Trailer Lighting Outage Detector with Shunt Resistors
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Solution Overview
Problem
Trailer lighting systems face failures due to inefficiencies, short circuits, and open circuits, necessitating a means to detect faults promptly for safety and legal reasons.
Innovation Solution
A device outage detector using a microcontroller, shunt resistors, current sensors, and voltage sensors to monitor currents and voltages across lighting circuits, issuing warnings for threshold deviations, and determining short or open circuits.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If current and voltage sensing circuits are continuously monitoring each lighting circuit, then lighting failures can be detected promptly, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The sensing circuit uses a single microcontroller that can detect both current and voltage parameters across multiple lighting circuits through shared ADC resources. The microcontroller serves multiple functions: monitoring current via shunt resistors, monitoring voltage via voltage dividers, processing signals from multiple channels, and generating alerts. This multi-functionality reduces overall system complexity compared to having separate dedicated circuits for each parameter and channel.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent combines current sensing (through shunt resistors) and voltage sensing (through voltage dividers) into a unified monitoring system controlled by a single microcontroller. Multiple sensing channels are merged into a single processing unit that can distinguish between short circuits (current anomaly) and open circuits (voltage anomaly) by analyzing both parameters simultaneously.
2Measurement precision
If multiple shunt resistors and sensors are used to monitor multiple lighting circuits, then detection accuracy improves, but the manufacturing cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The microcontroller serves as a universal processing unit that handles multiple sensing channels, signal conditioning, threshold comparisons, and alert generation. This single component replaces what would otherwise require multiple separate processing circuits, reducing component count and manufacturing cost while maintaining the ability to accurately monitor multiple lighting circuits for both current and voltage anomalies.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces signal conditioning circuits (voltage dividers for voltage sensing, shunt resistors for current sensing) that convert high-voltage lighting circuit parameters into safe, measurable low-voltage signals. These intermediary circuits enable accurate measurement while protecting the microcontroller from high voltages, allowing precise fault detection without requiring expensive high-voltage tolerant components throughout the system.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The system effectively detects and reports lighting failures, enabling operators to address issues promptly, ensuring safety and compliance by accurately identifying faults in trailer lighting systems.
Implementation Method 1
a current sensor configured to measure a plurality of instantaneous currents passing through the plurality of shunt resistors
Implementation Method 2
a voltage sensor configured to measure a plurality of instantaneous voltages across the plurality of shunt resistors
Data Source
AI summary
A device outage detector, comprising: a microcontroller; a plurality of shunt resistors, each connected to at least one of a plurality of vehicle elements; a current sensor configured to measure a plurality of instantaneous currents passing through the plurality of shunt resistors, respectively; and a voltage sensor configured to measure a plurality of instantaneous voltages across the plurality of shunt resistors, respectively, wherein the microcontroller is configured to issue a warning for a given shunt resistor if its corresponding instantaneous current is below the first threshold value and its instantaneous voltage is zero, or if its corresponding instantaneous current is above a second threshold value.