Ford Motor Company Limited

Visteon Global Technolgoies, Inc.

James Raymond Winkelman

Michael K Liubakka

Lakhi Nandlal Goenka

David Lee Porter

Jeffrey Paul Mara

David Ling-Shun Hung

John Stefanski

Zhenxing Fu

Karienne Ann Yockey

Mathew Ethan Breton

Frank Joseph Aiello

Frank J Haas

A method for managing a vehicle's electrical power bus and charging system. A current sensor is utilized to measure a current produced by an alternator. The alternator current is controlled in a feedback system such that the current is equal to the amount required for the vehicle loads or, if the battery is being charged, the amount required for the vehicle loads plus the optimum charging current. Alternatively, the method may measure and control the amount of current delivered to and from the battery such that, in a fuel efficiency mode, no current is delivered to the battery.

Method of automotive electrical bus management

A nozzle for a low pressure fuel injector that improves the control and size of the spray angle, as well as enhances the atomization of the fuel delivered to a cylinder of an engine.

Low pressure fuel injector nozzle

An apparatus for determining angular positions of DC motor includes a capacitor connected in parallel with the DC motor. The current flowing through the capacitor, at any given time, is an AC ripple current responsive to a commutation event of the DC motor. The capacitor partially sources the motor current ripples during commutation and recharges itself during the off-commutation period. Since the number of commutation events per mechanical revolution is pre-determined once the DC motor is designed, the frequency of the AC ripple currents through the capacitor corresponds to the frequency of commutation, and thus a motor position of the DC motor.

Apparatus for DC motor position detection with capacitive ripple current extraction

An active suspension system uses a closed-loop feedback controller to with tunable feedback gains to produce a control signal which minimizes a cost function formed by the weighted sum of system outputs including body acceleration and wheel displacement error. The feedback gains are adaptively varied by incremental amounts which are calculated based on the 'pseudo-sensitivities' of those gains to system outputs, the pseudo-sensitivities being generated by a fixed-gain model of the suspension system and being combined using weighting factors which insure convergence in accordance with the predetermined cost function. The adaptive control provides long-term compensation for varying road conditions, variations from vehicle-to-vehicle, and changes in vehicle performance.

Active suspension system with adaptive actuator gain adjustment

An active suspension system uses a closed-loop feedback controller with tunable feedback gains to produce a control signal which minimizes a cost function formed by the weighted sum of system outputs including body acceleration and wheel displacement error. The feedback gains are adaptively varied by incremental amounts which are calculated based on the 'pseudo-sensitivities' of those gains to system outputs, the pseudo-sensitivities being generated by a fixed-gain model of the suspension system and being combined using weighting factors which insure convergence in accordance with the predetermined cost function. The weighting factors are combined with the pseudo-sensitivities in a manner in which the trade-off between body acceleration, wheel displacement error and the control signal is altered with varying magnitudes of road inputs to continually minimize the cost function for varying road inputs. The adaptive control provides long-term compensation for varying road conditions, variations from vehicle-to-vehicle, and changes in vehicle performance.

Adaptive vehicle suspension system with mechanism for varying controller

A self-tuning speed control system is disclosed. The gain of the system controller is tuned to provide optimal performance based upon a sensitivity point analysis and gradient optimization of a prescribed cost index.

Growing community of inventors

Bloomfield, MI, United States of America

James Raymond Winkelman