Acceleration and inclination sensor for vehicle automatic transmission - detects position and deformation of freely movable mercury drop within arcuate hollow space contg. contact electrodes

摘要

The sensor has a housing (4) enclosing a hollow space (6) with sidewalls (8,10) extending at an angle to its centre, containing a Hg drop (14) which moves in dependence on the applied acceleration and the inclination of the sensor housing (4) and varies in shape dependent only on the acceleration. A detector (16,18) monitors both the position and shape of the Hg drop (14), to provide separate acceleration and inclination values. The detector (16,18) has a response range allowing detection of deformation of the Hg drop caused by accelerations above 1g. It acts as a threshold detector with a series of response thresholds dependent on the size of the drop deformation. USE - For preventing switching of vehicle automatic transmission or operating roll-bar in critical travel conditions.