Fca US LLC

Brace Bade

Ryan C Masters

Craig B Ashmore

Robert Stack

Clutch protection systems and methods include calculating a slip of a clutch of a manual transmission based on an input rotational velocity of a flywheel coupled to a torque generating system. The calculated slip is used to calculate an energy into the clutch. In one implementation, an accumulated energy into the clutch is calculated based on a rate of the calculated energy and a torque request for the torque generating system is limited based on the accumulated energy. In one implementation, an energy capacity remaining in the clutch until a threshold indicative of damage occurring is calculated based on the calculated energy and a limited torque request for the torque generating system is generated. The limited torque request corresponds to an amount of allowable torque before full clutch engagement occurs, where this time is calculable based on a rate at which the clutch slip is decreasing.

Slip and energy based clutch protection

Rev-matching techniques that do not require a gear position sensor or a clutch position sensor are provided for a manual transmission of a vehicle. The techniques include predicting an intent of a driver to shift gears of the manual transmission based on whether the vehicle is accelerating or decelerating; predicting a shift of the manual transmission from a current gear to a different target gear based on the predicted driver intent; and detecting a trigger condition indicative of the predicted shift of the manual transmission based on a position of a clutch pedal configured to control engagement/disengagement of a clutch of the manual transmission. In response to detecting the trigger condition, a torque request for the torque generating system is modified to obtain a modified torque request, and the torque generating system is controlled based on the modified torque request.

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Royal Oak, MI, United States of America

Brace Bade