Oil pan with integrated capacitive sensor for measuring oil level

摘要

Embodiments provide an oil pan that includes an oil pan having a reservoir configured to hold oil and defined by one or more oil pan walls and an oil pan bottom. The oil pan includes one or more capacitance sensors coupled to a portion of the oil pan walls and configured to sense a capacitance. The oil pan includes a capacitance measuring unit electrically connected to the one or more sensors via one or more conductors and configured to receive each of the sensed capacitances via the one or more conductors and determine capacitance values for each of the sensed capacitances. The oil pan also includes a processor configured to receive the capacitance values and determine the oil level in the oil pan based on the capacitance values.

主权项

1. An oil pan comprising:
an oil pan bottom; one or more oil pan walls extending a height between the oil pan bottom and a top of the oil pan walls; a reservoir configured to hold oil, the reservoir defined by the one or more oil pan walls and the oil pan bottom; three or more capacitance sensors, each capacitance sensor coupled to a portion of the one or more oil pan walls and each configured to sense a capacitance; and a processor configured to determine an oil level in the oil pan based on sensed capacitances from each of the three or more capacitance sensors, wherein the processor is further configured to: interpret the sensed capacitances from each of the three or more capacitance sensors as coordinates in space; define a plane of a surface of the oil; and determine the oil level based on the coordinates, the plane defined by the processor, and a center coordinate of the oil pan.