| 摘要 |
Apparatus including a display and associated pushbutton switches attached to a rotatable steering wheel of a vehicle, which cause the display of a menu facilitating the activation of a limited number of vehicular control functions, and cause designated control functions to be performed upon the closure of the appropriate associated switches. The microprocessor, in addition to causing the change of displayed menu, when appropriate, also causes values to be stored in non-volatile memory and signals to be sent by a transmitter to a receiver attached to a fixed portion of the automobile body. The transmitter/receiver pair can, for example, be optical, inductive, or Hall effect sensors. These functional signals are converted back to electrical signals where they are passed to a control signal distributor, The control signal distributor reinterprets the signals and passes them to the functional units to be controlled. Power is provided to the steering wheel-mounted apparatus through a small battery which is recharged by a photovolatic array receiving light from an ignition switch-operated light source fixed to the vehicle body. In some embodiments, the control signal distributor can receive feedback signals from the function being controlled and cause those feedback signals to be transmitted to the steering wheel-mounted function controller for use by the microprocessor. |
