Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Advics Co., Ltd.

Taro Hirose

Hiroyuki Kano

Yoshiaki Tsuchiya

Theerawat Limpibunterng

Hiroaki Endo

Masaki Kinoshita

Takahiro Kojo

Toru Takashima

Ken Koibuchi

Yoshiaki Suzuki

Yoshitaka Fujita

Masahiro Miyata

Seiichi Nakashima

Susumu Fujii

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

A steering control apparatus () controls a steering mechanism to limit a behavior of a vehicle in the vehicle () equipped with the steering mechanism () which can independently steer front wheels and rear wheels. The steering control apparatus is provided with: a controlling device for controlling the steering mechanism such that a rudder angle of the front wheels and a rudder angle of the rear wheels are reverse-phased and such that a rudder angle speed of the front wheels is higher than a rudder angle speed of the rear wheels.

Steering control apparatus

This automatic clutch control device selects a normal mode when a road friction coefficient is not less than 0.3 at a disconnecting operation starting point (time t), selects a little low-speed mode when it is not less than 0.1 but less than 0.3 and selects a low-speed mode when it is less than 0.1. Further, when a vehicle stabilizing control such as a traction control or the like is not executed at the time t, this device selects the normal mode, while when a vehicle stabilizing control is executed at the time t, it selects the low-speed mode. Moreover, this device selects a high-speed mode when the vehicle is in a sports running mode at the time t, while selects the normal mode when the vehicle is not in the sports running mode. A connecting operation of a clutch is performed with a speed corresponding to the selected mode in an automatic clutch connecting/disconnecting control by a clutch connecting/disconnecting actuator upon executing a gear-shift control.

Automatic clutch control device

A new and novel device for controlling a steering characteristic of a vehicle such as automobile so as to enhance an effect of suppressing a change in a behavior of the vehicle body due to a difference between driving and braking forces on the left and right wheels is characterized in that the device makes an amount of controlling the steering characteristic smaller as an index indicating an amount of a shift of vertical loads between the left and right wheels is increased. The steering characteristic is modified through controlling steering assist torque or a steering angle of the steered wheels. The steering assist by the steering control device is fully effective when the vehicle is running on a straight road having surfaces of different frictional coefficients while less effective on a curved road having a uniform frictional surface, preventing undesirable and unexpected modification of the steering characteristic during turning of the vehicle.

Vehicle steering control device

The automatic clutch control device controls, regardless of the gear-shift operation, the clutch to be brought into a half-clutch state or to a perfect disconnecting state according to a running state of a vehicle from the following five viewpoints deceleration slip amount of driving wheels RL and RR; a convergence time of a driving wheel speed to the driving wheel in a pressure-down mode during a vehicle stabilizing control (for example, ABS control); a continuation time of a judder vibration; whether the vehicle is in a spinning state or not; and whether there is a possibility that an engine stall occurs during a traction control. As a result, this device can attain at least one or more objects of the improvement in stability of the vehicle, improvement in precision of the vehicle stabilizing control, improvement of comfortableness of the occupant and prevention of the occurrence of the engine stall.

In an acceleration slip control system for a motor vehicle, a load to act on a differential mounted in the motor vehicle is lightened to prevent the differential from seizing up. In a case where the rotational speed difference of driving wheels detected by a speed difference detector during acceleration slip control is a predetermined value or greater, the method by which the acceleration slip control is performed using a braking control device and an engine output control device is altered by a specified control unit. Braking control and/or engine output control are performed dependent upon the deviation of the speed difference of the wheels from the predetermined value, which can in turn be adjusted dependent upon the load state of the differential.

Growing community of inventors

Susono, Japan

Taro Hirose