JPH0236167B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a traffic management device for obtaining information regarding the operating status of a motor vehicle.

As the price of fuel refined from petroleum resources rises, the proportion of fuel costs in the operating costs of commercial vehicles equipped with diesel engines is increasing.For example, in the case of route trucks, the proportion of fuel costs is increasing. It has reached about 80%. Under these circumstances, automobile manufacturers are making various improvements to engines and vehicles to improve fuel efficiency. However, if the operation manager does not perform appropriate maintenance, or if the driver does not take care to drive in a way that improves fuel efficiency, fuel efficiency will deteriorate and costs will increase.

In view of these problems, traffic control devices have been proposed especially for commercial vehicles. The purpose of this device is to provide the driver with data to enable economical driving, and to provide the operation manager with data to manage economical driving. Furthermore, information regarding the timing of maintenance can also be provided. This device uses a microcomputer to process various detected values such as the engine rotation speed detected by the sensor, and prints out the data using an output device such as a printer. It's summery. Conventional operation control devices such as this calculate the amount of fuel consumed, the frequency of use in each rotational speed range of the engine, or the distribution of the frequency of use of each stage of the transmission. ing.

Among the data obtained by such a traffic control device, the most important is data regarding fuel efficiency. Conventionally, therefore, the absolute amount of fuel consumed and the average fuel consumption rate, that is, the number of miles traveled per unit of fuel, were calculated and determined. However, with conventional traffic management devices like this, fuel consumption is measured without distinction between when the car is moving and when the car is stopped, and therefore the amount of fuel used as a whole is measured. It was not possible to determine the proportion of fuel used when the vehicle was running and fuel used when the vehicle was stopped. Therefore, it is not possible to determine whether the cause of poor fuel efficiency is due to low fuel consumption while driving or due to idling while stopped for a long time. The drawback was that it was not possible to obtain correct information.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle operation control device that can obtain accurate information regarding fuel efficiency.

The present invention will be explained below with reference to an illustrated embodiment.
FIG. 1 shows an engine of a truck equipped with a traffic control device according to this embodiment. This engine 1 is composed of a diesel engine, and a fuel injection pump 2 is attached to the side of the engine. There is. The fuel injection pump 2 is operated by the gear 3.
It is designed to be driven via timer 4,
Fuel is sequentially supplied to each cylinder of the engine 1 at a predetermined timing. The fuel injection pump 2 is provided with a mechanical governor 5, and the control rack is moved via the governor 5 according to the amount of rotation of the load lever 6, so that the fuel injection pump 2 can control the amount of fuel supplied at one time. The amount of supply is now controlled. The load lever 6 is connected to an accelerator pedal (not shown) via a wire cable 7. Also, on the back side of this engine 1 is a flywheel housing 8.
A flywheel and a clutch are housed in the housing 8. A transmission 9 is attached to the rear side of the housing 8, and is configured to perform on/off transmission of torque from the engine 1 to the propeller shaft.

Next, we will discuss the operation control device installed in a vehicle equipped with this engine 1. This operation control device is composed of a microcomputer 10, and this computer 10 is equipped with an input port 11 and an output port 12. ing.
The input port 11 is attached to the front side of the engine 1 and connected to a rotation detection sensor 13 that detects the rotation speed of the engine 1. Furthermore, the input port 11 is connected to a load sensor 14 that detects the amount of rotation of the load lever 6 of the mechanical governor 5. Note that this load sensor 14 is composed of a potentiometer. Furthermore, the output of a vehicle speed sensor 15 provided on the output side of the transmission 9 is supplied to the microcomputer 10 via an input port 11. Further, the input port 11 is connected to a brake switch 16 and a clutch switch 17 that detect depression of a brake pedal 16 and a clutch pedal 17, respectively. Further, a pair of fuel gauges 18 and 19 are connected to the input port 11. The fuel gauge 18 measures the amount of fuel supplied to the fuel injection pump 2, and the fuel gauge 19 measures the amount of fuel supplied to the fuel injection pump 2. The amount of fuel returned from the injection pump 2 is measured. In addition, a microcomputer 1 constituting the above-mentioned operation management device
The output port 12 of No. 0 is connected to a printer 20, and is configured to output various data using the printer 20.

