Motor vehicles – With means for promoting safety of vehicle – its occupant or...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-10
2001-02-20
Rice, Kenneth R. (Department: 3611)
Motor vehicles
With means for promoting safety of vehicle, its occupant or...
C180S282000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06189645
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a air supply system of an automobile and methods employing thereof that are capable of preventing a vehicle from suddenly accelerating regardless of a driver's intention so as to secure a vehicle's stability and driver's safety.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Generally, an automatic torque converter comprises a torque converter, a gear train connected the torque converter for achieving a wide range of speeds and loads, and a hydraulic control system for selecting a necessary gear ratio by applying or releasing hydraulic pressure to or from desired friction elements.
Thus, in a vehicle equipped with an automatic transmission, gear shifting is performed by an electronic control unit (ECU), which sends electric control signals to a plurality of solenoid valves for controlling hydraulic flows, a medium for operating friction elements.
Recently, traffic accidents caused by sudden acceleration without relation to the driver's intention have been reported and one reason of these sudden accelerations is thought to be malfunctions of the solenoid valves caused by electromagnetic waves.
However, in a normal running state of the vehicle, such an uncontrolled sudden acceleration can not theoretically occur because the hydraulic flow control is ultimately performed by the driver's shift lever manipulation. Furthermore, even when there is a malfunction, the gear ratio is locked in third gear.
Other possible causes of uncontrolled accelerations of these vehicles are though to be as follows:
first, a speed range shift due to select lever manipulation while the accelerator is depressed;
second, a speed range shift when the idle revolutions per minute (rpm) of the engine is above normal due to an insufficient warm up of the engine;
third, a malfunction of the ECU caused by the driver's habitual tapping on the acceleration pedal, which temporarily increases the engine rpm;
and finally, a speed range shift that occurs if the vehicle is started without depressing the brake pedal, a situation in which the engine rpm increases temporally to compensate for the load generated during a speed range shift.
Recently, various technologies for preventing the vehicle's uncontrolled acceleration have been proposed. Most of the uncontrolled acceleration preventing technologies adapt a method for the analysis of the vehicle speed, the gear ratio of the transmission, and the engine rpm so as to adjust the engine performance if any unbalance is detected.
However, electrical analysis technologies for adjusting engine rpm use electrical circuit devices for detecting a failure. Hence, such devices are also susceptible to the effects of electromagnetic waves.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been made in an effort to solve the above problems of the prior art.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved air supply system for preventing a sudden acceleration by stopping the engine when the vehicle starts with an abnormal rpm.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for preventing a sudden acceleration by cutting off air flow in the air supply system so as to stop the engine when the vehicle starts with an abnormal rpm.
To achieve the above first object, the air supply system of auto vehicle for preventing a sudden acceleration includes an air cleaner, a throttle body having a throttle valve and which is connected to the air cleaner by an air transfer duct, and a surge tank connected to the throttle body by an air transfer duct, wherein the air supply system further comprises an intake air cutoff means provided between the throttle body and the surge tank for selectively cutting off an air flow from the throttle body to the surge tank, and a cutoff control means electrically connected to the intake air cutoff means for determining whether to cut off or not the intake air flow.
To achieve the above second object, the method for preventing a sudden acceleration of auto vehicle comprises the steps of determining whether an engine is on or not; determining whether a present vehicle's condition corresponds to a sudden acceleration condition by calculating a present slip amount of a drive wheel and comparing the slip amount to a predetermined standard amount if the engine is on; and then stopping engine if the present vehicle condition corresponds to a sudden acceleration condition.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5515939 (1996-05-01), Korall et al.
patent: 5613571 (1997-03-01), Rank et al.
Hyundai Motor Company
Rice Kenneth R.
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