Sumitomo Electric Industries, Limited

Other

Yoshio Katayama

Hirohisa Tanaka

Masato Yoshino

Hideaki Fujioka

Kazuhiro Kato

Yoshihiro Watanabe

Kazumi Yasuzumi

Masahiro Sakaguchi

An ECU ( ) of a vehicle executes under-steering control when a steering wheel is operated in the direction to increase the steering angle under an under-steering state and the yaw rate does not increase. The under-steering control is not executed under such a driven under-steering state that the vehicle is cornering while applying the engine power to the driven wheels. The under-steering control is executed only under such a condition that although the steering wheel is operated in the direction to increase the steering angle, the actual yaw rate &phgr; does not change and not follow the operation. Thus, in the vehicle, when the under-steering control for restraining the under-steering state or the over-steering control for restraining the over-steering state is executed during the cornering motion of the vehicle, the condition for executing the under-steering control or the over-steering control is adequately set. In consequence, it is prevented that the driver feels a malaise due to the excessively earlier or later execution of the control so that both of higher safety and driving characteristics may be obtained.

Apparatus for controlling behavior of vehicle

An apparatus for controlling behavior of a vehicle has an ECU ( ) which estimates behavior of a yaw rate of the vehicle using a first target yaw rate, a second target yaw rate and an actual yaw rate to control the behavior of the yaw rate. The ECU ( ) completes the behavior control if a completion condition is achieved during over-steering control of the vehicle. The completion condition is any one of the following matters. The steering wheel is operated to increase the steering angle. The vehicle is running straight in a stable state. The deviation between the second target yaw rate and the actual yaw rate is stable in a region lower than a preset value. The estimative brake fluid pressure is approximately identical to the fluid pressure of the master cylinder. The slip angle is small. The absolute values of the first and second target yaw rates and the absolute value of the actual yaw rate are smaller and approximately resemble to one another.

Device for detecting failure of microcomputer in antilock controller

A wheel slip ratio correction apparatus is disclosed which includes a calculation unit for calculating a slip ratio of each wheel when the brakes are not applied to either a front wheel or a rear wheel of a mobile vehicle such as a motorcycle. The calculation unit calculates a difference between a front wheel slip ratio and a rear wheel slip ratio, and changes in the slip ratio difference, which occur within a predetermined time period, are monitored by detecting if the slip ratio difference is stable and is within a predetermined range for a predetermined period of time. If the slip ratio difference is stable and is within the predetermined range for the predetermined period of time, a correction value, dependent upon the slip ratio difference, is subtracted from the greater of the front wheel slip ratio and rear wheel slip ratio so that any undesirable difference between the front and rear wheel slip ratios may be eliminated.

Wheel slip ratio correction apparatus

An estimated vehicle speed detection apparatus for motorcycles calculates an estimated vehicle speed based on a front wheel speed and a rear wheel speed and applies antilock brake control to each of front and rear wheels based on a calculated estimated vehicle speed. The apparatus includes a memory for storing the estimated vehicle speed at the time an application of antilock brake control to either the front or rear wheel is started, or an application of brakes to either the front or rear wheel starts. The apparatus further includes a calculation unit for comparing the front wheel speed and the rear wheel speed to calculate the estimated vehicle speed based on the higher of the front wheel speed or the rear wheel speed, while antilock brake control is applied to the front or rear wheel or either a front brake or a rear brake is applied. In this case, the rear wheel speed does not exceed the estimated vehicle speed previously stored in the memory.

Estimated vehicle speed detection apparatus for motorcycles

A brake switch abnormality detection device is provided for use in a motorcycle. The device includes brake switches for producing brake signals indicative of the respective operations of the brake switches, an estimated vehicle speed calculation, unit, a brake signal detector for detecting the presence or absence of the brake signals, a comparator for comparing the estimated vehicle speed with a first predetermined speed and a second predetermined speed which is smaller than the first predetermined speed, and an abnormality detector. The abnormality detector detects abnormalities and produces an abnormality signal when the estimated vehicle speed is reduced from the first predetermined speed to the second predetermined speed without any detection of the brake signal.

Brake switch abnormality detection device

A brake control device in an antilock brake system is disclosed for automatically adjusting a valve according to a wheel brake locking symptom to reduce a fluid pressure in a brake cylinder and eliminating symptom of brake locking. The brake control device includes a microcomputer which has a step for outputting a pressure reduction signal K required to eliminate a locking symptom, and a detector for detecting a current brake cylinder pressure. The microcomputer further has a step for correcting the pressure reduction signal K based on the current brake cylinder pressure. Thus, a corrected pressure reduction signal K is used for reducing the brake cylinder pressure.

Brake control device in an antilock brake system

An antilock brake control system for a motorcycle having front and rear wheels includes detectors for detecting front and rear wheel velocities, and a calculator for calculating an estimated velocity of the motorcycle. The calculator also calculates a slippage of the front and rear wheels relatively to the estimated motorcycle velocity. The amount of slippage is corrected by a compensation amount determined by the detection of various situations such as presence and absence of antilock control applied to front or rear wheel and presence and absence of brake applied to front or rear wheel.

Antilock brake control system for a motorcycle

An antilock control device has a calculating unit for calculating the vehicle speed from the wheel speed signals from wheel speed sensors, a processing/lock state detecting unit adapted to judge whether the wheels are showing a locking tendency or recovering from locked state on the basis of the signals from the wheel speed sensors and the calculating unit and produce a command to reduce or increase the braking pressure on the basis of the result of judgement, and a brake fluid pressure circuit operable in response to the pressure control command from the lock state detecting unit. The calculating unit is adapted to select the highest wheel speed and the lowest wheel speed from among the wheel speeds of all the wheels, judge whether or not the difference therebetween is smaller than a predetermined value, select the highest wheel speed as a reference wheel speed if the difference is smaller than the predetermined value and select the lowest wheel speed as the reference wheel speed if the difference is larger than the predetermined value, and calculate the vehicle speed from the reference wheel speed.

Growing community of inventors

Itami, Japan

Yoshio Katayama