JPS6251167B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a car air conditioner control method that uses voice notification to facilitate the operation of a car air conditioner.

Generally, a car air conditioner has a plurality of selectable adjustment modes, such as internal air circulation and outside air introduction, cooling mechanism operation and stop, heater blowout and vent blowout.

Conventionally, these adjustment modes have been changed by manual adjustment to an arbitrary adjustment mode by manual operation, or to one of a plurality of adjustment modes preprogrammed by an automatic control device according to control conditions from a temperature sensor, etc. This is done by one of the automatic adjustments that automatically selects the one.

Automatic adjustment has the advantage of eliminating the hassle and hassle of manual operation, and selecting an adjustment mode according to the environment within a programmed range even if the user does not know the functions of each adjustment mode.

However, it is not easy to design a program that can completely respond to changes in a complex environment, and there are also differences in passenger preferences, making perfect automatic adjustment difficult.

In view of the above, an object of the present invention is to provide a car air conditioner control method that provides an intermediate control method between manual adjustment and automatic adjustment, and that allows the occupant to easily obtain an adjustment mode suitable for his or her preference. That is.

The present invention will be described below with reference to an embodiment shown in the accompanying drawings. In this embodiment, the present invention is applied to the operation and stop of the cooling mechanism of a car air conditioner, but it can also be applied to other adjustment modes.

Reference numeral 10 denotes a ventilation duct that supplies conditioned airflow to the vehicle interior 11. An outside air introduction port 12 and an inside air circulation port 13 are provided at the upstream portion of the ventilation duct 10, and air is selectively taken in by an adjustment damper 14 disposed within the duct. This adjustment damper 14 is connected to an adjustment lever inside the vehicle compartment 11 via a link mechanism (not shown).

As air conditioning elements, a blower motor 15, an evaporator 16, an air mix damper 17, and a heater 18 are arranged in the duct 10 by a known method. The evaporator 16 is a known refrigeration cycle (cooling mechanism) 20 including a compressor 19.
When the compressor 19 receives rotational driving force from the on-vehicle power engine 22 via the electromagnetic clutch 21, it performs a cooling action within the duct 10. The heater 18 circulates the cooling water of the engine 22 to heat the inside of the duct 10. The air mix damper 17 changes its opening degree by electric control means to be described later, and changes the distribution of the air flow passing through the heater 18 and the air flow not passing through the heater 18, thereby increasing the magnitude of the heating effect on the main body of the air flow. As a result, it has a temperature regulating effect that changes the temperature of the air blown out from the duct 10.

In order to determine the direction of the air flow blown from the duct 10 to the passenger compartment 11, a plurality of adjusting dampers (only one is shown) 23 are provided to deflect the direction of air blowing into the passenger compartment 11. The damper 23 is connected to an adjustment lever inside the vehicle compartment 11 by a link mechanism (not shown).

Next, the electrical control system of the above-mentioned car air conditioner will be explained.

Electrical control circuit 24 is constructed using a known microcomputer and provides control outputs to actuator 25 of air mix damper 17, electromagnetic clutch 21, and digital audio synthesis circuit 26. The microcomputer includes an outside temperature sensor 27, an inside temperature sensor 28, a vehicle interior temperature sensor 29, a cold temperature sensor 30 disposed downstream of the evaporator 16, and an air mix damper 1 as control condition sensors.
7 receives control condition signals from the opening sensor 31 and temperature setting device 32 via a built-in analog-to-digital conversion circuit, and further receives control condition signals from the operation panel 33 on which various operation switches are arranged. It is programmed to produce the above control output according to the flowchart shown in the figure.

The digital voice synthesis circuit 26 includes the electric control circuit 2
In response to the two types of control outputs from 4, the speaker 34
The first control command A makes the first sound notification "We recommend turning on the air conditioner switch", and the second control command B gives the first sound warning "We recommend turning on the economy switch". Issue 2 audio notification. Note that a magnetic audio reproduction device can also be used instead of the digital audio synthesis circuit.

