JPH04201618A - Humidifying device for vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve humidification effect with a small capacity by detecting the position of an occupant, judging the distance and direction between the occupant and a humidifier, determining and controlling the humidified air blow- out direction and speed, and the humidification quantity of the humidifier. CONSTITUTION:The position of the face of an occupant seated on a seat 21 is detected by a seat position detector 42, and inputted into a control circuit 41. The control circuit 41 obtains the direction and distance of the position of the head part of the driver from the nozzle 201 of a humidifier 20 on the basis of the position signal. Then, the humidification quantity of the humidifier 20 and the speed of the blown-out humidified air are determined on the basis of the distance. The direction of a grille 38 is directed to the head part of the driver by a grille control part 40, and each applied voltage to a blower fan 31 and a supersonic humidifying unit 36 is controlled, and the air having a prescribed air speed and humidification quantity is blown to the occupant.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a vehicle humidifier that is installed in a vehicle such as a passenger car and provides an appropriate humidifying effect to occupants in a two-vehicle compartment.

[Prior Art] Vehicles such as passenger cars are usually equipped with an air conditioner to cool or heat the interior of the vehicle in order to maintain an appropriate temperature environment inside the vehicle. When performing air conditioning control like this,
Particularly when heating is controlled in the winter, the air inside the vehicle becomes extremely dry, which may cause discomfort to the occupants such as thirst. In order to improve such an unfavorable vehicle interior environment, various proposals have been made to install a humidifier in the vehicle interior.

However, when a humidifier is installed inside a vehicle, especially in winter when the temperature outside the vehicle is low, the window glass may fog up, which may affect the driving environment. Furthermore, if an attempt is made to uniformly humidify the interior of a vehicle, the amount of humidification increases significantly, and an effective humidifying device for a vehicle has not yet been realized.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] This invention has been made in view of the above points, and is particularly capable of effective humidification control for passengers, even with a compact and small-capacity humidifier. It is an object of the present invention to provide a humidifying device for a vehicle that exhibits a sufficient humidifying effect.

[Means for Solving the Problem] A humidifying device for a vehicle according to the present invention includes an occupant position detecting means, and based on the detection result of the detecting means, a humidified air blowout of a humidifier installed in a vehicle interior is controlled. A blowout direction control means for directing the direction toward the passenger; a blowout air volume control means for setting the blowout speed of the humidified air in accordance with the distance to the passenger;
Furthermore, the humidification amount ms means of the humidifier for setting the humidification amount is controlled.

[Function] - In the vehicle humidifier configured in this way, the direction of humidified air from the humidifier set in the vehicle interior is automatically set toward the passenger, Further, the volume of humidified air blown from the humidifier and the amount of humidification thereof are determined in accordance with the distance to the occupant. Therefore, a humidifier with a limited capacity now performs intensive humidification control for the occupants, effectively improving the cabin environment for the occupants, and even in winter, the humidified air protects the window glass. It is also effectively suppressed that the environment becomes cloudy.

[Example] Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 explains the general configuration, and first includes an occupant position detection means 11. This means is an optical detection means,
Detection means using ultrasonic waves or the like can be used, and as a simple means, it can also be configured by means for detecting the seat position where the passenger is sitting.

When the position of the occupant is detected by the position detecting means II, a command is given to the air blowing direction determining means 12, which calculates the direction in which the occupant is present from a humidifier fixedly installed in the vehicle interior. Once the direction in which the occupant is present from the humidifier is calculated and determined based on the position of the humidifier and the occupant's position, the humidified air blowing direction control means 13 of the humidifier is driven to blow out the humidified air from the humidifier. the direction of the air,
Set, for example, toward the passenger's face. 'Furthermore, the distance between the humidifier and the occupant's face position, for example, is calculated based on the occupant's position detected by the position detection means 11;
The blowout air speed determining means 14 and the humidification amount determining means 15 determine the blowout air volume and the humidification amount in order to provide a good humidifying effect to the occupant. Then, based on the determined blowout air volume and humidification amount, the blowoff air volume control means 1B and the humidification means 17 are controlled.

Figure 2 shows the situation inside the vehicle, with the humidifier 20
For example, the nozzle 21 for blowing out humidified air of the humidifier 20 is fixedly attached to the inner lining of the door.
11, the blowing direction is controlled to be changed as appropriate by variable control of the grille direction, etc., and is set toward, for example, the face of the occupant 22 seated on the seat 21.

FIG. 3 shows the overall structure of the humidifier. The humidifier 20 has a main body 25 installed inside the door as shown in FIG. The water tank 2B is configured to include a water tank 26 for supplying water, and the water tank 2B is housed inside a door of a vehicle, for example, and is set at a position below the main body portion 25.

A partition wall 30 is formed inside the container constituting the main body portion 25, and a proafan 31 is installed in one of the rooms partitioned by the partition wall 3o. This proafan 31 sucks outside air into the container from the intake port 32. Also - second container internal partition wall 30
The other room separated by is a water tank 33,
Water in the water tank 26 is pumped up by a water pump 34 and is supplied into the water tank 33 through a filter 35 made of ion exchange resin or the like.

An ultrasonic humidification unit 36 equipped with an ultrasonic vibrator is installed at the bottom of this water tank 33, and the ultrasonic vibrations generated by this humidification unit 36 are transmitted to the water in the water tank 33, turning this water into fine particles. Allow fog to be generated. and,
The mist generated by this ultrasonic vibration is
The liquid is guided to the atomizing tube 37 formed by being inserted from the top of the screen, and is blown out to the outside through a nozzle equipped with a variable grille 381#/. Here, a zigzag passage 371 is formed in the atomizing tube 37 and is configured by alternately protruding a large number of partition plates, and the air flow generated by the pro-aper fan 31 is blown through the zigzag passage 371.

Here, the direction of the grill 38 formed at the opening of the nozzle 39 is variably controlled by a grill controller 40, and the grill 38 is driven according to a command from a control circuit 41 to humidify the air. The direction of air blowing is changed in response to a command.

The control circuit 41 is configured by, for example, a microcomputer, and the control circuit 41. is supplied with a detection signal from a seat position detector 42 set in the seat 21 in the vehicle interior. This control circuit 41 is further supplied with a signal from a switch 43 that commands on/off of the humidification operation, and when the switch 43 commands the humidification operation, the ultrasonic humidification unit 36η is set to the operating state. It also gives a command to the blower fan h, and drives and controls the blower fan according to the requested humidifying air volume.

The seat position detector 42 is composed of, for example, a potentiometer or the like, and is composed of a sensor that outputs a voltage according to the forward and backward sliding position or amount of the seat 21 and the angle of the backrest of the seat 21. 21
outputs a detection signal corresponding to the position of the face of the seated occupant.

In the humidifier configured in this way, the partition wall 30 of the main body 25 is configured to connect the left and right compartments at the upper part of the container constituting the main body 25, and as described above, When the proa fan 31 is driven to rotate,
Air sucked in from the intake port 32 is introduced into the water tank 33 portion, and is discharged from the atomization cylinder 37 to the outside in the water tank 33. In this case, water particles generated by ultrasonic vibration are introduced into the atomizing tube 37, and in the case of water, the direction in which the humidified air is blown out is determined by the grille 38.

The water tank 33 constituting the main body portion 25 is formed with a water supply port 44 through which water is supplied from the water tank 2B described above, and an overflow roller 45 is opened at a position lower than the water supply port 44. The water in the water tank 33 overflows through this overflow roller 45 and is collected into the water tank 2B. That is, the water level in the water tank 33 is determined by the position of the overflow roller 45.

The flow of control of this humidifier will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. First, in step 100, the on/off state of the humidifier power switch 43 is detected,
In step 101, this on or off state is determined. If it is confirmed in step 101 that the switch 43 is on, the process proceeds to the next step 102, where the seat position detector 4
Based on the detection signal from 2, the position of the occupant is detected.

That is, the position of the occupant on the seat 21 is calculated based on the amount of slide of the seat 21 and the backrest angle detection signal.

In this case, the presence or absence of an occupant may be determined by detecting the weight acting on the seat 21, and a predetermined seat position detection signal may be generated only when an occupant is present. That is, the position of the occupant's head is calculated in step 102, and the direction and distance from the nozzle 201 of the humidifier 20 to the position where the occupant's head is present are obtained.

In step 103, a command is given to the grille controller 4 in the direction of the detected and calculated head of the occupant.
is directed toward the calculated direction of the occupant's head. That is,
The humidified air blown from the humidifier 20 is blown toward the head of the occupant seated on the seat 21.

