Patents by Inventor Shigekatsu Nakamura

Shigekatsu Nakamura 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: 10596954
    Abstract: To provide a technique capable of accurately obtaining the attitude of a vehicle in the pitch direction. A control device for a vehicular lamp which controls the optical axis of a vehicular lamp in accordance with an attitude change in pitch direction of the vehicle is disclosed. The device includes an angle calculation part which obtains a first and a second acceleration by eliminating the gravitational acceleration component from each acceleration in the vertical and the longitudinal direction of the vehicle, calculates a vehicle traveling direction acceleration based on the accelerations, and obtains a vehicle attitude angle based on the correlation between the vehicle traveling direction acceleration and the first and the second accelerations. The angle calculation part obtains the attitude angle of the vehicle when it determines that the vehicle is accelerating or decelerating based on the determination on the basis of each acceleration difference at the predetermined time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 17, 2018
    Date of Patent: March 24, 2020
    Assignee: STANLEY ELECTREC CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Shigekatsu Nakamura, Yusuke Hirai
  • Publication number: 20200031279
    Abstract: To obtain correction information for automatic leveling control without a special environment. A device controlling the vehicular lamp axis in accordance with attitude change in the pitch direction of a vehicle including: a detection part detecting a first and a second acceleration; a correction part obtaining variation of the vehicle angle at a stop based on the two accelerations of a first and a second timing, obtaining vehicle angle while traveling based on the two accelerations while traveling, and obtaining and retaining a correction angle based on the difference between the two; an angle calculation part obtaining the vehicle angle while traveling based on the two accelerations, and obtaining an actual vehicle angle by subtracting the correction angle from the vehicle angle while traveling; and an optical axis control part generating a control signal based on the actual vehicle angle, and providing the control signal to the vehicular lamp.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 17, 2019
    Publication date: January 30, 2020
    Inventor: Shigekatsu Nakamura
  • Patent number: 10300839
    Abstract: To provide a technique capable of accurately obtaining the attitude of a vehicle in the pitch direction. A device controls the optical axis of a vehicular lamp in accordance with an attitude change in pitch direction of the vehicle having (a) an angle calculation part which obtains acceleration associated with the vertical and the horizontal direction at a predetermined time interval, obtains a first and a second acceleration related to the vertical and the horizontal direction by eliminating the gravitational acceleration component from each acceleration, calculates a vehicle traveling direction acceleration based on the two accelerations, and obtains a vehicle attitude angle based on a correlation between the acceleration and the vehicle traveling direction acceleration, and (b) an optical axis setting part which generates a control signal for controlling the optical axis of the lamp based on the vehicle attitude angle, and provides the control signal to the lamp.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 9, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 28, 2019
    Assignee: STANLEY ELECTRIC CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Shigekatsu Nakamura, Yusuke Hirai
  • Patent number: 10286833
    Abstract: To provide a technique capable of accurately obtaining the attitude of a vehicle in the pitch direction. A device controls the optical axis of a vehicular lamp in accordance with an attitude change in pitch direction of the vehicle having (a) an angle calculation part which obtains a first acceleration value, a second acceleration value, and a vehicle speed, at each predetermined time intervals respectively, calculates vehicle traveling direction acceleration based on the vehicle speed, further obtains a first slope and a second slope from the correlation between the vehicle traveling direction acceleration and the first and the second acceleration value respectively, and a vehicle attitude angle based on the ratio between the two slopes, and (b) an optical axis setting part which generates a control signal for controlling the optical axis of the lamp based on the vehicle attitude angle, and provides the control signal to the lamp.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 17, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 14, 2019
    Assignee: STANLEY ELECTRIC CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Shigekatsu Nakamura, Yusuke Hirai
  • Publication number: 20190111829
    Abstract: To provide a technique capable of accurately obtaining the attitude of a vehicle in the pitch direction. A control device for a vehicular lamp which controls the optical axis of a vehicular lamp in accordance with an attitude change in pitch direction of the vehicle is disclosed. The device includes an angle calculation part which obtains a first and a second acceleration by eliminating the gravitational acceleration component from each acceleration in the vertical and the longitudinal direction of the vehicle, calculates a vehicle traveling direction acceleration based on the accelerations, and obtains a vehicle attitude angle based on the correlation between the vehicle traveling direction acceleration and the first and the second accelerations. The angle calculation part obtains the attitude angle of the vehicle when it determines that the vehicle is accelerating or decelerating based on the determination on the basis of each acceleration difference at the predetermined time.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 17, 2018
    Publication date: April 18, 2019
    Inventors: Shigekatsu Nakamura, Yusuke Hirai
  • Publication number: 20190009707
    Abstract: To provide a technique capable of accurately obtaining the attitude of a vehicle in the pitch direction. A device controls the optical axis of a vehicular lamp in accordance with an attitude change in pitch direction of the vehicle having (a) an angle calculation part which obtains acceleration associated with the vertical and the horizontal direction at a predetermined time interval, obtains a first and a second acceleration related to the vertical and the horizontal direction by eliminating the gravitational acceleration component from each acceleration, calculates a vehicle traveling direction acceleration based on the two accelerations, and obtains a vehicle attitude angle based on a correlation between the acceleration and the vehicle traveling direction acceleration, and (b) an optical axis setting part which generates a control signal for controlling the optical axis of the lamp based on the vehicle attitude angle, and provides the control signal to the lamp.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 9, 2018
    Publication date: January 10, 2019
    Inventors: Shigekatsu Nakamura, Yusuke Hirai
  • Publication number: 20180334083
    Abstract: To provide a technique capable of accurately obtaining the attitude of a vehicle in the pitch direction. A device controls the optical axis of a vehicular lamp in accordance with an attitude change in pitch direction of the vehicle having (a) an angle calculation part which obtains a first acceleration value, a second acceleration value, and a vehicle speed, at each predetermined time intervals respectively, calculates vehicle traveling direction acceleration based on the vehicle speed, further obtains a first slope and a second slope from the correlation between the vehicle traveling direction acceleration and the first and the second acceleration value respectively, and a vehicle attitude angle based on the ratio between the two slopes, and (b) an optical axis setting part which generates a control signal for controlling the optical axis of the lamp based on the vehicle attitude angle, and provides the control signal to the lamp.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 17, 2018
    Publication date: November 22, 2018
    Inventors: Shigekatsu Nakamura, Yusuke Hirai
  • Publication number: 20180334084
    Abstract: To improve the reliability of an automatic leveling control device for a vehicular lamp using acceleration sensors. The device variably controls optical axis of the lamp according to the attitude change in a vehicle including (a) a sensor abnormality determination part which determines if a first acceleration sensor is abnormal based on first acceleration values detected by the first sensor, (b) an angle calculation part using the first accelerations value to obtain an attitude angle when the sensor abnormality determination part determines there is no abnormality in the first sensor, and uses second acceleration values detected by a second acceleration sensor when the sensor abnormality determination part determines there is an abnormality in the first sensor, and (c) an optical axis setting part which generates a control signal for the optical axis based on the attitude angle obtained by the angle calculation part, and provides the signal to the lamp.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 17, 2018
    Publication date: November 22, 2018
    Inventors: Shigekatsu Nakamura, Yusuke Hirai