Development of Inner Rail Type Power Sliding Door

Masahiro KYOTO* Toshiya SHIMPO** Takehiro IWAMI*

**
Fumihiko KOBAYASHI***
* Fumitoshi TAKENAKA*
**
* Kouji KAMIO*
***

Abstract
This paper outlines the development of a power sliding rear door for the new eK WAGON. The
door is the first of its kind applied to bonnet type minicars. With bonnet type minicars, the dis-
tance between the rear door and the rear end of the vehicle is short and thus, if the rear door is of a
sliding type, the distance available for the sliding door center rail is too short to provide the neces-
sary longitudinal length of the door opening. The method adopted to resolve this problem is the
Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) original inner-rail-type sliding door mechanism with the cen-
ter rail on the door. Employed along with this mechanism is a module design applied to the numer-
ous functional components of the power sliding system, in which these components are subassem-
bled on a module panel for their collective quality control during production.

Key words: Door, Desigh, Modularize

1. Introduction
Power sliding doors are commonly found on mini-
vans whose popularity is now soaring in Japan.
However, such doors are not common in the minicar
segment; they are offered on only a limited number of
one-box type models and on none of the bonnet type
minicars. Nevertheless, there is a potential demand for
power sliding doors among users of bonnet type mini-
cars who typically own them as second family cars.
They want power sliding doors for such reasons as pre-
venting their children from bumping the door against a
car parked nearby when opening/closing the door and
the convenience of door opening/closing when carrying
shopping bags. In response to such desires of cus-
tomers, MMC has developed a power sliding rear door
applying the company’s original inner door rail mecha-
nism for the new eK WAGON; this is the first of its kind
for bonnet type minicars.
2. Packaging strategies
2.1 Inner rail mechanism
With bonnet type minicars, there is only a short dis-
tance available between the rear end of the rear door
and the rear edge of the car body. This is the main rea-
son why the conventional outer rail type sliding door
system has not been used for bonnet type minicars to
date; more particularly, it is impossible to install a suffi-
cient length of center rail on the quarter panel. The
MMC original inner-rail-type sliding door system with
the center rail built into the door overcomes the prob-
lem. Fig. 1 shows the difference between the outer-rail-
type and inner-rail-type sliding door systems. Sliding
doors generally use three rails, i.e. the upper, center and
lower rails. With the inner-rail-type system, the center
rail is located inside the rear door, and this enables the
car to have a larger door opening. In the system used
on the new eK WAGON, the door opening is as wide as
530 mm when fully opened without the door protruding
beyond the rear edge of the body. This width is suffi-
cient for passengers to get in and out of the car easily.
The inner-rail-type design also eliminates the need
for installing a garnish, which is necessary for aestheti-
cally covering the center rail that is installed on the out-
er surface of the car body with an outer-rail-type sys-
tem. The result is a clean and neat body appearance.
2.2 Head clearance
The new eK WAGON inherits an overall height of
1,550 mm from the previous versions to fit in multistory
car parks. This height is rather too low for cars with a
sliding door, making it difficult to secure sufficient head
clearance for the front passenger and easy entry/exit.
The measures employed to solve the problem are the
following: a cover that is located below the upper rail
to help reduce the height of the rail, and the upper rail
layout was optimized to minimize the protrusion of the
head lining into the cabin. These methods have suc-
cessfully provided an adequate head space and ease of
entry/exit (Fig. 2).
While developing the sliding door system for the
new eK WAGON, the quality in terms of ease of
entrance/exit and cabin comfort was evaluated and ver-
ified repeatedly using a dedicated mock-up, which was
modified every time the design was changed in any
detail.