In step 104, the distance from the nozzle 201 of the humidifier 20 to the head is calculated in accordance with the detected head position of the occupant, and the humidification amount and blowing air speed corresponding to this distance are determined.

Here, the determining characteristics of the wind speed and the amount of humidification blown from the humidifier are set and stored in advance according to the distance, with the humidity set value to be supplied near the head of the occupant being constant. This determining characteristic is set as a map or a function, and is the minimum amount of humidification that can achieve the humidity setting value at that distance,
The combination with the air volume is set to a level that does not cause discomfort to the occupants.

This determination characteristic is set from the characteristics shown in FIG. Figure 5 shows the distance ASB from the humidifier when the humidification amount of the humidifier is D%E (DIE).

The humidity reached at C (A<B<C) is shown by changing the wind speed. As can be seen from this figure, when the distance changes, the reached humidity changes even if the amount of humidification is the same, and even when the wind speed changes, the reached humidity changes.

In this example, the set value of the ultimate humidity is kept constant, and the minimum combination of wind speed and humidification amount that can achieve this set value (
(indicated as points PI and P2 in the figure) are set in advance according to the distance, and determined in step 104 according to this characteristic. Then, in response to this determination, in step 105, the rotation speed of the proa fan 31 is controlled so as to obtain a predetermined air volume, and the control voltage for the ultrasonic vibrator of the ultrasonic humidification unit 36 is set. and set the predetermined humidification amount. Then, the humidification control necessary for the occupants is realized with the minimum amount of humidification.

When it is determined in step 101 that the switch is off,
Proceeding to step 10B, the proafan 31 is turned off, and the ultrasonic vibrator of the ultrasonic humidification unit 36 is turned off.

This type of humidification control reduces the humidification effect due to misalignment of the humidifier position, which is a problem when spot humidifying the passenger's face, and changes in the humidification effect due to differences in the distance from the humidifier 20 to the face due to differences in the physique of the passenger. Problems such as these can be effectively solved. Further, since the amount of humidification can be kept to the minimum necessary, the device can be particularly effective in suppressing the occurrence of fogging on window glass.

In the embodiment, a seat position detection mechanism was used as a means for detecting the passenger's face position, but other methods may also be used, such as an ultrasonic sensor that has already been realized in person-tracking type spot air conditioners, or a distance sensor that uses infrared rays. The position of the occupant may be detected by installing the humidified air in the grille 38 so that the humidified air is blown in the direction of the occupant's face together with the grille 38.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the vehicle humidifier according to the present invention,
The blowing direction of humidified air from a humidifier installed in the vehicle interior follows, for example, the direction of the occupant's face, making it possible to realize effective spot humidification. In this case, since the amount of humidification can be kept to a minimum, the humidifier capacity can be configured to be small, and unnecessary humidified air is not released into the vehicle interior, so fogging of the window glass can be prevented. It does not affect the driving environment.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram illustrating a humidifying device for a vehicle according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the interior of the vehicle, and FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating the overall configuration. , FIG. 4 is a flowchart explaining the flow of control, and FIG. 5 is a characteristic diagram explaining the relationship between humidifying air speed and humidity. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11... Occupant position detection means, 12... Blower direction determination means, 13... Blower direction control means, 14... Blower air speed determination means, 15... Humidification amount determination means, 1B.
...Blowout air volume control means, 17... Humidification control means, 2
0...humidifier, 21...seat, 22...crew, 2
5... Main unit, 2B... Water tank, 30... Partition wall, 31... Proa fan, 33... Water tank, 3B
...Ultrasonic humidification unit, 38...Variable grille, 41...Control circuit, 42...Seat position detector. , ゛), Fig. 1 Zl Fig. 2 4 Poor krill A

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A humidifier capable of adjusting the blowing direction, blowing air volume, and humidification amount of humidified air; a position detecting means for detecting the position of an occupant in a vehicle interior; a blowout direction control means for setting the humidified air blowing direction of the humidifier toward the passenger; and a humidified air blowing speed according to the distance from the humidifier to the passenger based on the detection result of the position detection means. and a humidification amount control means that controls the humidification amount of the humidifier in accordance with the distance from the humidifier to the passenger based on the detection result of the position detection means. A vehicle humidifier characterized by: