Patents by Inventor Hiroyuki Aizawa

Hiroyuki Aizawa has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 7746127
    Abstract: A driving device of a capacitive load includes a modulator that executes pulse modulation on a drive waveform signal. An inductor performs low-pass filtering on the modulated drive waveform signal and outputs the low-pass filtered signal as a drive signal towards a load capacitor as the capacitive load. A load selection control circuit selects a load capacitor and a dummy load capacitor to be connected to the inductor so that a sum of the capacitances of the selected load capacitor and dummy load capacitor is kept within a predetermined range. A feedback circuit executes a filtering process on the drive signal so that a frequency characteristic of a passing band of the drive signal becomes substantially flat. The resulting signal is provided to the modulator as a feedback signal. The modulator executes the pulse modulation on a difference value between the drive waveform signal and the feedback signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 1, 2008
    Date of Patent: June 29, 2010
    Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: Shinichi Miyazaki, Atsushi Oshima, Noritaka Ide, Kunio Tabata, Hiroyuki Aizawa, Seiichi Taniguchi
  • Patent number: 7744983
    Abstract: The laminated structure includes a lightweight and shape-retaining foamed resin base member, an outer circumference frame integrally laminated on the reverse side of the foamed resin base member along the outer circumference of an article, and bridging ribs connecting between respective points on the outer circumference frame. Accordingly, the present invention provides a lightweight laminated structure with low cost by reducing the amount of the resin used, since the molded synthetic resin outer circumference frame and bridging ribs have small projection areas.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 28, 2002
    Date of Patent: June 29, 2010
    Assignee: Kasai Kogyo Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Tetsuyuki Ota, Masahiko Hara, Tatsushi Ohno, Hiroyuki Aizawa, Kiyohiko Obara
  • Publication number: 20100071468
    Abstract: An inertia force sensor includes a detection element having an acceleration detection section (1). This detection element (1) has: two orthogonal arms obtained by connecting first arms (8) to second arms (10) so as to be orthogonal to each other, a support section (12) for supporting one ends of the two first arm (8), a fixation section (4) connected to the other ends of the two first arms (8), and weight sections (2) fixed to tip ends of the second arms (10). The first arm (8) has a thickness thinner than thicknesses of the second arm (10) and weight section (2) to thereby provide an increased detection sensitivity.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 19, 2008
    Publication date: March 25, 2010
    Applicant: PANASONIC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Satoshi Ohuchi, Hiroyuki Aizawa
  • Publication number: 20090320594
    Abstract: An inertia force sensor includes a detection element having two orthogonal arms each formed by connecting one first arm orthogonally to two second arms; a support portion for supporting the two first arms; and two fixing arms connected at one end thereof to the support portion and fixed at the other end thereof to a mounting substrate. The second arms include opposing portions formed by bending the second arms to face the main portions thereof. The second arms are connected at their ends to weight parts, which include recesses to which the ends of the second arms are connected.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 20, 2007
    Publication date: December 31, 2009
    Applicant: PANASONIC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Satoshi Ohuchi, Hiroyuki Aizawa
  • Publication number: 20090273625
    Abstract: A liquid jet apparatus according to the present invention includes a drive circuit adapted to apply a drive signal to an actuator of a liquid jet head, and a power supply voltage control circuit adapted to control a power supply voltage to the drive signal to be a waveform voltage set previously based on a reference signal obtained from one of the drive signal and a signal in a generation stage of the drive signal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 18, 2009
    Publication date: November 5, 2009
    Applicant: SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION
    Inventors: Atsushi OSHIMA, Kunio TABATA, Noritaka IDE, Shinichi MIYAZAKI, Hiroyuki AIZAWA, Seiichi TANIGUCHI
  • Publication number: 20090266163
    Abstract: A sensor includes detecting element (28) with an acceleration sensor, which is formed of weight (18) coupled to rigid section (14) via flexible section (16), substrate (10) confronting weight (18), and an electrode section including opposed electrodes (20, 22, 24, 26) placed on respective opposed faces of weight (18) and substrate (10). This structure prevents weight (18) from moving along Z-axis, so that a detection accuracy of acceleration occurring along X-axis or Y-axis can be improved.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 9, 2007
    Publication date: October 29, 2009
    Applicant: PANASONIC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Satoshi Ohuchi, Toshiyuki Nozoe, Hiroyuki Aizawa
  • Publication number: 20090213153
    Abstract: A liquid jet apparatus according to the invention is a liquid jet apparatus adapted to emit a jet of a liquid by driving an actuator of a liquid jet head with a drive signal including a digital power amplifier and a low pass filter provided to the liquid jet head so as to correspond to the actuator, and adapted to power-amplify and smooth a modified signal from a control circuit to form the drive signal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 20, 2009
    Publication date: August 27, 2009
    Applicant: SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION
    Inventors: Kunio TABATA, Atsushi OSHIMA, Noritaka IDE, Shinichi MIYAZAKI, Hiroyuki AIZAWA, Seiichi TANIGUCHI
  • Publication number: 20090213152
    Abstract: A liquid jet apparatus according to the invention is a liquid jet apparatus adapted to emit a jet of a liquid by driving an actuator of a liquid jet head with a drive signal including a digital power amplifier and a low pass filter provided to the liquid jet head so as to correspond to the actuator, and adapted to power-amplify and smooth a modified signal from a control circuit to form the drive signal, wherein the low pass filter is coupled directly with the actuator, and the digital power amplifier is provided with a pair of switching elements and a gate drive circuit, and ON-OFF controls the gate drive circuit based on print data, thereby performing one of output and halt of the drive signal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 20, 2009
    Publication date: August 27, 2009
    Applicant: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: Kunio Tabata, Atsushi Oshima, Noritaka Ide, Shinichi Miyazaki, Hiroyuki Aizawa, Seiichi Taniguchi
  • Publication number: 20090183569
    Abstract: A combined detection element (6) of the present invention includes an acceleration detection element (2) and an angular velocity detection element (4) stacked on the acceleration detection element (2) in such a manner as to avoid contacting with the weight parts (12) of the acceleration detection element (2). The angular velocity detection element (4) includes a recess (26) in a surface thereof facing the weight parts (12) of the acceleration detection element (2) so as to avoid contacting with the weight parts (12). At least part of the recess (26) has a depth not exceeding the vertical range of motion of weight parts (12), thereby suppressing the upward movement of weight parts (12).
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 9, 2007
    Publication date: July 23, 2009
    Applicant: PANASONIC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Hiroyuki Aizawa, Satoshi Ohuchi
  • Publication number: 20090167798
    Abstract: A liquid jet apparatus according to the present invention includes a drive waveform generator adapted to generate a drive waveform signal, a modulator adapted to execute pulse modulation on the drive waveform signal, a digital power amplifier adapted to power-amplify the modulated signal, on which the pulse modulation is executed by the modulator, with a pair of switching elements push-pull coupled with each other, a lowpass filter adapted to smooth the amplified digital signal obtained by the power-amplification of the digital power amplifier, and a modulation period modification circuit adapted to modify a modulation period of the pulse modulation of the modulator based on data of the drive waveform signal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 22, 2008
    Publication date: July 2, 2009
    Applicant: Seiko Epson Corporation
    Inventors: Noritaka IDE, Kunio TABATA, Atsushi OSHIMA, Shinichi MIYAZAKI, Hiroyuki AIZAWA, Seiichi TANIGUCHI
  • Publication number: 20090140780
