Back to results
US 8,324,890 B2Granted
Clutch position sensor for vehicle transmission
AssigneeDelphi Technologies, Inc.
InventorYingjie Lin
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A transmission clutch position sensor includes two Hall sensors located at opposite ends of a flux concentrator outside the casing of the transmission to sense a magnetic field generated by a magnet attached to the clutch piston. To reduce sensitivity to magnet-to-sensor gap tolerances, a ratio of the voltage of one Hall sensor to the sum of the voltages from both Hall sensors is used to correlate to the piston and, hence, clutch position.
Claims9
Apparatus comprising:
- at least one magnet disposable inside an engine transmission casing and being movable by an engine clutch mechanism in the casing as the engine clutch mechanism moves;
- at least one flux concentrator disposable outside the engine transmission casing to concentrate magnetic flux from the magnet;
- at least a first Hall sensor juxtaposed with the flux concentrator and generating a first signal in response to a magnetic field;
- at least a second Hall sensor juxtaposed with the flux concentrator and generating a second signal in response to a magnetic field;
- and
- at least one position determination circuit receiving the first and second signals and based thereon outputting a signal representative of linear position of the engine clutch mechanism, wherein the position determination circuit combines the first signal and second signal such that the signal representative of the linear position of the clutch mechanism is less affected by variation in a spacing gap between the flux concentrator and magnet than are the individual signals from the first Hall sensor and the second Hall sensor.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.