Next, the operation of the traffic management device having the above configuration will be explained. This operation control device measures the amount of fuel used using a pair of fuel gauges 18 and 19, calculates the fuel consumption by calculating the amount of fuel used by a microcomputer 10, and prints out the fuel consumption using a printer 20. That's what I do. Further, according to this operation control device, the rotation speed of the engine 1 is measured by the rotation detection sensor 13 provided on the front side of the engine 1, and this value is sent to the computer 10.
Various information regarding the rotation speed of the engine 1 is obtained by performing arithmetic processing. Furthermore, this operation management device includes a vehicle speed sensor 15.
This sensor 15 reads the vehicle speed by
By processing the values obtained by the computer 10, various information regarding the vehicle speed is obtained.

Among the data obtained by the above-mentioned traffic control device, a method for calculating data related to fuel consumption will be explained based on the flowchart shown in FIG. 2. This flowchart is specifically for calculating fuel consumption separately for when the vehicle is running and when the vehicle is stopped, and the microcomputer 10 starts accumulating the operating time and the total amount of fuel used at the start of the operation. Then, the output from the vehicle speed sensor 15 is read through the input port 11, and it is determined whether the vehicle speed is zero or not. Note that here, a constant value, for example, 5 km/h or less is treated as a vehicle speed of zero. Furthermore, this microcomputer 10
reads the detection output of the rotation detection sensor 13 and determines whether the rotation speed of the engine 1 is within the range of, for example, 300 to 800 rpm, that is, whether the engine 1 is rotating at idle. In the case of idle rotation, the accelerator opening degree is further read by the load sensor 14, and if this accelerator opening degree is zero, it is determined whether or not this state continues for two seconds or more. , if the duration is 2 seconds or more, it is further determined whether it has continued for 5 minutes or more.

Whether or not this fixed period of time, ie, 5 minutes or more, is longer is a determination as to whether the vehicle is stopped or not. That is, if it is less than 5 minutes, it is treated as a stop and the stop time is accumulated. On the other hand, if the time is 5 minutes or more, it is treated as a stop time, and the amount of fuel consumed by the stop etc. is accumulated, and the stop time is also accumulated. In addition, in determining whether or not the engine 1 is at idle speed, if it is determined that it is not at idle speed, it is further determined whether or not the engine 1 is in a stopped state, and if it is in a stopped state, The stop time is accumulated.

From the above operations, the parking time of this vehicle is determined. Parking time is obtained as the cumulative amount of stopping time and engine stop time, and driving time is the cumulative value of operating time minus parking time. Further, the total amount of fuel used and the amount of fuel used when the vehicle is stopped can be obtained from the flowchart shown in FIG. Therefore, the amount of fuel used when the vehicle is running can be obtained from these two values, and the amount of fuel used when the vehicle is running is the total amount used minus the amount used when the vehicle is stopped.

Therefore, by such calculation, the amount of fuel used when the vehicle is running and the amount of fuel used when the vehicle is stopped out of the total amount of fuel used are determined separately. Therefore, when the amount of fuel used is large and the fuel efficiency is poor, it can be easily determined whether the cause is the fuel consumption while driving or the fuel consumption when the vehicle is stopped. If the fuel consumption is poor while driving, it is possible to use other data to determine whether the problem is due to the driving method or the vehicle itself. In addition, if a large amount of fuel is being consumed due to fuel consumption when stopped, we can prevent wasteful fuel consumption by adjusting the rotation speed of engine 1 when idling and instructing people to stop idling for long periods of time. can be prevented, and costs can be reduced.

Furthermore, according to the traffic management device of this embodiment, it is possible to arbitrarily determine the section fuel consumption based on the flowchart shown in FIG. To explain this operation, when a push-button switch (not shown) provided in the operation control device is turned on, the output of this push-button switch is read by the microcomputer 10, and from this point on, the cumulative running distance is calculated. At the same time, the amount of fuel used is accumulated. Once you have completed the specified section,
When the above-mentioned push button switch is turned off, the microcomputer 10 calculates the amount of fuel used for that section, and calculates the fuel consumption for the section by dividing the amount of fuel used for this section by the mileage of the section. I'm trying to get it. Therefore, it becomes possible to obtain the fuel efficiency for any section in this way.

Further, according to this operation control device, although the explanation of the flowchart is omitted, it is possible to obtain the fuel consumption for each gear ratio of the transmission and the overall average fuel consumption rate. This overall average fuel efficiency rate is calculated by dividing the travel distance by the amount of fuel used. Regarding time, it is now possible to obtain data on the ratio of running time to operating time, the ratio of engine stop time to parking time, and the distribution of vehicle stoppage or stopping time. Furthermore, by combining these data and the travel distance, the printer 20 prints data as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5. FIG. 4 is a graph showing changes in average fuel consumption with respect to travel distance. Moreover, FIG. 5 shows the cumulative operation time with respect to the travel distance. From this graph, you can understand the operating status at a glance.

Although the present invention has been described above with reference to an illustrated embodiment,
The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various modifications can be made based on the technical idea of the present invention. For example, the data obtained by this operation management device is not limited to that described in the above embodiments, but various data can be obtained based on combinations of time, travel distance, and fuel consumption. is possible. Further, in the above embodiment, the degree of opening of the accelerator is detected by the potentiometer 14 that detects the amount of rotation of the load lever 6 of the mechanical governor 2, but instead of such a sensor, the opening degree of the accelerator is detected by directly A sensor that detects the amount of pedal depression may be used. Further, in the above embodiment, a pair of fuel gauges 1
8 and 19, but if the return fuel is returned to the outlet side of the fuel gauge 18 on the supply side through a bubble removal or bubble prevention device, the fuel gauge 19 on the return side
can be omitted.

As described above, the present invention includes a fuel meter that measures the amount of fuel consumed, a means for determining whether the vehicle is stopped, and a means for calculating fuel efficiency from the count value of the fuel meter. , the fuel consumption is calculated separately for when the vehicle is running and when the vehicle is stopped. Therefore, according to the present invention, it is possible to reliably grasp the proportion of consumed fuel when the vehicle is running and when the vehicle is stopped, thereby making it possible to drive economically. It will be possible to obtain more accurate data for

In particular, according to the present invention, by accumulating the counts of the fuel gauge, it is possible not only to determine the total amount of fuel used, but also to calculate the amount of fuel used when driving and the amount used when stopped. The amount of fuel used and the amount of fuel used are calculated separately. Moreover, because the length of time that the accelerator opening is maintained at zero is used to distinguish between stopping and stopping, it can be distinguished from fuel consumed while waiting at a traffic light or in a busy zone, or from fuel consumed while stopped. It turns out. Therefore, even if fuel consumption is high and fuel efficiency is poor, it is easy to determine whether the cause is fuel consumption while driving or fuel consumption while stopped, and this can improve the economy. It becomes possible to perform operation management for driving.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a block diagram showing a traffic management device according to an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of calculating fuel efficiency by this traffic management device, and Fig. 3 is a section fuel efficiency diagram by this traffic management device. Flowcharts illustrating the calculations in FIGS. 4 and 5 are graphs printed out by the printer of this traffic control device. In addition, in the symbols used in the drawings, 1...diesel engine, 2...fuel injection pump, 6...load lever, 10...microcomputer, 1
1...Input port, 12...Output port, 13...
...Engine rotation detection sensor, 14...Load sensor (potentiometer), 15...Vehicle speed sensor,
18... Fuel gauge (supply side), 19... Fuel gauge (return side), 20... Printer.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A traffic management device for obtaining information regarding the operating status of a vehicle, which includes a fuel meter that measures the amount of fuel consumed, a calculation means that calculates the total amount of fuel used by accumulating the measured values of the fuel meter, and a determining means for determining whether the vehicle is stationary or stationary based on the length of time that the accelerator opening is maintained at zero when the vehicle is not running; and a calculation means for calculating the amount of fuel used by accumulating the measured value of the fuel gauge in one of the states when the vehicle is stopped or when the vehicle is running, and the fuel consumption amount is calculated for each state when the fuel gauge is stopped or when the vehicle is stopped. An automobile operation management device characterized by being able to calculate fuel consumption separately.