    Abstract: A driving device of a capacitive load includes a modulator that executes pulse modulation on a drive waveform signal. An inductor performs low-pass filtering on the modulated drive waveform signal and outputs the low-pass filtered signal as a drive signal towards a load capacitor as the capacitive load. A load selection control circuit selects a load capacitor and a dummy load capacitor to be connected to the inductor so that a sum of the capacitances of the selected load capacitor and dummy load capacitor is kept within a predetermined range. A feedback circuit executes a filtering process on the drive signal so that a frequency characteristic of a passing band of the drive signal becomes substantially flat. The resulting signal is provided to the modulator as a feedback signal. The modulator executes the pulse modulation on a difference value between the drive waveform signal and the feedback signal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 1, 2008
    Publication date: June 4, 2009
    Applicant: SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION
    Inventors: Shinichi MIYAZAKI, Atsushi OSHIMA, Noritaka IDE, Kunio TABATA, Hiroyuki AIZAWA, Seiichi TANIGUCHI
  • Publication number: 20090120187
    Abstract: An inertial force sensor is composed of a plurality of arms and an oscillator having a base for linking the arms, in which a trimming slit is formed on a part of the arm except for a ridge portion, thus controlling damage to a tuning fork arm to be caused by the trimming.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 10, 2007
    Publication date: May 14, 2009
    Applicant: PANASONIC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Satoshi Ohuchi, Hiroyuki Aizawa
  • Publication number: 20090064783
    Abstract: An inertial force sensor includes a detecting device which detects an inertial force, the detecting device having a first orthogonal arm and a supporting portion, the first orthogonal arm having a first arm and a second arm fixed in a substantially orthogonal direction, and the supporting portion supporting the first arm. The second arm has a folding portion. In this configuration, there is provided a small inertial force sensor which realizes detection of a plurality of different inertial forces and detection of inertial forces of a plurality of detection axes.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 22, 2007
    Publication date: March 12, 2009
    Applicant: MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Satoshi Ohuchi, Hiroyuki Aizawa, Jiro Terada, Takami Ishida, Ichirou Satou, Hideo Ohkoshi, Yohei Ashimori
  • Patent number: 7441459
    Abstract: The invention provides a tuning-fork type transducer for an angular-speed sensor which realizes a stable fork-driving, realizes downsizing of the angular-speed sensor, and is capable of executing control of a vehicle body with high degree of accuracy when being used under a high-temperature environment, an angular-speed sensor using this transducer, and an automotive vehicle using this angular-speed sensor. Electric charges obtained from upper electrodes (13a), (14a) provided on an arm (10b) are amplified respectively by current amplifiers (40a), (40b). The amplified signal is differentially amplified by a first differential amplifier (41), and the amplified signal is used as a monitor signal for fork-driving. An added signal obtained by adding output signals from the current amplifiers (40a), (40b) by an adder (60) is used as a signal for detecting the angular speed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2005
    Date of Patent: October 28, 2008
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Satoshi Ohuchi, Takeshi Yamamoto, Hiroyuki Aizawa
  • Patent number: 7436107
    Abstract: Provided is an angular velocity sensor which is thin, requires no individual adjustment and can control the generation of signals that are unnecessary to the angular velocity sensor and are generated on the sensing electrodes when the tuning fork is made to vibrate in the X-axis direction, and a method for manufacturing the angular velocity sensor. Centers (8d) and (9d) of top electrodes (8c) and (9c) as components of detection units are shifted by ?W from centers (10) and (11) of main surfaces (3a) and (3b) of arms (1a) and (1b) of the tuning fork vibrator towards side surfaces (3c) and (3e) adjacent to main surfaces (3a) and (3b), respectively.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 2005
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2008
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hiroyuki Aizawa, Satoshi Ohuchi, Takeshi Yamamoto
  • Publication number: 20080238491
    Abstract: An interface circuit includes a reference voltage generation circuit to generate a reference voltage, a differential voltage signal generation circuit to convert send data input in sending data into a pair of differential voltage signals and output the pair of differential voltage signals based on the reference voltage generated by the reference voltage generation circuit, a receiver to convert a pair of differential voltage signals input in receiving data and output received data, and a receiver test circuit to perform a sensitivity test of the receiver, the receiver test circuit having a resistance circuit to generate a pair of differential voltage signals having a potential difference being necessary for the sensitivity test of the receiver.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 28, 2008
