60results about How to "Deteriorate detection" patented technology

The present invention detects the deterioration of a catalyst. In accordance with an output from an oxygen sensor, a catalyst deterioration detection device for the catalyst positioned in an exhaust path of an internal combustion engine detects a maximum oxygen storage state where an exhaust gas outflowing downstream of the catalyst contains excess oxygen and a minimum oxygen storage state where the exhaust gas outflowing downstream of the catalyst lacks oxygen. Control is exercised to provide a rich target air-fuel ratio for the internal combustion engine during an oxygen release period between the instant at which the maximum oxygen storage state is detected and the instant at which the minimum oxygen storage state is detected later, and to provide a lean target air-fuel ratio for the internal combustion engine during an oxygen storage period between the instant at which the minimum oxygen storage state is detected and the instant at which the maximum oxygen storage state is detected later. Further, the amount of oxygen released from the catalyst during the oxygen release period or the amount of oxygen stored by the catalyst during the oxygen storage period is detected as an oxygen storage amount. The deterioration of the catalyst is then judged in accordance with the oxygen storage amount. Moreover, when exercising control for catalyst deterioration detection, the catalyst deterioration detection device sets up oxygen storage amount detection conditions for correcting a variation that may occur in the oxygen release period or the oxygen storage period depending on a difference in output detection conditions for the oxygen sensor.

A catalyst deterioration detecting system of an internal combustion engine includes a measuring unit that measures the oxygen storage capacity of a catalyst, a detector that detects or estimates the temperature of the catalyst, and a detector that detects poisoning of the catalyst based on the relationship between a change in the catalyst temperature and a change in the oxygen storage capacity corresponding to the change in the catalyst temperature. The change in the oxygen storage capacity corresponding to the change in the catalyst temperature varies depending on the presence or absence of poisoning of the catalyst. Thus, the catalyst deterioration detecting system is able to favorably detect poisoning of the catalyst by utilizing this relationship, and distinguish temporary deterioration due to catalyst poisoning from permanent deterioration. A method of detecting deterioration of the catalyst is also provided.

The invention relates to an LC/MS interface provided with structure that the end of a spray capillary is rarely damaged and the object is to provide the LC/MS interface which a general user can easily operate, which inhibits the extension of a separation band and the deterioration of detection sensitivity and which enables high separation and sensitive analysis. A metallic member having a hole for connecting a separation column and a spray capillary and a resin member for fixing the upstream side of the short spray capillary are used. Further, to enhance operability, spray ionization using gas spraying is used.

A surface shape recognition sensor of this invention has a surface protective film having a hydrophobic property on an insulating protective film which is made of an insulator and formed to cover a sensor electrode, and includes at least a ground electrode which is formed on the substrate such that the ground electrode is partly exposed on the surfaces of the insulating protective film and surface protective film so as to be insulated/isolated from the sensor electrode and come into contact with the surface of a detection target. This sensor prevents fingerprint residues from easily remaining and improves tamper resistance.

PCT No. PCT/JP97/00791 Sec. 371 Date Nov. 13, 1997 Sec. 102(e) Date Nov. 13, 1997 PCT Filed Mar. 13, 1997 PCT Pub. No. WO97/34152 PCT Pub. Date Sep. 18, 1997A device for determining a correction factor for correcting an output of a rotational velocity mechanism for detecting the rotational velocity of a tire mounted on a vehicle, and a slip factor calculating device and a tire pressure drop detecting device utilizing the determining device. The rotational velocity of the tire is detected in response to the fact that an initializing switch is operated at the time of trial linear coasting. An initial correction factor is found on the basis of the rotational velocity. The initial correction factor is stored in an E2PROM. At a time of normal traveling, the rotational velocity is initially corrected on the basis of the initial correction factor (S2). Further, the slip factor is calculated on the basis of the rotational velocity after the initial correction (S3). A judged value required to detect the drop in air pressure in the tire is corrected on the basis of the slip factor or the like (S9). The initial correction factor representing only a relative difference in effective rolling radius between tires can be acquired, so that an initial difference can be eliminated from the rotational velocity with high precision.

The invention provides a deterioration diagnostic device for diagnosing a degradation condition of an exhaust gas purifier disposed in an exhaust passage in an engine based on a sensor value of an exhaust gas sensor that is disposed downstream of the purifier. The device includes detecting-signal generating unit for generating a detecting-signal having particular frequency components and multiplying the generated signal to a basic fuel injection amount so as to calculate a fuel injection amount and exhaust gas purifier evaluating means for extracting a frequency response corresponding to the detecting-signal from an output of the exhaust gas sensor of the engine, the output being in response to the calculated fuel injection amount, so as to determine a condition of the purifier based on the extracted frequency response.

