摘要 |
<p>A steering wheel control system (10) that employs a method for passing push-button commands from a steering wheel to a vehicle system where the method is not dependant upon the contact resistance of a sliding contact (32) located in the steering wheel column. The control system (10) uses a steering wheel electronics assembly (20) to generate tones corresponding to the commands, a signal transmission assembly (30) to transmit the tones from the electronics assembly (20) to an electronic control box (40) located elsewhere in the vehicle, and the electronic control box (40) to decode the transmitted tone. The use of discrete frequencies avoids operational problems associated with decreases in the overall system noise margin due to large voltage drops across the sliding contact (32). Furthermore, the use of off-the-shelf tone generation and decoding components allows for an overall reduction in system cost and increase in system reliability.</p> |