Denso Corporation

Toyoda Koki Kabushiki Kaisha

Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Other

Jtekt Corporation

Masahiro Miyata

Takahiro Kojo

Kazumasa Kodama

Kenichiro Hidaka

Toshio Tsutsui

Mikihiro Hiramine

Toru Takashima

Yasuo Ito

Yoshiaki Tsuchiya

Masatoshi Nakatsu

Yoshiaki Suzuki

Junji Kawamuro

Theerawat Limpibunterng

Hisashi Kameya

Taro Hirose

Motoshi Kawai

Mitsutomo Iwase

Susumu Fujii

Takeshi Hirochi

A vehicle steering control apparatus () in a vehicle (), which is provided with: a steering system including at least a rudder angle varying device () capable of changing a relation between a steering angle, which is a rotation angle of a steering wheel (), and a rudder angle of steered wheels and a steering torque assisting device () capable of assisting a driver steering torque; and a power supply source () for supplying electric power to the steering system, is provided with: a limiting device for limiting electric current consumption of the steering torque assisting device if a consumption current value of the steering system is greater than a maximum allowable current value in a case where supply capacity of supplying an electric current in the power supply source is reduced with respect to a reference; and a controlling device for matching a neutral position of the steering wheel with a neutral position of the steered wheels in a situation in which the electric current consumption of the steering torque assisting device is limited.

Vehicle steering control apparatus

An inverter circuit includes a bridge circuit constituted of a plurality of pairs of a high-side switching element and a low-side switching element, a command signal processing section, a pulse generating section for generating pulse signals to control the inverter bridge circuit according to the command signal to have a dead time to prevent short circuiting of the dc power source and a command signal compensation section. The compensation section modifies the command signal according to a current voltage level of the dc power source to control the dead zone, thereby preventing deformation of ac output power of the bridge circuit.

Inverter circuit free from power-source-voltage fluctuation

A motor controller including an inverter including plural switching elements that are subjected to PWM control to generate sine waves of plural phases, a motor including a stator coil supplied with the sine waves thus generated so that rotational magnetic field is generated in the stator coil, and a rotor that is rotationally driven by the action of the rotational magnetic field generated by the stator coil, a storage unit for detecting the sine waves of the respective phases generated in the inverter and storing a correction amount for each phase that is calculated on the basis of the detection result so that the sine waves of the respective phases are coincident with one another and a correcting unit for correcting a PWM signal for carrying out the PWM control on the switching elements on the basis of the correction amount thus calculated.

Motor controller and steering device

A variable transmission ratio steering apparatus for a vehicle is configured with an input shaft coupled to a steering wheel of the vehicle, a sensor for sensing a rotation angle of the input shaft, an output shaft operatively linked to steerable road wheels of the vehicle, an actuator having an electric motor which is configured to vary a transmission ratio between a rotation angle of the output shaft and the rotation angle of the input shaft, and a controller. More specifically, the controller includes a desired rotation angle calculation unit, a difference calculation unit, and a difference limitation unit, whereby a rotation angle of a rotor of the electric motor is limited. With such a configuration, a rotation speed of the rotor of the electric motor can be limited by limiting the rotation angle of the rotor, and consequently, audible operation noises arising from the electric motor can be minimized.

Variable transmission ratio steering apparatus

A control unit for a brushless motor has an upper-arm current detector for detecting an electric current flowing into an upper-arm switching transistor for driving the brushless motor, and a lower-arm current detector for detecting an electric current flowing into a lower-arm switching transistor. The control unit controls the current that flows into the brushless motor based on the upper-arm current value when it is so determined that the lower-arm current value cannot be detected. The control unit detects abnormal condition in the first current detector based on the upper-arm current value.

Apparatus for driving a brushless motor

A brushless motor driving device having a current detecting unit for detecting a phase-current of a brushless motor, a voltage detecting unit for detecting a phase voltage of the brushless motor, and a signal input portion to which the detection value of the phase-current and the detection value of the phase-voltage are input and which has plural input terminals arranged sequentially. The detection values of phase currents or detection values of phase voltages which are different in characteristic are input to adjacent input terminals.

Brushless motor driving device

A drive controlling unit includes a final angle position memorizing device for memorizing a final angle position at a time of termination of the vehicle driving operation, an input complete data memorizing device capable of switching the memory content between a first memory condition and a second memory condition. The first memory condition indicates completeness of writing of the final angle position in the final angle position memorizing device. The second memory condition indicates failure in writing the final angle position therein. The input complete data memorizing device is capable of maintaining the memory content even when the vehicle is stationary.

Vehicle steering control system

A vehicle steering control system is provided which is capable of reliably protecting a motor for driving a wheel steering shaft. In the system, a current sensor and a motor rotational speed detection section respectively detect a current applied to the steering shaft drive motor and the motor rotational speed of the steering shaft drive motor, and current inference means infers the motor current applied to the steering shaft drive motor based on the detected motor rotational speed. Abnormal judgment means compares the current inference value obtained by the current inference means with a current detection value indicated by the current sensor to judge whether the current sensor is normal or not. Abnormal judgment output means outputs the result of the abnormal judgment when the current sensor is judged to be abnormal. When a trouble occurs that the current sensor fails to operate normally due to the malfunction or the like, such a trouble can be recognized at the early stage of the malfunction. Therefore, it can be successfully obviated that the current sensor has fallen in the malfunction, nevertheless the operation of the motor is continued as usual.

The terminal voltages of respective phase coils of a steering shaft driving motor constituted by a three-phase brushless motor are separately detected. When the terminal voltages detected at at least three different conducting terminals u, v, and w are made Vu, Vv, and Vw, respectively, and the values when those detected values Vu, Vv, and Vw are arranged in order from largest to smallest voltage are made V, V, and V, respectively, provided that V&#x2267;V&#x2267;V, a calculation is performed to determine if V+Vcoincides with 2*Vwithin a predetermined allowable range, and a failure is determined based on results obtained from such a calculation.

A vehicle steering control system is provided which is capable of reliably protecting a motor for driving a wheel steering shaft. The offset output characteristic of a current sensor for detecting the electric current applied to the steering shaft drive motor is actually measured prior to the actual use of the steering control system, and offset compensation information is prepared based on the measured value of the offset output characteristic for storage in an EEPROM. Further, an output value of the current sensor and an output value of a reference current measuring system are measured independently of each other with the supply voltage for use in measurement being set to a constant value. Then, current gain compensation information is prepared based on the output values so measured and is stored in the EEPROM. In the later actual use (i.e., after shipment) of the control system, the output of the current sensor is compensated based on the offset compensation information and the current gain compensation information.

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Kariya, Japan

Masahiro Miyata