A communication system includes a mobile station capable of transmitting a plurality of control channels. At least one of the control channels has pilot data placed separately at a plurality of positions within a transmission unit time to reduce the deterioration in reference phase detection performance in the reception of a base station, and to reduce the deterioration in the base station receiving performance.

A tire air-pressure alarming device includes wheel speed sensors for detecting wheel speeds of wheels of a motor vehicle and also includes a microcomputer-base control device and an alarming unit. The control device is programmed to execute function steps of: deriving a decision value based on the wheel speeds detected by the wheel speed sensors; judging the occurrence of air-pressure drop of the tires constituting wheels, based on the decision value; and outputting a command when the occurrence of the air-pressure drop of the tires is judged. The alarming unit is responsive to the command from the control device thereby to raise an alarm indicating the occurrence of the air-pressure drop of the tire. The tires are monitored by the tire air-pressure alarming device, wherein the control device is also programmed to execute a function step of standardizing the speed dependency of a rolling radius of the tires thereby to standardize the performance in judging the air-pressure drop of the tires. Thus, the tire property can be controlled to improve the accuracy in detecting the tire air-pressure drop.

A gas concentration detection device includes a pump cell, a sensor cell, a monitor cell, a sensor current detection unit detecting a current outputted by the sensor cell, a monitor current detection unit detecting a current outputted by the monitor cell, a voltage adjustment unit adjusting a pump cell voltage applied to the pump cell, and a sensitivity determination unit determining a gas sensitivity of at least one of the sensor cell or the monitor cell. The voltage adjustment unit changes the pump cell voltage from a target voltage into a detection voltage where the concentration of the residual oxygen supplied to the sensor cell and the monitor cell is increased. The sensitivity determination unit determines the gas sensitivity based on a detection current detected by at least one of the sensor current detection unit or the monitor current detection unit in accordance with the concentration of the residual oxygen.

An optical transmitter includes a laser diode drive circuit for driving a laser diode in accordance with a laser diode current that superimposes a pilot signal on a “0” logic level and a “1” logic level of a transmission signal, the pilot signal having a low-frequency compared with the transmission signal, so as to become an opposite phase each other, a monitor circuit for monitoring an optical output of the laser diode, a filter circuit for extracting a low-frequency component of the pilot signal from an output of the monitor circuit, a phase compare circuit for comparing a phase of the low-frequency component of the pilot signal extracted by the filter circuit with a phase of the pilot signal, and a deterioration judgment circuit for judging whether or not the laser diode deteriorates in accordance with a comparison result of the phase compare circuit.

Disclosed herein are an automotive radar apparatus and a method of controlling automotive radar, capable of recognizing a road gradient by easily adjusting a vertical scan angle based on intensities of radio waves received by radar of a vehicle traveling on a road to recognize a gradient of the road, and of preventing deterioration of detection performance by vertically adjusting a radio wave elevation angle of the radar so as to be suitable for the road gradient. The automotive radar apparatus includes an antenna unit transmitting radar signals or receiving reflected radar signals according to elevation angles of a transmission antenna or a receiving antenna, and a control unit searching a center angle based on received power according to the elevation angles to set a beam corresponding to the center angle as a center beam and setting ranges of interest on the basis of the center beam.

In a rotation angle detection apparatus, a signal detected by a magnetoresistive element is digitalized before being subjected to subtraction of the optimum correction parameter therefrom in a subtractor, the optimum correction parameter being stored in advance in a memory. Note that during the initial transmission at the time of activation, the data size “n” of a detection target obtained by a CPU from a control device is transferred to the memory, so that the optimum correction parameter for the data size of the detection target is selected. With the above, the detection unit can relatively readily cope with a request for enlargement or the like of a through hole size made by a machine side, and detection accuracy is not deteriorated and an error in absolute position processing is reduced when the curvature of the detection target is changed.

Prospective micro calcification points in a radiation image of an object are extracted on the basis of image data representing the radiation image and clustered into cluster areas. A plurality of areas are set in the radiation image, and fluctuation in size and/or fluctuation in density of the prospective micro calcification points in each of the areas is obtained. Detected areas are extracted from the plurality of areas on the basis of the fluctuation in size and/or the fluctuation in density of the prospective micro calcification points in each of the areas, and each interconnected area where a predetermined number of or more extracted detected areas are continuous is set as a cluster area.

