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US 6,711,965 B2Granted
Electric steering column apparatus
AssigneeNsk Ltd.
InventorsMasaki Tomaru, Isamu Chikuma, Sakae Matsumoto, Kazuya Fukuda, Takahiro Saito
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An electric tilt and/or telescopic steering column apparatus comprises a steering shaft having a steering wheel mounted on a rear end thereof, a steering column for rotatably supporting the steering shaft, an electric actuator for adjusting the tilt and/or telescopic position of the steering shaft by driving this steering column, and position detecting means for detecting the position of the steering shaft in a non-contact manner.
Claims12
An electric steering column apparatus comprising:
- a steering shaft with a steering wheel mounted at a rear end thereof;
- a steering column through which said steering shaft is rotatably supported, said steering column including an upper column member, a middle column member and a fixed lower column member, said upper column member being rotatably connected to said middle column member, and said middle column member being supported by said lower column member so as to be telescopically moveable in an axial direction relative to said lower column member;
- an electric tilt actuator operably connected to said upper column member and said middle column member to tilt said upper column member relative to said middle column member about a pivot;
- a tilt position detector which detects a tilt position of said upper column member in a non-contact manner;
- an electric telescopic actuator operably connected to said middle column member and said lower column member to telescope said middle column member relative to said lower column member;
- and
- a telescopic position detector which detects a telescopic position of said middle column with respect to said lower column member in a non-contact manner;
- said electric tilt actuator and said electric telescopic actuator being disposed further from the rear end of said steering shaft than said pivot along the axial direction of said steering shaft.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.