JPH0775211A - Car battery charging system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enhance reliability and prevent the malfunction of a car battery charging system by detecting a voltage between electrodes set specifically as required. CONSTITUTION:A fourth electrode 25a on an unmanned carrier 20 contacts a first electrode 19a, and a fifth electrode 25b on the carrier 20 contacts a second electrode 19b. Further, a sixth electrode 25c on the carrier 20 contacts a third electrode 19c to stop the carrier 20. Voltage detection circuits 14, 15 on a charger 10 detect the voltage on a battery 22 through the second electrode 19b, the fifth electrode 25b, resistor 24, the sixth electrode 25c, and the third electrode 19c, and outputs it to a control circuit 16, which charges the battery 22. When charging is completed, the carrier 20 departs from the electrodes 19a-19c, and the voltage detection circuits 14, 15 stop detecting the voltage of the battery 22, and a switching and transforming-rectifying circuit 12a is turned off. Thus, this system is free from problems such as a conventional reed switch chattering during car battery charging, completely preventing malfunction during car battery charging.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vehicle-mounted battery charging system, and more particularly to a vehicle-mounted battery charging system which does not malfunction.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art An example of a conventional on-vehicle battery charging system is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-234805.
In this case, the position of the automated guided vehicle using the battery as a power source is detected only by the proximity switch installed on the ground side to charge the battery. FIG. 2 shows an on-vehicle battery charging system of a type in which the position of an automated guided vehicle powered by a battery is detected only by a proximity switch as in this example. In FIG. 2, the charging device 30 is
It includes a power supply circuit 31 (including a switch / transformer / rectifier circuit 32a and a current limiting / constant voltage control circuit 32b), a voltage detection circuit 33, a control circuit 34, a P electrode 37a, an N electrode 37b, and reed switches 38a, 38b. The AC power supply terminal 35 is an input terminal of the switch / transformer / rectifier circuit 32a. The DC voltage output of the switch / transformer / rectifier circuit 32a is applied to the current limiting and constant voltage control circuit 32b. The output terminals of the current limiting and constant voltage control circuit 32b are the P terminal 36a and the N terminal 36b. The P terminal 36a is connected to the electrode 37a, and the N terminal 36b is connected to the electrode 3a.
7b is connected. The P electrode 37a and the N electrode 37b are installed on the ground corresponding to the stop position of the automatic guided vehicle 40 described later. Further, the reed switches 38a and 38b installed on the ground near the N electrode 37b are connected to the control circuit 34. The voltage detection circuit 33 has a P terminal 3
The voltage between 6a and the N terminal 36b is detected. The control circuit 34 receives the output of the voltage detection circuit 33 and controls the switch and the transformer / rectifier circuit 32a and the current limit and constant voltage control circuit 32b. The automated guided vehicle 40 includes the control circuit 4
1, a battery 42, a diode 43, a resistor 44, a P electrode 45a, an N electrode 45b and a position detecting magnet 46. In addition, 47 is a wheel. The control circuit 41 controls a power unit (not shown) of the automated guided vehicle 40. The battery 42 is a power source of the control circuit 41. The cathode of the diode 43 is connected to the anode terminal of the battery 42 so that the charging current of the battery 42 can flow. The resistor 44 is a diode 43 when the voltage of the battery 42 is detected.
To bypass. The P electrode 45a is connected to the anode of the diode 43, and the N electrode 45b is connected to the cathode terminal of the battery 42. The P electrode 45a
The N electrode 45b and the N electrode 45b are arranged in a direction orthogonal to the front-rear direction (left and right direction in the drawing) of the automated guided vehicle 40, and are arranged at the lower portion of the automated guided vehicle 40 so as to correspond to the P electrode 37a and the N electrode 37b. . Further, a magnet 46 is arranged below the automatic guided vehicle 40.

With the above configuration, the operation is as follows. First, the automated guided vehicle 40 moves to the left in the figure, the P electrode 45a of the automated guided vehicle 40 contacts the ground side P electrode 37a, and the N electrode 45b of the automated guided vehicle 40 contacts the ground side N electrode 3.
Contact 7b. At this time, the voltage detection circuit 33 causes the resistor 44, the P electrode 45a, the P electrode 37a, the P terminal 36a, and the N terminal.
The voltage of the battery 42 is detected via the electrode 45b, the N electrode 37b, and the N terminal 36b. At this time, the switch and the switch of the transformer / rectifier circuit 32a are in the off state. When the automated guided vehicle 40 further moves to the left in the drawing, the magnet 46 of the automated guided vehicle 40 operates the reed switch 38a installed on the ground side. At this time, the automated guided vehicle 40
It stops according to the teaching of the automatic guided vehicle 40. The control circuit 34 sets a memory that the reed switch 38a has operated. The set state of this memory indicates that the automatic guided vehicle 40 exists on the P electrode 37a and the N electrode 37b. At this time, the control circuit 34 controls the main circuit (power supply terminal 35
To the P output terminal 36a and the N output terminal 36b) and the switch of the transformer / rectifier circuit 32a are turned on to operate the switch and the transformer / rectifier circuit 32a. The switch / transformer / rectifier circuit 32a transforms the AC power supply voltage and further rectifies it into a DC voltage of a predetermined value. The current limiting and constant voltage control circuit 32b receives the DC voltage and charges the battery 42. At this time, the current limiting / constant voltage control circuit 32b maintains the voltage applied to the battery 42 at a predetermined value and limits the charging current to a predetermined value or less. In particular, the voltage of the battery 42 is prevented from rising more than necessary even at the end of charging.

