Vehicle display device

• US 20070247291A1
• Filed: 04/05/2007
• Published: 10/25/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Subaru Corp.
• Original Assignee: Fuji Heavy Industries Limited (Subaru Corp.)
• Inventors: Shibata, Naoki, Kobayashi, Tsuyoshi, Oishi, Hiroshi, Yamamoto, Kenichi, Nakamura, Akihisa, Fukuda, Tatsuru, Motoi, Masahito, Ogiwara, Hiroshi, Kaneda, Kouji, Iwakami, Yoshio, Masuda, Toshio, Satomura, Satoshi, Hijikata, Kenji, Igarashi, Katsumasa, Sunaguchi, Toyohide, Homma, Munenori, Yuki, Minoru, Shinozuka, Junzo, Ushiki, Masayuki, Atake, Atsushi
• Granted Patent: US 7,772,970 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/439
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 2360/174 Economic driving
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/28 characterised by the type of the output information, e.g. video entertainment or vehicle dynamics information; characterised by the purpose of the output information, e.g. for attracting the attention of the driver
• CPC Class Codes: F02D 11/105 characterised by the function converting demand to actuation, e.g. a map indicating relations between an accelerator pedal position and throttle valve opening or target engine torque
• CPC Class Codes: F02D 2200/604 Engine control mode selected by driver, e.g. to manually start particle filter regeneration or to select driving style
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/84 Data processing systems or methods, management, administration

Abstract

The present invention provides a vehicle display device which can display fuel consumption information of a vehicle in a useful and optimum mode for a driver. A meter_EUC calculates an instantaneous fuel consumption of a vehicle based on a mileage and a fuel injection quantity within a set time, calculates an average fuel consumption of the vehicle based on respective cumulative values of the mileage and the fuel injection quantity repeatedly calculated for every set time, and displays the deviation of the instantaneous fuel consumption with respect to the average fuel consumption as fuel consumption information on a fuel consumption meter. The display on the fuel consumption meter is performed by swinging a pointer with respect to a neutral position. When the deviation takes a positive value, the pointer is swung in the pulse direction with a swinging width corresponding to the deviation quantity, while when the deviation takes a negative value, the pointer is swung in the minus direction with a swinging width corresponding to the deviation quantity.

Claims

1. A vehicle-use display device comprising:

an instantaneous fuel consumption calculation unit for calculating an instantaneous fuel consumption of a vehicle based on a mileage and a fuel injection quantity within a preset set time;

an average fuel consumption calculation unit for calculating an average fuel consumption of the vehicle based on a cumulative value of the mileage and the cumulative value of the fuel injection quantity;

a display unit for having a pointer type meter for displaying the deviation of the instantaneous fuel consumption with respect to the average fuel consumption as the fuel consumption information based on swinging of a pointer with respect to a neutral position; and

the display control unit for controlling said display unit so as to display the fuel consumption information by swinging the pointer in the plus direction set on one side of the neutral position with a swinging width corresponding to the deviation quantity when the deviation takes a positive value, and swinging the pointer in the minus direction set on another side of the neutral position with a swinging width corresponding to the deviation quantity when the deviation takes a negative value.

2. The vehicle display device according to claim 1, wherein regions in which the pointer swings are displayed with colors different from each other between the plus side and the minus side with respect to the neutral position.

3. The vehicle display device according to claim 1, wherein said display unit is arranged on a speed meter.

4. The vehicle display device according to claim 1, wherein

said average fuel consumption calculation unit calculates a value which is obtained by leveling an average fuel consumption which is directly calculated based on the cumulative value of the mileage and the cumulative value of the fuel injection quantity by weighted average calculation by using the past average fuel consumption as a final average fuel consumption, and

a weighting coefficient used in the weighted average calculation is a value which sensitively changes the deviation between the average fuel consumption and the instantaneous fuel consumption with respect to an accelerator operation of a driver in an at least preset specified region.

5. The vehicle display device according to claim 4, wherein

the specified region is a region which indicates the deviation calculated corresponding to at least an acceleration manipulation quantity which the driver actually feels that the acceleration manipulation is performed and the deviation with which the average fuel consumption is hardly changed with respect to the instantaneous fuel consumption.

6. The vehicle display device according to claim 5, wherein

the display control unit sets a full scale of the display unit such that the specified region occupies approximately ⅕

of the whole display means.

7. The vehicle display device according to claim 6, wherein

the display control unit sets the full scale of the display unit such that the region which indicates the deviation when the average fuel consumption is largely changed with respect to the instantaneous fuel consumption occupies approximately ¼

of the whole display unit respectively on the plus side and the minus side with respect to the neutral position of the display means which constitutes a 0 point.

8. The vehicle display device according to claim 4, wherein

the vehicle display device is mounted on a vehicle which is capable of changing over a drive force characteristic of a power unit into a plurality of modes, and

the average fuel consumption calculation unit performs the weighted average calculation using weighting coefficients which differ for respective modes.

9. The vehicle display device according to claim 8, wherein

the values of the weighting coefficient is that when the mode of the drive force characteristic has larger responsiveness with respect to the accelerator operation of the driver, the mode takes a relatively larger value than other mode.

10. The vehicle display device according to claim 1, wherein

the average fuel consumption value calculation unit resets the cumulative values of the mileage and the fuel injection quantity interlockingly with a reset manipulation of a trip meter by the driver.

11. The vehicle display device according to claim 10, wherein

the average fuel consumption calculation unit calculates plural sets of combinations of the cumulative value of the mileage and the cumulative value of the fuel injection quantity using different reset timings as starting points and obtains the average fuel consumption for every set,

the display control means obtains the deviation with the instantaneous fuel consumption using the average fuel consumption which the driver selects out of the plurality of average fuel consumptions.

12. The vehicle display device according to claim 1, wherein

the display control unit exponentially increases a change quantity of a control indication value when the deviation is displayed on the display unit as fuel consumption information along with the increase of the deviation quantity.

13. The vehicle display device according to claim 12, wherein

the vehicle-use display device is mounted on the vehicle capable of changing over a drive force characteristic of a power unit into a plurality of modes, and

the display control unit makes tracking characteristic with respect to a target value of swinging of the pointer different for every mode.