This invention relates to an instrument panel module including a power/signal transmission system for a vehicle.
Electrical equipment, including meters, various switches and sensors, connection boxes, a radio unit and an air conditioner, are mounted on an instrument panel of a vehicle. A wire harness provided with a large number of wires, is connected to these electrical equipments.
Such a wire harness is wired while being integrally mounted on a reinforcement, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 10-31 0002A.
In this example shown in FIG. 6, the wire harness 61 is integrally mounted on the reinforcement 60 and extended therealong. Hence, a dash panel 63 and the reinforcement 60 can be relatively easily mounted on a vehicle body (not shown).
Each of various electrical equipments, mounted on the dash panel 63, comprise a structural member in which an interior control section including a drive circuit or the like, and an exterior appearance section including a display or the like are provided in an integrated manner. Therefore, many kinds of electrical equipment must be prepared for the dash panel 63 in accordance with the design variations for the car kind or grade, resulting in the number of component parts being increased. Further, the degree of freedom of design of the exterior appearance section is restricted by the integral structure of the interior control section and the exterior appearance section.
In recent years, the amount of communication of information in a vehicle has been increasing, so that the number of circuits of connection between the wire harness and the electrical equipment has been increasing. Therefore, connectors connected to the wire harness 61, mounted on the reinforcement 60, have a multi-pole design, and a connecting load, required when connecting the connector, has increased. Therefore, the efficiency of mounting the reinforcement 60 and the dash panel 63 on the vehicle body is lowered.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide an instrument panel, including a power/signal transmission system for a vehicle, in which the standardization of the interior control section of each electric equipment (component) can be achieved, the degree of freedom of the design of the exterior appearance section can be improved, and the efficiency of the operation for mounting the instrument panel to the vehicle body can be improved.
In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, there is provided an instrument panel module for a vehicle, comprising a dash panel, on which an exterior appearance member of an electrical equipment or component for the vehicle is attached, and a reinforcement integrated with the dash panel, on which an interior control member of the electrical equipment is provided, where the interior control member includes a drive circuit for the electrical equipment (component).
In the instrument panel module, the interior control member of the electrical equipment (component) is separated from the exterior appearance member thereof and integrated with the reinforce as a sub-module.
Thus, the interior control member can be easily standardized, thereby enhancing the general-purpose ability, and besides the degree of freedom of design of the exterior appearance member can be improved.
Preferably, power supply and signal communication between the exterior appearance member and the interior control member are performed in a non-contact connection manner.
In this configuration, the use of connectors for connection purposes is not necessary, and the working efficiency of mounting of the instrument panel module on the vehicle body can be enhanced, and besides a space-saving design can be achieved since the use of connectors is omitted.
Here, it is preferable that the signal communication is performed by at least one of infrared communication and optical communication.
Further, it is preferable that the power supply is performed by power transmission using electromagnetic induction.
In the above configurations, the power/signal transmission can be effected with the simple construction having the relatively-inexpensive component parts.
According to the present invention, there is also provided a method of assembling an instrument panel module for a vehicle, comprising the steps of separating an electrical equipment (component) for the vehicle into an exterior appearance member and an interior control member including a drive circuit for the electrical equipment (component), providing the exterior appearance member on a dash panel, providing the interior control member on a reinforcement, and integrating the dash panel and the reinforcement.