When the charging is completed and the information indicating the completion of the charging is given to the automatic guided vehicle 40, the automatic guided vehicle 40 further moves to the left in the drawing, and the magnet 46 of the automatic guided vehicle 40 operates the reed switch 38b. . The operation of the reed switch 38b resets the operation memory of the reed switch 38a. This causes the control circuit 34 to switch and transform.
The rectifier circuit 32a is controlled to stop current supply to the current limiting and constant voltage control circuit 32b. The electrodes 37a, 37
In order to prevent b from turning on and off the charging current, the reed switches 38a, 38b are connected to the electrodes 37a, 3b.
7b and the electrodes 45a, 45b are installed in such a position as to operate during contact. Further, the voltage detection circuit 33 detects the voltage of the battery 42 of the automatic guided vehicle 40 before the charging is started, but once the charging is started, it detects the charging voltage itself. For this reason, the voltage detection circuit 33 is operated by the automated guided vehicle 4
Even if 0 does not exist on the electrodes 37a and 37b, the detection of the charging voltage is continued.

[0005]

In the above-mentioned conventional example, the start / end control of charging is performed by the reed switch 38a,
38b only. Therefore, the reed switch 38
When a and 38b cause a phenomenon such as chattering, the actual state and the stored state of the control circuit 34 may differ. Therefore, when the reed switch 38b malfunctions as described above, the automatic guided vehicle 40 causes the electrodes 37a, 37 to move.
The electrode 37a, 37b and the electrode 45 are moved from the position of b.
Even if a and 45b are disengaged, the storage state of the control circuit 34 is not reset, and the charging device 30 causes the ground electrode 37
It is dangerous that the charging voltage is still applied to a and 37b. Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle-mounted battery charging system that eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks of the conventional example and is highly reliable and does not malfunction.

[0006]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the structure of the present invention is a vehicle-mounted battery charging system for charging a vehicle-mounted battery, comprising first, second and third electrodes installed at predetermined locations, A power supply circuit that applies a DC charging voltage between the first electrode and the second electrode; a voltage detection circuit that detects and outputs a voltage between the second electrode and the third electrode; A control circuit that receives the output and controls the power supply circuit, a vehicle-side fourth electrode that is connected to allow a current to flow through one electrode of the battery, and that can contact the first electrode, and the other of the battery A vehicle-side fifth electrode that is connected to allow a current to flow through the electrode and is in contact with the second electrode; and a vehicle-side sixth electrode that is connected to the vehicle-side fourth electrode and is in contact with the third electrode Is to have

[0007]

