Ford Global Technolgoies, LLC

Quazi Farooqi

Darrel Alan Recker

Michael Hafner

Xingping Chen

Vladimir Ivanovic

Methods and apparatus to control a torque threshold for hands on/off detection are disclosed. An example non-transitory machine readable storage medium includes instructions to cause programmable circuitry to at least identify a velocity of a steering rack or an angular velocity associated with a steering wheel, cause a first torque threshold associated with a first rotational direction of the steering wheel to be different from a second torque threshold associated with a second rotational direction of the steering wheel when the velocity or the angular velocity satisfies a threshold, identify a steering torque encountered by the steering wheel, and detect a hands off condition when the steering torque does not satisfy the first torque threshold nor the second torque threshold.

Methods and apparatus to control a torque threshold for hands on/off detection

Methods and apparatus to control a torque threshold for hands on/off detection are disclosed. An example steering system includes a steering wheel, a steering shaft operatively coupled to the steering wheel, a rack operatively coupled to the steering shaft, a translational movement of the rack to pivot wheels of a vehicle, a torque sensor operatively coupled to the steering shaft, the torque sensor to measure a torque associated with the steering shaft, an autonomous steering control system to adjust a torque threshold in response to a velocity of the rack satisfying a velocity threshold, and detect a hands off condition in response to the torque satisfying the torque threshold.

A computer includes a processor and a memory storing instructions executable by the processor to determine a planned curvature of a planned path of a vehicle, determine a friction-compensation torque based on image data received from a camera of the vehicle, and control a steering system of the vehicle based at least in part on the planned curvature and the friction-compensation torque. The friction-compensation torque compensates for friction internal to the steering system.

Friction compensation for vehicle system control

Methods and apparatus to control a torque threshold for hands on/off detection are disclosed. An example apparatus includes memory including instructions, and one or more processors to execute the instructions to cause the one or more processors to at least compare a velocity of a rack to at least one of a first velocity threshold or a second velocity threshold, adjust a first torque threshold in response to the velocity of the rack satisfying the first velocity threshold, adjust a second torque threshold in response to the velocity of the rack satisfying the second velocity threshold, compare a torque between the rack and a steering shaft to the first torque threshold and the second torque threshold, and detect a hands off condition in response to the torque between the rack and the steering shaft not satisfying the first torque threshold or the second torque threshold.

A system and a method are described. The method includes: receiving sensed input from a vehicle sensor suite; using the input, providing a first output; determining that a vehicle-lane confidence level is less than a threshold; and then instead, providing a second output, wherein the first and second outputs comprise lane-correction data, wherein the second output is determined using an estimation filter.

Growing community of inventors

Troy, MI, United States of America

Quazi Farooqi