    Publication date: October 2, 2008
    Applicant: NEC ELECTRONICS CORPORATION
    Inventor: Hiroyuki AIZAWA
  • Patent number: 7363815
    Abstract: An angular velocity sensor is provided with an oscillator including a pair of drive arms, a base portion coupled to one end of each drive arm, and a flexible arm extending from the base portion in a direction opposite from the drive arms. This angular velocity sensor is also provided with a driving member which oscillates the pair of drive arms in an approaching or separating direction, and a distortion detecting member which detects a distortion of the flexible arm in the oscillating direction of the drive arms.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 1, 2005
    Date of Patent: April 29, 2008
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Satoshi Ohuchi, Toshiyuki Nozoe, Hiroyuki Aizawa
  • Patent number: 7337667
    Abstract: An angular velocity sensor includes a tuning fork vibrator, a drive unit provided on the tuning folk vibrator, and a detection unit for detecting an amount of deflection of the tuning folk vibrator. The tuning fork vibrator includes a first vibrating arm having a first end and a second end and having a fundamental vibration frequency, a second vibrating arm having a first end and a second end and having the fundamental vibration frequency, and a coupling portion for coupling the first end of the first vibrating arm to the first end of the second vibrating arm. The drive unit is provided on the first vibrating arm and causes the first vibrating arm to vibrate. The drive unit has a driving resistance. The detection unit is provided on one of the first vibrating arm and the second vibrating arm, and detects an amount of deflection of the one of the first vibrating arm and the second vibrating arm when deflecting due to an angular velocity applied to the tuning fork vibrator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 1, 2005
    Date of Patent: March 4, 2008
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Satoshi Ohuchi, Hiroyuki Aizawa
  • Patent number: 7260990
    Abstract: Provided are an angular velocity sensor with improved reliability by preventing an electric short circuit resulting from etching debris left on the bottom electrode after the etching of the conductive layers, and a method for manufacturing the angular velocity sensor. The drive electrode unit, the monitor electrode unit and the sensing electrode unit are each provided with bottom electrode (29) formed on substrate (33) having the shape of a tuning fork, piezoelectric film (30) made of piezoelectric material and formed on bottom electrode (29), and top electrode (31) formed on piezoelectric film (30). Ends (31T) of top electrode (31) are located inside ends (30T) of piezoelectric film (30) so as to expose ends (30T) of piezoelectric film (30) beyond top electrode (31), thereby forming exposed parts (32). When exposed parts (32) have a thickness of “t”, piezoelectric film (30) is made to have an exposed width (L) of not less than 0.3 t.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2005
    Date of Patent: August 28, 2007
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Satoshi Ohuchi, Hiroyuki Aizawa, Toshiyuki Nozoe
  • Publication number: 20070163344
    Abstract: The invention provides a tuning-fork type transducer for an angular-speed sensor which realizes a stable fork-driving, realizes downsizing of the angular-speed sensor, and is capable of executing control of a vehicle body with high degree of accuracy when being used under a high-temperature environment, an angular-speed sensor using this transducer, and an automotive vehicle using this angular-speed sensor. Electric charges obtained from upper electrodes (13a), (14a) provided on an arm (10b) are amplified respectively by current amplifiers (40a), (40b). The amplified signal is differentially amplified by a first differential amplifier (41), and the amplified signal is used as a monitor signal for fork-driving. An added signal obtained by adding output signals from the current amplifiers (40a), (40b) by an adder (60) is used as a signal for detecting the angular speed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 1, 2005
    Publication date: July 19, 2007
    Inventors: Satoshi Ohuchi, Takeshi Yamamoto, Hiroyuki Aizawa