US 2002/0057573 A1 · Automatic headlight axis direction control for vehicles

Abstract

A DC motor is driven with a predetermined driving signal thereto before a headlight axis direction control is started by using a headlight axis control angle calculated on a basis of a variety of sensor information and a positional signal from a potentiometer. If there is no variation in the positional signal, a failure in the driving system of the DC motor is decided to exist. Therefore, for example, if failure detection is implemented when an ignition switch to start an engine is turned on, the failure in the driving system of the DC motor is detected before the headlight needs to be turned on. Thereby, reliability in the system for headlight axis direction control is able to be improved.

Claims10

Dependent claims

An automatic headlight axis direction control system for a vehicle comprising:

a vehicle information detection means for detecting information of a vehicle;
a control angle calculation means for calculating a light axis control angle to adjust a light axis direction of a headlight on a basis of the detected information;
a light axis direction adjustment means for adjusting the light axis direction of the headlight on a basis of the calculated light axis control angle;
a direction detection means for detecting the light axis direction of the headlight;
and
a failure detection means for detecting a failure in the light axis direction adjustment means on a basis of the detected light axis direction from the position detection means when the light axis direction adjustment means is driven before the light axis control is started.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Automatic headlight axis direction control for vehicles

Life of this patent

Automatic headlight axis direction control for vehicles

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims10