Nissan Motor Company Limited

Masayasu Shimakage

Hiroshi Kawazoe

On Sadano

Shinji Matsumoto

Satoshi Tange

Hiroshi Mouri

Shigeki Satoh

Genpei Naito

Kenya Uenuma

Hiroyuki Furusho

Hiroyuki Yoshizawa

Shigeki Sato

Shigeki Satou

Hidekazu Nakajima

In a travel control method for a vehicle in which a certain target inter-vehicle distance is set from among a plurality of settable target inter-vehicle distances and a subject vehicle is controlled to follow, in an automated or autonomous manner, a traveling trajectory of a preceding vehicle traveling ahead of the subject vehicle, when a trajectory-following travel mode for following the traveling trajectory of the preceding vehicle in the automated or autonomous manner transitions from an OFF state to an ON state, the target inter-vehicle distance between the subject vehicle and the preceding vehicle is set to a relatively small value from among the settable values.

Method for controlling travel and device for controlling travel of vehicle

During automated or autonomous travel control of a subject vehicle, when a road section including at least one of a curve and a narrow road is present ahead of the subject vehicle and another vehicle is traveling in an adjacent lane to the traveling lane for the subject vehicle, inter-vehicle distance control is executed in which the subject vehicle is controlled to travel with an inter-vehicle distance that is set such that the subject vehicle and the other vehicle do not travel side by side when the subject vehicle travels in the road section.

Vehicle travel control method and travel control device

A travel control method for a vehicle detects a target trajectory along which a subject vehicle should travel and controls the subject vehicle to travel in an autonomous manner along the detected target trajectory. This method includes provisionally setting a forward gaze point distance from the subject vehicle to a forward gaze point, estimating a traveling trajectory in which the subject vehicle coincides with the target trajectory at the forward gaze point, detecting a maximum value of a lateral displacement between the estimated traveling trajectory and the target trajectory during travel from a current position of the subject vehicle to the forward gaze point, and definitely setting the forward gaze point distance when the maximum value of the lateral displacement is a predetermined value or less as an actual forward gaze point distance and controlling the subject vehicle to travel on the basis of the definitely-set forward gaze point distance.

A lane deviation avoidance system is arranged to execute a lane deviation avoidance control of controlling a vehicle behavior of the host vehicle so as to avoid the host vehicle from deviating from a traveling lane when the lane deviation tendency is detected, to suppress the driving force when the lane deviation tendency is detected, and to set a controlled variable of the lane deviation avoidance control according to a degree of the suppression of the driving force.

Lane deviation avoidance system

An automotive lane deviation prevention (LDP) apparatus includes a control unit detecting whether a host vehicle is in a specific state where the host vehicle is traveling on road-surface irregularities formed on or close to a lane marking line. The control unit actively decelerates the host vehicle when the host vehicle is in the specific state where the host vehicle is traveling on the road-surface irregularities.

Automotive lane deviation prevention apparatus

In lane keep control apparatus and method for an automotive vehicle, a deviation tendency detecting section detects whether the vehicle has a tendency of a deviation from a traveling traffic lane and a deviation avoidance controlling section performs a control for the vehicle to travel on a road surface which is parallel to the traveling traffic lane when the deviation tendency detecting section detects that the vehicle has the tendency of the deviation from the traveling traffic lane and, thereafter, performs a control to prevent a yaw angle of the vehicle with respect to the traveling traffic lane from increasing in a direction in which the tendency of the deviation becomes large.

Lane keep control apparatus and method for automotive vehicle

In lane keep control apparatus and method for an automotive vehicle, a traveling state of the vehicle is detected, a determination is made on whether the vehicle has a tendency of a deviation from the traveling traffic lane according to the detected traveling state, a deviation avoidance control is executed for the vehicle in a direction to avoid the deviation according to the traveling state, steering angles before and after a start of the deviation avoidance control are detected, and a controlled variable of the deviation avoidance control is detected on the basis of a deviation between a steering angle before the start of deviation avoidance control and that after the start of deviation avoidance control when a determination is made that the vehicle has the tendency of the deviation.

In road white line recognition apparatus and method, a road extended in a forward direction of a vehicle is photographed through a photographing device, a deflection luminance information when a luminance information of an image photographed by the photographing device is represented by a luminance information that a surface of the road naturally has and the deflection luminance information from which the luminance information that the road surface naturally has is excluded is detected on the basis of an approximation function obtained by approximating the luminance information of the photographed image to a horizontal direction of the photographed image, a normalized luminance information is detected by removing the deflection luminance information from the luminance information of the photographed image, and a road white line is detected on the basis of the normalized luminance information.

