WO2008068772A1

WO2008068772A1 - An indication system in a vehicle

Info

Publication number: WO2008068772A1
Application number: PCT/IN2007/000560
Authority: WO
Inventors: Rohit Bipin Karnik
Original assignee: Bajaj Auto Limited
Priority date: 2006-12-04
Filing date: 2007-11-30
Publication date: 2008-06-12

Abstract

An indication system for a two wheel vehicle with a storage space having a cover for close-locking the storage space is disclosed. The system comprises a detection means, an electrically operated indication device and a microcontroller. The microcontroller is programmed to operate the indication device when the detection means determines a change in the state of the cover between a closed-locked state and a closed-unlocked state.

Description

TITLE : AN INDICATION SYSTEM IN A VEHICLE

FIELD OF INVENTION

The invention relates to the safety of storage area in a motorcycle or a scooter. The rider seat covers a large and useful storage space underneath which is generally used for safe keeping of valuables of the rider. The seat is openable by a pivotally upward movement so that the rider seat comes to rest in generally vertical orientation above the vehicle.

BACKGROUND

There appears to be no specific or significant prior art in any form to warn the rider of insecure locking of the storage compartment caused by incomplete locking of the rider seat in the closed position. In conventional arrangements, the rider closes the storage compartment by simply moving the rider seat to the closed position. The seat may not get fully locked in the horizontal position and there is no indication to the rider that the seat has been securely locked. It is visibly difficult to confirm whether the rider seat is not properly locked.

Sometimes the force applied to close the rider seat may not be sufficient and even though the seat assumes a horizontal position may not actually click into a lock position. As the owner of the vehicle is unaware of the fact that the seat has not locked into position, the storage compartment and its contents are vulnerable to theft.

Similarly, there may be occasions wherein the seat is accidentally or inadvertently unlocked. In this situation the rider may not have noticed that the seat has been unlocked and therefore an audible warning, in accordance with the invention, provides valuable warning for this occurrence.

The motorcycles are currently equipped with a seat for passenger which is a hinged cover for the storage area, which is lowered as explained above, to a closed position. This prior art of the top cover itself may be used to be adapted for an improvement.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION

It is an objective of the invention is to indicate an instance of opening of and/or incomplete closing of the top cover provided for the storage compartment of a two wheel vehicle, the said top cover being pivotably openable from a horizontal closed state to a vertical open state.

A further object of the invention is to provide an audio alarm device or a visual alert device attachable to or as permanent part of the cover of the storage area or the base of the storage area in a two wheel vehicle.

It is therefore, an object of the invention to provide an audio or visual alert device which is actuated to indicate the instance of opening the storage compartment and/or the instance of securely closing the storage compartment.

STATEMENT OF INVENTION

The invention comprises an indication system for a two wheel vehicle with a storage space having a cover for close-locking the storage space, the system comprising a detection means, an electrically operated indication means and a microcontroller wherein, the microcontroller is programmed to operate the indication means when the detection means determines a change in the state of the cover between a closed-locked state and a closed-unlocked state.

Preferably, the cover has three positions - an open position where the storage compartment is accessible, a closed-unlocked position to enclose the storage compartment in an unlocked state and a closed-locked position wherein the cover is locked in place.

Preferably, the microcontroller captures the instance of locking or unlocking the cover; Preferably, the microcontroller captures the instance of locking and unlocking of the cover;

Preferably, the microcontroller activates the indication means to emit a first alert indication when the state of the cover changes from the closed-locked to the closed- unlocked state.

Preferably, the microcontroller activates the indication means to emit a second alert indication when the state of the cover changes from the closed-unlocked to the closed-locked state.

Preferably, the output characteristic of the first alert indication is different to that of the second alert indication.

Preferably, the microcontroller activates at least one of said first and second alert indications for a pre-fixed duration; Preferably, the alert indication is an audio signal; Preferably, the alert indication is a visual signal; Preferably, the cover is pivotably mounted on the vehicle; Preferably, the cover is not spring loaded; Preferably, the cover is a rider seat;

Preferably, the indication means operates for a fixed duration which is sufficient to draw the attention of the driver to the prevailing condition.

In its preferred form the storage system used in a motorcycle having a storage area underneath the passenger seat which is closed by the passenger seat forming the cover, a micro processor device is connected through the medium of a device with input and output interface to lock for opening and shutting the cover with the switch identifying the condition.

DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION:

Figure 1 depicts the open and closed position of the seat a two wheel vehicle.

Figure 2 illustrates the seat locking arrangement according to prior art.

Figure 3a illustrates the seat locking arrangement when the seat is closed-unlocked and Figure 3b when the seat is closed-locked, according to an embodiment of the invention. Figure 4 shows the circuit diagram of the seat locking arrangement when the seat is on closed-locked condition.

Figure 5 shows the circuit diagram of the seat locking arrangement when the seat is either closed-unlocked or opened.

Figure 6 shows the position of locking arrangement according to the invention viewed from the rear side of the vehicle.

DESCRIPTION:

In a typical motorcycle (20) as depicted in Figure 1 , the seat (16) includes a driver seat and a pillion seat which is continuous to the rear portion of the driver seat and generally the storage area is arranged below this seat. In this manner an enclosure or a compartment (15) is formed having a sufficient volume or capacity to store products or articles such as helmets, coats, boxes, bags, etc. The seat (16) serves as a lockable cover for this compartment, being so arranged to be opened or closed with locking arrangement.

The storage area underneath the seat is accessible when the seat (16) is opened; the storage space being normally used to store personal items of the vehicle operator. It is therefore necessary to restrict the unauthorized access to the storage area.

According to arrangements in prior art, the vehicle seat has a conventional locking arrangement as shown in Figure (2). The vertical position of the seat, illustrated as (9) in Figure (1) gives a visual indication of the open state of the storage space; the vehicle operator normally closes the storage compartment by moving the seat from the open state to the closed state, illustrated as (11 ) in Figure (1 ). However, this can result in the seat being either in the closed-unlocked state or the closed-locked state and therefore proper care has to be taken that the seat cover actually attains the locking state. The prior art does not refer to any such subject wherein the actual locked state of the storage area or the unlocked state of the storage area is reported to the owner. It is now understood that confirmation of the locking state of the storage area is essential. The storage area takes three states as described above - the visually open state when the seat cover is in vertical position, a visually closed state when the seat cover is in horizontal position but unlocked (that is, the closed-unlocked), and the locked state which is visually similar to the closed-unlocked state (that is, the closed- locked state). The open state or the unlocked state has to be informed to the owner for the safety reasons described above.

With a view to achieve the above objects the present invention relates to a lockable storage device of a motorcycle in which an article accommodation or storage area is provided within the motorcycle body underneath the seat and is particularly provided with a microprocessor controlled alarm device capable of alerting the vehicle operator when storage area is unlocked and/or securely locked.

With this alarm system the storage area is monitored and thereby the risk of undesirable elements tampering the area is minimized.

The present invention having the storage compartment (15) disposed beneath the seat (16) is provided with a conventional locking mechanism (10) to lock the storage area in its fully closed position.

A detection means, being a plunger switch (3), as depicted in Figures 3a and 3b, is mounted in the rear end of the vehicle such that the plunger would activate the switch (3) upon cover being closed. This activates the first control circuit, depicted in Figure 4, as the state of the storage space (15) changes from open state to closed locked state. The switch (3) is activated only when the cover attains the locked state, as illustrated in Figure 3b, and not when the cover is in closed-unlocked state, illustrated in Figure 3a. Similarly opening the top cover would release the switch thereby activating the second control circuit, depicted in Figure 5, as the state of the storage space (15) changes from the closed-locked state (Figure 3b) to either closed-unlocked state (Figure 3a) or open state. The control device in turn will enable a visual or audio alarm device (5) at the instance, when the state of the storage space changes from either closed-locked to closed-unlocked and /or from closed-unlocked to closed-locked. In view of the foregoing advantages of the prior art explained previously, the invention clearly provides an improved mechanism of alerting the vehicle operator on the instance of vehicle storage area being unlocked or being left closed and unlocked with a novel method to warn the rider of unlocked condition of the storage area which continues to have all the advantages of the prior art along with many novel features.

To attain this, the present invention comprises of a switch along with a microprocessor.

The other features of this invention are being described below and illustrated in the accompanying drawing.

The alarm device (5) is mounted on the frame of a two wheeler with a seat (16) being operable to a generally vertical position to give access to the cavity forming the storage area (15) having a top cover to enclose the storage area movable between two extreme positions vertically open and horizontally close, said device comprising of the following:-

a. a plunger operated switch (3) mounted to the surface of the storage area (15) and the seat (16) for determining the position of the seat (16); b. an alarm device (5) mounted to the frame for alerting the vehicle operator on the position of the seat; c. a programmable microprocessor (4) mounted to the frame of the motorcycle for signaling an operation of the switch to the alarm device; d. the said switch (3) interconnected to the alarm device (5) and the microprocessor (4), said switch operates the alarm device (5) when the cover is securely "closed", that is when the seat attains closed-locked state as depicted in Figure 3b and said switch operates the alarm device (5) when the seat attains closed-unlocked as depicted in Figure 3a or open state from closed-locked state; e. the said alarm is activated for a predetermined duration to avoid unpleasant effect on vehicle operator or drawing undue attention of passerby; f. the said alarm when "on" is sufficiently noticeable, audible or visible to alert the vehicle operator that the cover is open or unlocked; g. said switch is sized for attachment to the distal corner inner surface of the storage area;

The invention also relates to a method for warning in response to the instance of opening of the storage area enclosed by a pre existing seat cover of a two wheeler, a microprocessor and a switch controlling the supply of power to an alarm device.

The invention also relates to a method for warning in response to the instance of the storage area being closed-locked by the seat cover, a microprocessor and a switch controlling the supply of power to an alarm device.

The alarm device further comprises a switch for identifying the position of the cover and a microprocessor for activating responsively and electrically connected alarm device accordingly and a switch position monitoring program stored within the microprocessor.

The microprocessor shall also include a memory device comprising programs for cooperatively functioning with the switching device to activate a warning device when the top cover of the storage area in open condition is determined.

The description herein above gives the mechanism and the apparatus and the method of identifying the condition of the storage area with a warning. Even though the prior art has suffered the disadvantages of an open storage area none have really identified a solution similar to the invention described herein. The invention specifically relates to the method of identifying the locked condition of the storage area even if it is assumes a closed condition and warning the rider. Further the actuation of the switch and the activation of the alarm system have been devised as explained and described in the embodiments illustrated herein. However, the invention shall cover the other modifications and variations that will be apparent to the persons skilled in this art. All such modifications or variations are within the spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims

CLAIMS :

' 1. An indication system for a two wheel vehicle with a storage space having a cover for close-locking the storage space, the system comprising a detection means, an electrically operated indication means and a microcontroller wherein, the microcontroller is programmed to operate the indication means when the detection means determines a change in the state of the cover between a closed-locked state and a closed-unlocked state.

2. An indication system as claimed in Claim 1 , wherein the indication means emits a first alert indication when the state of the cover changes from a closed-locked state to a closed-unlocked state.

3. An indication system as claimed in Claim 1 , wherein the indication means emits a second alert indication when the state of the cover changes from a closed-unlocked state to a closed-locked state.

4. An indication system as claimed in Claim 2 and 3, wherein the output characteristics of the first alert indication is different to that of the second alert indication.

5. An indication system as claimed in Claim 2 and 3, wherein at least one of the first alert indication and the second alert indication has a prefixed duration.

6. An indication system as claimed in any of the preceding Claims wherein the cover is a rider seat.

7. An indication system as claimed in Claim 6, where the rider seat is pivotably mounted to the vehicle.

8. An indication system as claimed in Claim 7, where the rider seat is not spring loaded.

9. An indication system as claimed in any of the preceding Claims wherein the indication means comprises an audio alert device.

10. An indication system as claimed in any of the preceding Claims wherein the indication means comprises a visual alert device.

11.An indication system as claimed in any of the preceding claims wherein the detection means is a plunger switch.

12. A two-wheeled vehicle having an indication system as claimed in any of the preceding claims.