With the above structure, the power supply circuit outputs the DC charging voltage, and the DC charging voltage is applied between the first electrode and the second electrode. The vehicle travels toward the first electrode and the second electrode, the vehicle-side fourth electrode contacts the first electrode, and the vehicle-side fifth electrode
When the electrode is stopped in contact with the second electrode, the DC charging voltage is applied to the vehicle-mounted battery. At this time, since the vehicle-side sixth electrode contacts the third electrode, the voltage detection circuit detects the battery voltage appearing between the second electrode and the third electrode and outputs it to the control circuit. The control circuit controls the power supply circuit according to the output of the voltage detection circuit. For this reason,
When the first electrode to the third electrode and the vehicle-side fourth electrode to the sixth electrode are out of contact with each other, the voltage detection circuit cannot detect the battery voltage, and thus the control circuit stops the operation of the power supply circuit.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 1, the charging device 10 includes a power supply circuit 11
(Including the switch and the transformer / rectifier circuit 12a and the current limiting and constant voltage control circuit 12b), the overvoltage detection circuit 13, the first voltage detection circuit 14, the second voltage detection circuit 15, the first electrode (in the case of this embodiment, P electrode) 19a, second electrode (N electrode in this embodiment) 19b, and third electrode (S electrode)
It consists of 19c. The power supply terminal 17 is an input terminal of the switch and the transformer / rectifier circuit 12a, the P terminal 18a and the N terminal 18b are DC output terminals of the current limiting and constant voltage control circuit 12b, and the S terminal 18c is the battery of the automatic guided vehicle 20. 22 is a terminal added for voltage detection. An alternating voltage of 50 Hz or 60 Hz is applied to the power supply terminal 17. The switch / transformer / rectifier circuit 12a includes a magnet switch that turns on / off the AC voltage, a transformer circuit connected to the output side of the magnet switch, and a rectifier circuit that rectifies the output of the transformer circuit into a direct current. The current limiting and constant voltage control circuit 12b receives the DC output voltage of the rectifier circuit, and receives the P terminal 18a and the N terminal 1
A DC voltage for charging the battery 22 is output between the battery 8 and 8b. At this time, the charging DC voltage is maintained at a constant voltage, and the charging current is limited to a predetermined value. The overvoltage detection circuit 13 detects the charging DC voltage and outputs a signal to the control circuit 16 when the value is excessive. The first voltage detection circuit 14 detects the voltage between the N terminal 18b and the S terminal 18c. Further, the second voltage detection circuit 15 is also N
The voltage between the terminal 18b and the S terminal 18c is detected. The output signals of the first voltage detection circuit 14 and the second voltage detection circuit 15 are applied to the control circuit 16. Here, the characteristics of the first voltage detection circuit 14 and the characteristics of the second voltage detection circuit 15 are exactly the same. The control circuit 16 uses the overvoltage detection circuit 1
3, receives the outputs of the first voltage detection circuit 14 and the second voltage detection circuit 15, and controls the switch and the transformer / rectifier circuit 12a and the current limit and constant voltage control circuit 12b. Here, when an overvoltage detection signal is received from the overvoltage detection circuit 13, the magnet switch is turned off so that no AC voltage is applied to the transformer circuit. The control circuit 16 controls ON / OFF of the magnet switch as described above, and at the same time controls the base voltage of the output voltage control transistor of the current limiting and constant voltage circuit 12b to control ON / OFF of this transistor. Note that this transistor does not have to be on / off controlled. First electrode 1
9a, the 2nd electrode 19b, and the 3rd electrode 19c are rod-shaped, are installed in parallel to each other on the ground corresponding to the stop position of the automatic guided vehicle 20 described later. The first electrode 19a is P
The second electrode 19b is connected to the terminal 18a and the second electrode 19b is the N terminal 18b.
And the third electrode 19c is connected to the S terminal 18c. In addition, the length of the third electrode 19c is equal to that of the first electrode 19c.
a and shorter than the length of the second electrode 19b,
The installation location of c is approximately the center of the installation location of the first electrode 19a and the second electrode 19b.

The automated guided vehicle 20 includes a control circuit 21, a battery 22, a diode 23, a resistor 24, a vehicle-side fourth electrode (P electrode in this embodiment) 25a, and a vehicle-side fifth electrode (N electrode in this embodiment). 25b and the vehicle side 6th electrode (S electrode) 25c. The control circuit 21 controls a drive device (not shown) of the automated guided vehicle 20. Battery 22
Is a power source of the control circuit 21. The cathode of the diode 23 is connected to the anode terminal of the battery 22 in order to allow the charging current of the battery 22 to flow in the charging direction. In order to bypass the diode 23 when the voltage detection circuits 14 and 15 detect the voltage of the battery 22,
The resistor 24 is connected in parallel with the diode 23. Fourth electrode (P electrode) 25a and sixth electrode (S electrode) 25c
Is connected to the anode of the diode 23. On the other hand, the fifth electrode (N electrode) 25b is connected to the cathode terminal of the battery 22. The fourth electrode 25a can contact the first electrode 19a, and the fifth electrode 25b can contact the second electrode 1a.
9b, and the sixth electrode 25c is connected to the third electrode 19c.
c can be contacted. The fourth electrode 25a to the sixth electrode 25c are arranged in the front-rear direction of the automatic guided vehicle 20 (left-right direction in the drawing).
Are arranged in the direction orthogonal to the above, and are arranged in the lower portion of the automatic guided vehicle 20 so as to correspond to the first electrode 19a to the third electrode 19c. Further, 26 is a wheel of the automatic guided vehicle 20.