In addition to the power switch 34 as the main switch, the operation panel 33 also includes an AUTO switch that specifies automatic adjustment mode as a control condition switch, an air conditioner (A/C) switch that commands the operation of the refrigeration cycle, and an air conditioner (A/C) switch that commands the operation of the refrigeration cycle. An economy (ECO) switch for instructing a stop, a response (OK) switch for indicating an affirmative response to a voice notification, and an air volume changeover switch 35 for the blower motor 15 are provided.

The constant voltage circuit 36 receives the vehicle battery voltage V _B via the power switch 34 and applies a constant voltage to the microcomputer in the electric control circuit 24 , each control condition sensor, and the operation panel 33 .

The operation of the control system described above is defined by a control program set in a microcomputer. As shown in FIG. 2, this control program is set up as a circular loop of a series of operating steps, and one cycle is executed in tens to hundreds of milliseconds. The program processing for each point is as follows.

(1) After power-on start, set the switch variable SW to a value indicating automatic adjustment mode (AUTO) at a specified location in the microcomputer memory (RAM).
), and set the time count value T to the maximum value (MAX) at another address.
......Steps 100 and 101 (2) Of the operation switches on the operation panel 33,
The ON status of each switch (AUTO, A/C, ECO) is checked, and when any of them is turned on, the switch variable SW is changed to the value corresponding to the turned on switch (AUTO), (A/C), (ECO). ). Once set, the value is
It is held until AUTO, A/C, or ECO switch is turned on.
………Step 102 (3) Control condition sensors 27, 28, 29, 30, 3
The analog signal voltages from 1 and 32 are converted into digital values and stored in internal memory.
......Step 103 (4) Automatically adjust the processing steps according to the value of the switch variable SW Steps 106 to 108, Air conditioner adjustment steps 109 to 117, and Economy adjustment step
Branches from 118 to 126. ......Steps 104 and 105 (5) In the automatic adjustment steps 106 to 108, the timer variable T is set to the value MAX (predetermined in advance from several minutes to several tens of minutes), and the remaining capacity determination step is performed.
In step 107, it is determined whether the vehicle room temperature can be maintained at the set value even if the compressor 19 is stopped, based on the control conditions input in step 103, using a known criterion, and in step 108, the vehicle interior temperature is determined to be the predetermined value. It is determined whether it is lower than the reference value based on the control conditions input in step 103.
......Steps 106 to 108 (6) The determination result is output as a control output for energizing (ON) or deenergizing (OFF) the electromagnetic clutch 21 in order to instruct the compressor 19 to operate or stop. ......Steps 127, 128 (7) In the air conditioner adjustment steps 109 to 117, either the low temperature determination step 109 or the surplus capacity determination step 110 determines that the operation of the compressor 19 is appropriate. If so, the electromagnetic clutch 22 is immediately energized in step 128.
......Steps 109 and 110 (8) When it is determined in determination steps 109 and 110 that the operation of the compressor 19 may be stopped (when the humidity is low and there is spare capacity), the step
At step 111, it is confirmed that the timer variable T has reached the value MAX, and at step 112, after confirming that the operating state signal from the digital speech synthesis circuit 26 indicates the ready state, the digital speech synthesis circuit 26 is A notification command B is given to the speaker 34 to cause the speaker 34 to generate a voice saying "We recommend turning on the economy switch." After this instruction, timer variable T is cleared to zero.
. . . Steps 111 to 114 (9) The program increments the timer variable T every cycle no matter what steps it goes through, and continues this until it reaches the value MAX.
In other words, the value of T indicates the elapsed length of time.
......Steps 131 and 132 (10) After the notification command B, before the timer variable T reaches the value MAX, the response (OK) switch provided on the operation panel 33 is turned on and the voltage is applied to the electric control circuit 24. When the signal level is reversed, the switch variable SW is changed to the value ECO corresponding to the economy mode, and the timer variable T is set.
Set to MAX. In other words, the mode is changed. Note that if the OK switch is not turned on, the switch variable SW remains A/C.
When the timer variable T reaches MAX, process (8) is performed again. ......Steps 115 to 117 While the above processes (7), (8), and (10) are being performed, the compressor 19 is continuously operated.

