terminal 5 of the second resistor body 2 may be provided at one end or may be provided near the center of the second resistor body 2. And the high-frequency alternating current signal is a square wave alternating current signal which is more than 1 MHz. Preferably, the high frequency ac signal should be a square wave ac signal greater than 6 MHz. Thereby enabling even further reduction of ground bypass and interference. By providing the first resistor 1 and the second resistor 2 and applying a high-frequency signal, a mutual capacitance is formed between the first resistor 1 and the second resistor 2. Whether the human body is close to can be detected more accurately. Because the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit with the stray capacitance immunity function is adopted to detect the mutual capacitance, the mutual capacitance between the first resistor body 1 and the second resistor body 2 can be detected without being influenced by the stray capacitance of the first resistor body 1 and the second resistor body 2 to the ground, so that the detection accuracy is higher, and the anti-interference capability is good. And the threshold value in the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit does not need to be adjusted according to the specification of the vehicle. The method can achieve higher consistency and has high applicability and practicability.

Referring to fig. 7 and 9, the first resistor body 1 and the second resistor body 2 may be provided as a resistance wire capable of heating. And a connection terminal 5 is provided at a position near the center of the first resistor 1 and the second resistor 2. And one connecting joint is connected with a capacitance excitation signal circuit 4-2, and the other connecting joint is connected with a capacitance digital conversion circuit 4-1. Under the condition of a square wave high-frequency signal larger than 1MHz, equivalent inductances are generated on the first resistor body 1 and the second resistor body 2. The equivalent inductor plays a role in improving the high-frequency impedance of the circuit, so that the high-frequency capacitance excitation signal 4-2 is not bypassed. Similarly, a mutual capacitance is formed between the first resistor 1 and the second resistor 2. And whether a human body approaches the steering wheel is detected through mutual capacitance.

Referring to fig. 13 and 14, preferably, when the first resistor body 1 and the second resistor body 2 are both provided as resistance wires capable of heating, an analog switch is further provided in the system, and the analog switch is in time-sharing communication with the power supply 3 and the switch of the resistor body 1, so that the heater can be switched between a heating state and a detection state at different time intervals. Fig. 12 shows control signal waveforms of the heater in two states. Wherein, 7 is a heating stage, and 8 is a stage for detecting whether a human body approaches. As shown in fig. 13 and 14, the control signals control the open and close states of the analog switches 6-1 to 6-4, respectively. Referring to fig. 13, when the heater is in the heating phase 7, the analog switch switches 6-2, 6-3 are closed, 6-1 turns on the power supply 3, 6-4 turns on 6-3, and the first and second resistive bodies 1, 2 are connected to the dc power supply 3. The first resistor 1 and the second resistor 2 convert electric energy in the power source 3 into heat energy to heat the steering wheel. Referring to fig. 14, when the heater is in the detection stage 8, the analog switch 6-2, 6-3 is turned off, the analog switch 6-1 is turned on 4, so that the resistor 1 is connected to the capacitance excitation signal circuit 4-2, the analog switch 6-4 is turned on 4, so that the resistor 2 is connected to the capacitance digital conversion circuit 4-1, and whether a human body approaches the steering wheel is detected by a high-frequency ac signal.

Fig. 2 shows a structure in which the present heater is mounted on a seat. Similarly, the seat may be divided into a plurality of regions, and each of the regions may be provided with a heater having a function of detecting the approach of the human body. The detection mode of the heater arranged on the seat is the same as that of the heater arranged on the steering wheel, so the description is omitted.

Finally, it should be noted that the above embodiments are only used for illustrating the technical solutions of the present invention, and not for limiting the protection scope of the present invention, although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the preferred embodiments, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that modifications or equivalent substitutions can be made on the technical solutions of the present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the technical solutions of the present invention.

Claims (8)

1. A steering wheel/seat with a heater for detecting the approach of a human body, which is connected to a power supply of a vehicle, comprising: the device comprises a power supply, an electric heating module, a capacitance digital conversion circuit and a control module; the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit comprises a capacitance excitation signal circuit; the capacitance excitation signal circuit generates a high-frequency square wave excitation signal larger than 1 MHz; the electric heating module is composed of at least one first resistor body which generates heat through electric energy, and the first resistor body is connected with a power supply through a switch; a second resistor body which is adjacent to the first resistor body and is arranged near the first resistor body but is mutually electrically insulated; the center of the first resistor body is provided with one connecting joint, and the second resistor body is also provided with another connecting joint; the capacitance excitation signal circuit is connected to one of the connecting joint positions, and the capacitance digital conversion circuit is connected to the other connecting joint position; the capacitance digital conversion circuit is connected with the control module, and the control module outputs a logic signal for detecting the approach of a human body to a steering wheel or a seat.

2. The heater as claimed in claim 1, wherein the resistive body comprises a metal electric heating wire, a metal screen circuit, or a carbon fiber.

3. The heater of claim 1, wherein said high frequency square wave excitation signal is greater than 6 MHz.

4. The heater of claim 1, wherein the resistor body partitions are disposed on a steering wheel.

5. The heater of claim 1, wherein the resistive body segments are disposed on the seat and or back of the chair.

6. The heater as claimed in claim 4 or 5, wherein the first and second resistive bodies are heating resistance wires arranged in a winding manner, and the connection joints are central connection joints.

7. The heater of claim 4 or 5, wherein the first resistor body is a heating resistance wire arranged in a winding way, and the second resistor body is an electrode wire arranged in a suspension way adjacent to the first resistor body.

8. The heater according to claim 1, wherein the connection terminal is provided with an analog switch which is turned on in a time-division manner with respect to the switch of the power supply connection resistor.

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