Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Indication or control of braking – acceleration – or deceleration
Patent
1995-11-02
1998-10-06
Nguyen, Tan Q.
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Indication or control of braking, acceleration, or deceleration
701 74, 701 75, 701 82, 30312208, 303134, 303173, B60T 832
Patent
active
058191933
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This application is the U.S. national-phase application of PCT International Application No. PCT/EP94/01254.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a circuit arrangement for conditioning and evaluating sensor signals representative of the rotational behavior of the individual wheels of a vehicle and for generating a signal indicative of the vehicle speed. More particularly, this circuit arrangement can be used in anti-lock or traction slip control systems, which supply speed signals which can also be evaluated for other vehicle control or regulating systems.
Automotive vehicles are increasingly equipped with electronic regulating and control systems of different types. Sensors are an important component part of these systems. It is known to use wheel sensors for anti-lock systems (ABS) and for traction slip control (TCS) which furnish electric signals representing the rotational behavior of the controlled wheels. The rotational behavior of the individual wheels permits determining the vehicle speed, cornering or driving straight or other data related to vehicle dynamics. The quality of the sensors, above all the measuring accuracy in various speed ranges (very low speeds are particularly critical), the magnitude of the useful signal, the reliability of the sensors and also the complexity of manufacture have a major influence on the quality and price of the control systems in practice.
The speed information obtained by way of the wheel sensors as control quantities is also required for other control and regulating systems in automotive vehicles, for example, for engine control, transmission control, for driving speed controllers, for electronic speedometers and mileage meters, etc. However, the requirements of the different systems placed on the speed signals vary. For example, measuring the speed near zero is absolutely necessary for some systems, while the lower speed range is of little, if any, interest in an anti-lock system.
For vehicles having a plurality of control or regulating systems, development objectives aim at data exchange by way of communication networks, to the effect of economizing sensors, line connections, plugs, etc., by multiple use.
In case of multiple use of speed signals, on the one hand, speeds close to zero must be measured, while, on the other hand, spinning of the driven vehicle wheels should be visible on the electronic speedometer, for example.
Another difficulty is that it is frequently not possible in practical operations, for reasons of construction and due to the necessary manufacturing effort, to equip all vehicle wheels, in particular the driven and the non-driven wheels, with the same type of sensors. Therefore, the amount of the useful signal of these sensors in dependence on speed is generally different, and the problem becomes greater by inevitable manufacturing and assembling tolerances. Thus, the demand for a highest possible useful signal in the speed range proximate zero and after display of the speed of the driven wheels on the speedometer is a contradiction in practical operations because frequently the non-driven wheels must be equipped with more sensitive sensors.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to overcome the difficulty described above.
It has been discovered that this object can be achieved by a circuit arrangement in which initially automatically the highest useful signal supplied by the sensors at very low wheel speeds, i.e. at wheel speeds proximate zero and below a predetermined speed threshold is delivered as the vehicle speed signal, while above this speed threshold the signal of a sensor arranged on a driven vehicle wheel serves as a speed signal.
When using the circuit arrangement according to the present invention, it is insignificant whether wheel sensors of equal type are provided or whether, for example, particularly high-quality sensors are mounted on one or on both of the non-driven wheels which furnish a useful signal even at very low speeds. Because the amplitude of the useful si
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English translation (marked "A") filed in U.S. application No. 08/178,300.
Burgdorf Jochen
Fennel Helmut
ITT Automotive Europe GmbH
Lewis J. Gordon
Nguyen Tan Q.
Twomey Thomas N.
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