Road white line recognition apparatus and method

A lane deviation alarm system is comprised of a forward-observed-point calculating section that calculates a forward observed point by multiplying a vehicle speed of a host vehicle and an anticipated deviation time; a forward-observed-point lateral-displacement calculating section that calculates a lateral displacement at the forward-observed-point, on the basis of a yaw angle and the forward-observed-point; a lane deviation tendency determining section that determines whether the host vehicle is in a lane deviation tendency, on the basis of the forward-observed-point lateral-displacement; and a criteria changing section that changes a criteria for determining a lane deviation tendency of the host vehicle, on the basis of a detecting condition of the lane defining line.

Lane deviation alarm system

In an automotive lane deviation prevention (LDP) apparatus capable of executing LDP control by which a host vehicle is avoided from deviating from a driving lane, a control unit includes an LDP control allotted amount calculation section that calculates, responsively to a host vehicle's turning state, a steering-control allotted amount for LDP control and a braking-force-control allotted amount for LDP control, in presence of the host vehicle's lane-deviation tendency from the driving lane. In order to avoid the host vehicle's lane-deviation tendency, steering torque is controlled responsively to a steering-torque-control controlled variable determined based on the steering-control allotted amount, whereas braking forces applied to respective road wheels are controlled responsively to braking-force-control controlled variables determined based on the braking-force-control allotted amount.

A method for lane-keeping control of a lane-keeping support system provides a current command indicative of steering torque assist needed to steer a vehicle in following a target line between lane markings on a roadway during driving in lane-keeping control (LKC) mode. A map has two sets of limit data against a range of values of lateral acceleration to which the vehicle is subject, between which sets of limit data there is a range of values of the command during various phases of steering the vehicle to turn in the LKC mode. In order to compensate for undesired effect caused by any deviation of the range of values of the current command due to the presence of continuous disturbance, the two sets of limit data are corrected. To determine driver steering intervention, the instantaneous value of the current command is compared to two limit values established out of the corrected two sets of limit data.

Lane-keeping control with steering torque as a control input to a vehicle steering system

A driver assistance system ( ) assists the driver in controlling the direction of a moving vehicle along a contrived centerline between lane markings by regulating a steering bias applied to a steering system of the vehicle. An electric motor ( ) coupled to the steering mechanism provides a torque input to the steering in response to an estimate of electric current provided by an observer. The observer has a friction term matrix element (a ), which is correlated with friction in the steering mechanism. A controller ( ) is provided, which establishes a desired or ideal frequency function of lateral displacement data ( ), samples lateral displacement to provide a real frequency function of lateral displacement data ( ), compares the real frequency function with the ideal frequency function ( ), and updates or leaves unaltered the friction term (a ) based on the result of comparison.

Driver assistance system for a vehicle

A CCD camera or equivalent sensor is mounted on a vehicle and used to detect lane markings (usually the white or yellow painted lines) on a roadway. An electric motor coupled to a steering system is used to provide a torque input to the steering, which may either assist or oppose the steering torque from a driver. A steering controller is designed to assist the driver to maintain the vehicle lane position by holding the vehicle at a target point using a biasing torque. The controller resumes application of the biasing torque upon expiration of a predetermined period of delay time since a change from the absence of detection of lane marking to the presence of detection of lane marking after the presence of detection of lane marking that continues for a period of time less than a predetermined period of time has occurred a predetermined number of times within a predetermined period of monitoring time or the absence of detection of lane marking continues for a predetermined period of time.

Lane-following system by detection of lane marking

In accordance with a vehicle running condition along a lane and an actual steering angle, a control unit determine a target steering angle to follow the lane, and controls an actual steering torque with an actuator to a target steering torque to achieve the target steering angle. The control unit limits the target steering torque by setting a target torque limit determined in dependence on whether the control steering direction is a steer direction away from a straight ahead neutral position or a return direction toward the straight ahead neutral position, to take account of a self aligning torque.

Lane following vehicle control

In lane keeping assistance system and method for an automotive vehicle, a control current (Iout) to be outputted to a motor during an automatic steering mode is detected, a filter is provided for the detected control current to pass only signal components of the detected control current whose frequencies are lower than a predetermined cut-off frequency value (fstr, fstr_low, fstr_mid, fstr_hi) to derive a filtered control current (Iout_lpf), a determination of whether a manual steering intervention to the automatic steering occurs is made according to a magnitude of the filtered control current, and the control current outputted to the motor is reduced toward zero when the manual steering intervention is determined to occur according to a result of determination that the magnitude of the filtered control current (Iout_lpf) is in excess of a predetermined threshold current value (Iout_lpf_th).

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Kanagawa, Japan

Masayasu Shimakage