* Body Design Dept., Development Engineering Office ** Electronics Engineering Dept., Development Engineering Office
**
* Function Testing Dept., Development Engineering Office ** Mitsubishi Automotive Engineering Co., Ltd.
**

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Development of Inner Rail Type Power Sliding Door

3. Structure of the inner-rail-type pow-

er sliding door

3.1 Components
Fig. 3 shows the components of the inner-rail-
type power sliding door system. The system
includes the following basic components: the
upper, center and lower rails; the upper, center
and lower roller arms; and the rollers which roll
inside the rails. It also includes the latching/lock-
ing components, most of which are arranged in
the area above the center rail. These include the
front and rear latches that retain the door in the Fig. 1 Inner-rail-type design vs. outer-rail-type design
fully closed position, and the locking mechanism
that holds the door in the fully open position,
which is subassembled on the upper roller arm
and the lower guide. The system also has a
release actuator that unlatches the door during
power sliding operation of the door and a lock
actuator that locks/unlocks the door. The inside
and outside handles of the door are of a lever type
for reduced effort and enhanced ease of opera-
tion by the following. The lever type handles
allow the latching/locking device to be released
to be selected by changing the turning direction,
which enables the user to release the front and
rear latches when opening the door and the upper
and lower open locks when closing the door with-
out difficulty. These locking mechanism opera-
tions are coordinately controlled via a link assem-
bly.
Located in the lower portion of the door are
Fig. 2 Upper rail layout
the power sliding door unit, the control unit, and
the power feeder unit that relays both battery
power and signals. For added safety, a touch sen-
sor is provided on the front edge of the door to
prevent an obstacle or passenger from being
trapped as the door closes.

3.2 Power sliding door unit

Fig. 4 is a schematic drawing showing the
principle of operation of the power sliding door.
The open and close cables, the ends of which are
attached to the center arm, are routed via the
front and rear pulleys respectively, and wound
round the cable drum that is located at the center
of the door and forms an integral part of the pow-
er sliding motor unit. The door is opened and
closed as the drum takes up a cable and pays out
the other cable.
As shown in Fig. 5, the door drive cables are
linearly arranged between the center arm and
front pulley and between the center arm and rear
pulley. This eliminates the need to use cable out-
er casing and thus reduces frictional resistance
and ensures smooth and stable movement of the
door.
Fig. 3 Components arrangement

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Fig. 4 Schematic of power sliding door operation
Fig. 5 Power sliding door cable layout
Fig. 6 Power sliding door module
3.3 Module design
The locking/latching components, power sliding
door unit components and electric harness parts are
modularized to integrate the complicated locking/latch-
ing mechanism and power sliding related components
into a single module for collective quality control and
improved assembling efficiency during production.
Development of Inner Rail Type Power Sliding Door
Fig. 6 shows the external appearance of the power
sliding door module. The locking/latching mechanism
parts and harnesses are subassembled on the upper
portion of the module panel while the power sliding
door unit parts are grouped on the lower portion of the
panel.
4. Control of power sliding door
4.1 System configuration
Fig. 7 shows the configuration of the control system
for the power sliding door.
The control unit, which governs opening and clos-
ing of the power sliding door, is installed inside the
door. The unit receives power from the vehicle’s power
supply circuit via the power feeder unit, and also
receives control switch inputs and vehicle status data
via the power feeder unit. The control unit issues com-
mands to the sliding door motor and rear latch motors
based on these signals in addition to the signals from
the locking/latching switches and the sensors within the
door.
4.2 Control of door operation
The power sliding door is controllable using any of
the driver’s switch, rear switch, door handles, and key
switch for remote control. The driver’s power switch is
used to switchover between power sliding and manual
sliding of the door. Also, the control system has a func-
tion for prohibiting power sliding of the door during fuel
refilling and driving.
Speed control of the sliding door motor at the stages
just before fully closing and fully opening motions of
the door is programmed so as to reduce the risk of
injury and increase the impression of quality.
The speed-change sensing system, which consists
of the pulse sensor in the sliding door motor and the
touch sensor at the front end of the door, is designed to
prevent becoming trapped by the closing door.
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Development of Inner Rail Type Power Sliding Door

Fig. 7 System diagram

5. Summary

The power sliding door system that features MMC’s

original inner-rail-type sliding door technology has
been successfully tailored for installation on the new eK
WAGON. The system is the first of its kind not only in
MMC but also in the entire bonnet-type minicar seg-
ment. Masahiro KYOTO Toshiya SHIMPO Takehiro IWAMI
The power sliding door system will be developed by
refining its components for even greater user comfort.

Fumihiko KOBAYASHI Fumitoshi TAKENAKA Kouji KAMIO

88