System for controlling climate within a vehicle

Claim 1

A vehicle climate control system comprising: a fan for forcing air into a passenger compartment of said vehicle, an electric motor driving said fan, a power module operating said motor, a plurality of sensors perceiving respective perturbing factors influencing a climate in said vehicle, including a vehicle speed sensor, an airflow setting sensor, a climate control unit temperature sensor, and air distribution door position sensors, and a controller comprising a memory unit, sensors of said plurality of sensors being connected to said controller to provide the same with respective data for correlation said data to look-up table values stored in said memory unit of said controller, said controller being connected to said power module, to provide the same with a signal resulting from said correlation and to cause a power module output voltage applied to said electric motor to be regulated, to thereby keep a speed of rotation of said fan regulated to keep a volume of airflow supplied from said fan to said passenger compartment invariant to said respective perturbing factors.

Claim 4

A method of maintaining a preselected regime in a vehicle climate control system having an inlet duct for taking ambient air, a means for temperature affecting a flow of said ambient air, means for distributing the same into a passenger compartment of said vehicle by virtue of a fan driven by a motor, and a means controlling said regime and affecting a voltage applied to said motor, said method comprising the steps of: (a) sensing data characterizing a speed of said vehicle; (b) sensing data characterizing a selected level of delivery of said ambient airflow into said passenger compartment; (c) sensing data characterizing status of said temperature affecting means and said distributing means; (d) defining data characterizing relationship between said speed of said vehicle and a speed of said fan; (e) storing in said controlling means said data defined in step (d); (f) defining data characterizing the extent to which said speed of said fan is affected by said status of said temperature affecting means; (g) storing in said controlling means said data defined in step (f); (h) defining data characterizing the extent to which said speed of said fan is affected by an amount of wanted air delivery into said passenger compartment; (i) storing in said controlling means said data defined in step (h); and (j) correlating said sensed data to said stored data to generate a signal maintaining a substantially constant airflow volume supplied to said passenger compartment and decreasing said voltage when said speed of said vehicle increases.

Claim 5

A method of maintaining a preselected regime in a vehicle climate control system having an inlet duct for taking ambient air, a means for temperature affecting a flow of said ambient air, means for distributing the same into a passenger compartment of said vehicle by virtue of a fan driven by a motor, and a means controlling said regime and affecting a voltage applied to said motor, said method comprising the steps of: (a) sensing data characterizing a speed of said vehicle; (b) sensing data characterizing a selected level of delivery of said ambient airflow into said passenger compartment; (c) sensing data characterizing status of said temperature affecting means and said distributing means; (d) defining data characterizing relationship between said speed of said vehicle and a speed of said fan; (e) storing in said controlling means said data defined in step (d); (f) defining data characterizing the extent to which said speed of said fan is affected by said status of said temperature affecting means; (g) storing in said controlling means said data defined in step (f); (h) defining data characterizing the extent to which said speed of said fan is affected by an amount of wanted air delivery into said passenger compartment; (i) storing in said controlling means said data defined in step (h); and (j) correlating said sensed data to said stored data to generate a signal maintaining a substantially constant airflow volume supplied to said passenger compartment and decreasing said voltage when said speed of said vehicle increases.