Stroke sensor
AssigneePanasonic Corporation
InventorsHisaya Iwasaki, Norihiro Ida
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A stroke sensor includes conductor pieces 51 to 57 of a detected body 50 two-dimensionally arranged on a lower surface of a slider 41 in a specified pattern. The lower surface of the slider 41 is divided into four regions corresponding to respective detector units 61 to 64 along a Y-direction. The conductor pieces 51 to 57 are arranged over a specified X-direction extent in the respective regions. The arrangement of the conductor pieces 51 to 57 is set such that the combinations of the conductor pieces 51 to 57 detected by the detector units 60 become different in each and every shift range in the X-direction. This makes it possible to consistently specify the shift range based on the combination of the detector units 61 to 64 staying in the detected state.
Claims10
A stroke sensor for detecting positions of a manual valve that moves in an axial direction thereof in conjunction with shift ranges of an automatic transmission, the stroke sensor comprising:
- a box-shaped case;
- a plurality of detector units stored within the case and provided with sensor coils, the detector units being arranged to detect proximate conductors by using impedance changes of the sensor coils;
- a slider arranged in an opposing relationship with a plane surface of the case and connected to the manual valve to move along the plane surface of the case in the axial direction of the manual valve;
- and
- a detected body made of an electrically conductive material and provided on a surface of the slider opposing to the plane surface of the case, the detector units being arranged within a plane extending along the plane surface of the case in different positions along a direction intersecting the axial direction, the detected body including a plurality of conductor pieces two-dimensionally arranged within a plane extending along the plane surface of the case, the conductor pieces being arranged to be detected by different combinations of the detector units in each of the shift ranges so that the positions of the manual valve are detected from outputs of the sensor coils.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.