With the above construction, the automated guided vehicle 20 moves to the left in the figure, and the fourth electrode 25a of the automated guided vehicle 20 contacts the first electrode 19a installed on the ground, so that the automated guided vehicle 2
The fifth electrode 25b of 0 is the second electrode 19b installed on the ground
To contact. Further, when the automated guided vehicle 20 moves to the left in the figure, the sixth electrode 25c of the automated guided vehicle 20 contacts the third electrode 19c installed on the ground. In this state, the automated guided vehicle 20 stops according to the teaching of the automated guided vehicle 20. At this time, the voltage detection circuits 14 and 15 of the charging device 10
, The second electrode 19b, the fifth electrode 25b, the resistor 24, the sixth
Battery 22 via electrode 25c and third electrode 19c
The voltage of the signal is detected and a voltage detection signal is output to the control circuit 16. As a result, the control circuit 16 turns on the switch and the magnet switch of the transformer / rectifier circuit 12a.
In this state, the switch and transformer / rectifier circuit 12a applies a DC voltage to the current limiting and constant voltage control circuit 12b.
The current limiting and constant voltage control circuit 12b receives this DC voltage and receives the P terminal 18a, the first electrode 19a, and the fourth electrode 25.
a, diode 23, fifth electrode 25b, second electrode 19b
And the battery 22 is charged through the N terminal 18b.
At this time, the current limiting and constant voltage control circuit 12b keeps the voltage applied to the battery 22 at a predetermined value and limits the charging current to a predetermined value or less. In particular, the voltage of the battery 22 is prevented from rising more than necessary even at the end of charging. When the end of the predetermined charging time is detected by a timer (not shown) or the like, the control circuit 16 turns off the magnet switch. This completes the charging. As described above, the third electrode 19c is the other electrode 19a,
Since the installation location of the third electrode 19c is shorter than 19b, and the installation location of the other electrodes 19a and 19b is substantially in the center, the automatic guided vehicle 20 moves to the right in the figure to install each electrode 19a to the ground. When separated from 19c, first, the contact between the third electrode 19c and the sixth electrode 25c is released, and then the contact between the other electrodes 19a, 19b, 25a, 25b is released. Therefore, the voltage detection circuit 1
4 and 15 no longer detect the voltage of the battery 22,
After the switch and the transformer / rectifier circuit 12a are turned off, the first electrode 19a and the second electrode 19b are separated from the fourth electrode 25a and the fifth electrode 25b. Further, since the first voltage detection circuit 14 and the second voltage detection circuit 15 are connected in parallel, if either one of them fails, the first
Since the output of the voltage detection circuit 14 and the output of the second voltage detection circuit 15 are different, the control circuit 16 turns off the switch and the transformer / rectifier circuit 12a. Therefore, the voltage detection circuit 1
When either one of 4 and 15 fails, the charging device 10 does not output the DC charging voltage, so that the safety of the charging operator can be maintained. The voltage detection circuits 14, 1
It is extremely rare for both 5 to fail at the same time and therefore need not be considered. In the above-described embodiment, the battery is mounted on the automatic guided vehicle, but the vehicle is not limited to the automatic guided vehicle and may be a vehicle on which the battery is mounted. Further, the overvoltage detection circuit 13 is not always necessary and may be omitted. Further, the first voltage detection circuit 14
Either the second voltage detection circuit 15 or the second voltage detection circuit 15 may be provided. Further, the third electrode 19c includes the first electrode 19a and the second electrode 19a.
It does not have to be shorter than the electrode 19b, and may have the same length as the first electrode 19a and the second electrode 19b.

[0011]

As described in detail above, according to the on-vehicle battery charging system of the present invention, when the contact between the first electrode to the third electrode and the vehicle side fourth electrode to the sixth electrode is released, the voltage is applied. The detection circuit cannot detect the battery voltage, the control circuit stops the operation of the power supply circuit, and the chattering of the reed switch in the conventional example cannot occur. Therefore, it is possible to reliably prevent a malfunction when charging the on-vehicle battery and to ensure the safety of the person engaged in the charging work.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 Charging Device 11 Power Supply Circuit 14 First Voltage Detection Circuit 15 Second Voltage Detection Circuit 16 Control Circuit 19a First Electrode 19b Second Electrode 19c Third Electrode 20 Unmanned Transport Vehicle 22 Battery 25a Fourth Electrode 25b Fifth Electrode 25c Sixth electrode

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An in-vehicle battery charging system for charging an in-vehicle battery, wherein a direct current charging voltage is applied between the first, second and third electrodes installed at predetermined locations and between the first electrode and the second electrode. A power supply circuit to be applied; a voltage detection circuit that detects and outputs a voltage between the second electrode and the third electrode; a control circuit that receives the output of the voltage detection circuit and controls the power supply circuit; A vehicle-side fourth electrode, which is connected so as to pass a current flowing through one of the electrodes and is capable of contacting the first electrode, and a current flowing through the other electrode of the battery, which is in contact with the second electrode. An in-vehicle battery charging system comprising: a possible vehicle-side fifth electrode; and a vehicle-side sixth electrode that is connected to the vehicle-side fourth electrode and is capable of contacting the third electrode.