(11) In the economy adjustment steps 118 to 126, if either of the judgment results in the low humidity judgment step 118 or the remaining capacity judgment step 119 is determined to be suitable for stopping the compressor 19, the process is immediately carried out in step 127. The electromagnetic clutch 22 is deenergized.
......Steps 118 and 119 (12) If it is determined in judgment steps 118 and 110 that it is preferable to operate the compressor 19 (the humidity is higher than the standard or there is no spare capacity), a timer is activated in step 120. After confirming that the variable T is set to MAX and confirming that the operating state signal from the digital voice synthesis circuit 26 indicates the ready state in step 121,
A notification command A is given to the digital voice synthesis circuit 26, and a voice saying "We recommend turning on the air conditioner switch" is generated from the speaker 34. After this instruction, timer variable T is cleared to zero. ………Steps 120 to 123 (13) After notification command A, timer variable T reaches the value MAX.
was installed on the operation panel 33 before reaching
When the OK switch is turned on, the switch variable
Change the SW to the value A/C corresponding to the air conditioner mode, and set the timer variable T to MAX.
......Steps 124 to 126 While the above processes (11), (12), and (13) are being performed, the compressor 19 is continuously stopped.

(14) Based on the information from the control condition sensor input in step 102, calculate the opening degree of the air mix damper 17 necessary to maintain and adjust the vehicle room temperature to the target temperature, and operate the actuator 24 according to the calculated value. Gives control output. ......Steps 129 and 130 Thus, as understood from the above control program, the fixed modes, air conditioner mode and economy mode, are set by turning on the A/C switch and ECO switch on the operation panel 33. In addition, when there is a response from the OK switch to the first or second voice notification A or B, the mode is changed and the mode is reset to another mode. This can be briefly explained as shown in FIG.

Note that the present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above, and modifications as described below are also possible within the scope of the claims.

In other words, in the above example, when the timer variable T reaches the time set by MAX without a response from the OK switch, the audio notification is repeated again based on the judgment, but the re-notification is set to be constant. A second timer process may be added that prohibits the voice notification from being repeated frequently.

In addition, as shown in Figure 4, when the passenger turns on the NO switch provided separately in response to the voice notification, the mode is not changed and the NO switch is turned on even after a predetermined period of time has elapsed. The mode change may be performed when the is not turned on.

Further, the control method of the present invention does not preclude use in combination with conventionally known fully automatic control or manual fixed control.

Furthermore, the control method of the present invention is applicable not only to the operation and stop of the compressor, but also to other control modes of the car air conditioner, such as when switching between introducing inside air and outside air.

As described above, the present invention has the excellent effect of providing convenience in changing the mode of a car air conditioner.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention;
2 is a flowchart showing a control program of the electric control circuit in FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining the operation, and FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining a modified embodiment based on the present invention. . 19... Compressor, 21... Electromagnetic clutch, 24... Electric control circuit, 26... Digital voice synthesis circuit, 34... Speaker.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. An electrical control method for a car air conditioner that has a plurality of adjustment modes and changes at least from a first adjustment mode to a second adjustment mode, comprising: receiving a control condition signal; A first step of determining whether the change from the mode to the second adjustment mode is "appropriate" or "inappropriate," and a second step of notifying by voice that it is desirable to change the mode if the determination result is "appropriate." , a third step for receiving a reaction signal from the occupant to the audio notification, and a fourth step for determining whether to change or not change the adjustment mode according to the received reaction signal. Car air conditioner control method. 2. The car air conditioner control device according to claim 1, wherein in the third step, the reaction signal indicates whether the occupant affirms or denies the voice notification.