Automotive seat based microclimate system
AssigneeGentherm Incorporated
InventorsAlan Chewter, Satya Mandali, Mobashar Ahmad, Ankit Tiwari, Tyler Myers, Chad Westerman
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A microclimate system for a vehicle occupant includes multiple microclimate thermal effectors. Each of the microclimate communication with the microclimate thermal effectors and includes a plurality of first transfer functions. Each of the first transfer functions models a corresponding microclimate thermal effector in the plurality of microclimate thermal effectors. A system transfer function models the microclimate system. Each of the first transfer functions is nested within the system transfer function.
Claims20
A microclimate system for a vehicle occupant comprising:
- multiple microclimate thermal effectors, each of the microclimate thermal effectors having a corresponding thermal effector controller and being configured to at least partially control an occupant thermal comfort, each of the microclimate thermal effectors including at least one sensor configured to determine a microclimate parameter corresponding to at least one microclimate thermal effector of the multiple microclimate thermal effectors;
- and
- a microclimate system controller in communication with the microclimate thermal effectors, the microclimate system controller including a plurality of first transfer functions, each of the first transfer functions modeling a corresponding microclimate thermal effector in the plurality of microclimate thermal effectors, and a system transfer function modeling the microclimate system, wherein each of the first transfer functions is nested within the system transfer function such that the system transfer function models the microclimate system including at least a portion of the impact each thermal effector has on each other thermal effector, wherein the microclimate system controller is configured to control the microclimate thermal effectors using the system transfer function and the first transfer functions.
A method for controlling a microclimate system having multiple thermal effectors, the method comprising:
- determining an occupant comfort level setpoint for the microclimate system;
- determining device setpoints for each of the thermal effectors based on the occupant comfort level setpoint;
- and
- controlling the thermal effectors to the corresponding device setpoints using a feedback control loop, the feedback control loop including a system transfer function and a plurality of device transfer functions where each of the plurality of device transfer functions is nested in the system transfer function, the device transfer functions each modeling individual thermal effectors and the system transfer function modeling an affect each individual thermal effector has on the effectiveness of each other thermal effector.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.