Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 7
Claim 1
Independent Claim
261 words
A heater controlling unit for controlling an on/off action of a heater to control a surface temperature of heat releasing means which releases heat generated by said heater through conduction, said heater controlling unit comprising: temperature detecting means for detecting an actual temperature of a surface of said heat releasing means; temperature change rate computing means for computing a temperature change rate within a predetermined period using the actual temperature detected by said temperature detecting means; on-time computing and control means for controlling said heater by computing a period of time during which said heater is turned on, said period of time being computed by means of a fuzzy neural network using the actual temperature detected by said temperature detecting means and the temperature change rate computed by said temperature change rate computing means; predictive computing means for, when said heater is turned on by said on-time computing and control means, computing a predictive temperature of the surface of said heat releasing means for a next time said heater is turned on, said predictive temperature being computed using the actual temperature detected by said temperature detecting means and the temperature change rate computed by said temperature-change rate computing means; and comparing and adjusting means for computing a balance between the actual temperature detected by said temperature detecting means and the predictive temperature computed by said predictive computing means, and, when the balance is greater than a predetermined value, for adjusting a weight of a link within said fuzzy neural network of said on-time computing and controlling means to minimize the balance.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
47 words
The heater controlling unit as defined in Claim 1, wherein said comparing and adjusting means adjusts the weight of a link within said fuzzy neural network to minimize a balance between the heater on-time computed by said on-time computing and controlling means and a predetermined target value.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
43 words
The heater controlling unit as defined in Claim 2, wherein said fuzzy neural network comprises an input layer, a membership input layer, a membership output layer, a rule layer, and an output layer, each of links among said layers having their respective weights.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
86 words
The heater controlling unit as defined in Claim 3, wherein: each of said input layer and said membership input layer has a structure that divides each of the actual temperature and the temperature change rate into three areas; and said rule layer outputs ANDs of all possible links of an output value from a node corresponding to each area of the actual temperature and an output of a node corresponding to each area of the temperature change rate in said membership layer to said output layer.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
60 words
The heater controlling unit as defined in Claim 3, wherein said comparing and adjusting means adjusts a weight of a link from said input layer to said membership input layer, a weight of a link from said membership input layer to said membership output layer, and a weight of a link from said membership output layer to said rule layer.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
84 words
The heater controlling unit as defined in Claim 5, wherein said input layer includes a first node for receiving the actual temperature, a second node for receiving the temperature change rate, and a third node for receiving a fixed value, a weight of a link from said third node to said membership input layer being a center value of a membership function, a weight of a link from said membership input layer to said membership output layer being a slope of the membership function.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
108 words
The heater controlling unit as defined in Claim 2, wherein: said temperature change rate computing means computes a first temperature change rate in a period during which said heater is turned on, and a second temperature change rate in a period during which said heater is turned off; and said predictive computing means computes the predictive temperature by adding up (1) a current actual temperature, (2) a product of a preceding first temperature change rate and a following period during which said heater is turned on, and (3) a product of a preceding second temperature change rate and a following period during which said heater is turned off.