A vehicle and method are provided in which deterioration of a battery is controlled. The method includes detecting deterioration severity of the battery and determining whether the deterioration severity is equal to or greater than a reference value. A cause of battery deterioration is determined when the deterioration severity is equal to or greater than the reference value. The method further includes determining whether the cause of the battery deterioration is vehicle driving and reducing an SOC management range of the battery when the cause of deterioration of the battery is charging/discharging due to vehicle driving. The deterioration cause of the battery is determined as a state of the vehicle left unattended and the central SOC of the battery is adjusted when the cause of deterioration of the battery is not charging/discharging due to vehicle driving.

The objective of the present invention is to provide a control device for an engine that enables precise control of the equivalence ratio. The system from the fuel injection amount to the output from a LAF sensor is modeled as an injection amount-sensor output model by means of a model equation containing model parameters and a lag coefficient. The system from the equivalence ratio to the LAF sensor output is modeled as a port equivalence ratio-sensor output model by means of a model equation containing the lag coefficient. The control device is equipped with: a feedback-use identifier that successively identifies values for the model parameters; a LAF lag compensation-use identifier that successively identifies values for the lag coefficient; and a stoichiometric driving mode controller that determines the value of a fuel injection amount.

A current sensor has: a magneto-resistive effect element which is arranged near a current line, to which a signal magnetic field is applied, the signal magnetic field being is induced by a current that flows in the current line, and which generates a magneto-resistive change in accordance with a change of the signal magnetic field; cancelling magnetic field generating means that is provided near the magneto-resistive effect element and that generates a cancelling magnetic field that cancels the signal magnetic field; a first soft magnetic body that is provided between the magneto-resistive effect element and the current line; and a pair of second soft magnetic bodies that are provided on both sides of the magneto-resistive effect element with regard to a magnetization detecting direction of the magneto-resistive effect element.

Provided herein is an apparatus for detecting vibrations in a machine tool having a rotor portion (2) which is provided with tool members (5) and defines an axis of rotation (2a), the apparatus comprising a sensor assembly (3) which is able to rotate together with the rotor portion (2) and is designed to issue signals correlated to the vibrations, and a supporting and amplification device (6) for supporting the sensor assembly (3) and for amplifying the vibrations, which is set between the sensor assembly (3) and the rotor portion (2) and has a rotational asymmetry about the axis of rotation (2a) for any angle smaller than a full circle

A relationship between an operating rate and a temperature of a metal part when a fan is in a normal state is stored in advance, a temperature of a heat-generating part and a temperature of a reference point are actually measured in an operation to designate a temperature of the heat-generating part, and it is determined that a cooling capability deterioration state is set when the actually measured temperature of the heat-generating part is higher than an estimated temperature by a predetermined threshold value or higher.

To provide a recording apparatus capable of detecting the deterioration of insulation to prevent the damage of a recording head by detecting whether or not there is the current leakage from a surface of a conveyor belt. The inventive recording apparatus includes a conveyor belt for conveying a recording medium comprising a plurality of inner electro-conductive members, a charging section for charging the inner electro-conductive members by a high voltage to attract the recording medium onto the conveyor belt by an electro-static force, a recording head for carrying out the recording on the recording medium attracted onto the conveyor belt, a leakage detection roller for detecting the deterioration of the insulation of the conveyor belt, and a control section for treating the abnormality in accordance with the results detected by the leakage detection roller.

An exhaust emission control system for an internal combustion engine includes an exhaust air-fuel ratio changing device switching the exhaust air-fuel ratio of exhaust gas flowing into one of an upstream exhaust passages and the exhaust air-fuel ratio of exhaust gas flowing into the other one of the upstream exhaust passages to a rich air-fuel ratio and to a lean air-fuel ratio alternately on a predetermined cycle longer than each of combustion cycles of the internal combustion engine, to thereby determine whether upstream catalytic converters have deteriorated or not according to a change in the exhaust air-fuel ratio outputted by upstream exhaust sensors provided downstream of the upstream catalytic converters. Therefore, it is possible to surely determine whether catalytic converters have deteriorated even slightly or not while ensuring a high exhaust emission control performance.

Provided is a cell-culturing apparatus including: an incubator that can maintain an interior thereof in an environment that is appropriate for growth of cells; a cell-culturing vessel that is accommodated inside the incubator; an optical-data acquisition unit that acquires optical data of a medium in the cell-culturing vessel; a medium changing unit that changes the medium in the cell-culturing vessel; and a controller, wherein a timing at which the medium is changed is determined on the basis of a change over time in the optical data acquired by the optical-data acquisition unit.