Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Vehicle subsystem or accessory control
Reexamination Certificate
2001-07-31
2003-05-13
Louis-Jacques, Jacques H. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Vehicle subsystem or accessory control
C701S038000, C280S005502, C280S005515
Reexamination Certificate
active
06564129
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The technical field of this invention is the dynamic control of motor vehicles.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Motor vehicles are designed for a variety of dynamic behaviors, depending on the intended users. Some are designed with an emphasis on comfort and smoothness of ride. Others are designed for tight control and handling characteristics for performance driving. Typically, these dynamic behaviors are considered somewhat mutually exclusive in many ways; and a typical vehicle is designed to be a compromise between comfort and performance. But the development of real time vehicle dynamic controls has provided apparatus capable of changing dynamic characteristics of vehicles in response to sensed operator control inputs or vehicle parameters and thus behaving differently in different dynamic situations.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention contributes to a vehicle that exhibits dynamic characteristics that permit a generally comfortable ride but automatically modulate to a firmer handling characteristic as required to handle certain vehicle dynamic events. It uses suspension apparatus at the front and/or the rear of a motor vehicle that is capable of controlling vertical wheel and body motions and roll stiffness, such as controllable dampers, controllable springs, and/or controllable anti-sway apparatus such as torsion bars and is automatically responsive to sensed vehicle dynamic events to provide altered vehicle dynamic characteristics.
In one aspect of the invention, a motor vehicle has a body supported on a front pair of wheels and a rear pair of wheels, a vehicle acceleration producing device coupled to at least one of the pairs of wheels, a control for the acceleration producing device and a vertical wheel motion constraining apparatus associated with the one of the front pair of wheels and the rear pair of wheels. Responsive to the control, a commanded forward vehicle acceleration is sensed and, during the forward vehicle acceleration, the vertical wheel motion constraining apparatus is loosened so as to provide optimal traction for the one of the pair of wheels.
In another aspect of the invention, a motor vehicle has a body supported on a front pair of wheels with front suspension apparatus providing controllable vertical wheel constraint and roll stiffness and a rear pair of wheels with rear suspension apparatus providing controllable vertical wheel constraint and rear roll stiffness. The vehicle further has a vehicle acceleration producing device coupled to at least one of the pairs of wheels and a control for the acceleration producing device. Responsive to the control, a commanded forward vehicle acceleration is sensed and, during the forward vehicle acceleration, at least one of the front suspension apparatus and the rear suspension apparatus is controlled to produce a lessening of vertical wheel constraint in the one of the pairs of wheels coupled to the vehicle acceleration producing device, relative to the other of the pairs of wheels. The one of the front suspension apparatus and the rear suspension apparatus may be a variable roll bar coupling the driven wheels that it is varied in direction to permit greater independence in vertical motion between the driven wheels, or a controllable damper associated with each of the driven wheels that is varied to permit easier vertical motion of the driven wheels, or an adjustable spring associated with each of the driven wheels that is varied to permit easier vertical motion of the driven wheels.
In another aspect of the invention, a motor vehicle has a body supported on a front pair of wheels and a rear pair of wheels, a propulsion motor coupled to at least one of the pairs of wheels and a control for driving the vehicle at a variable speed. Responsive to a sensed speed of the vehicle, at least one of the front suspension apparatus and the rear suspension apparatus is controlled to increase roll stiffness in the front suspension apparatus relative to roll stiffness in the rear suspension apparatus, and thus vehicle understeer, with increasing vehicle speed. The one of the front suspension apparatus and the rear suspension apparatus may be a variable roll bar coupling the front wheels and varied to permit decreasing independence in vertical motion between the front wheels with increasing vehicle speed, a variable roll bar coupling the rear wheels and varied to permit increasing independence in vertical motion between the rear wheels with increasing vehicle speed, or both.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4712807 (1987-12-01), Kurosawa
patent: 5168955 (1992-12-01), Naito
patent: 5228719 (1993-07-01), Fukuyama et al.
patent: 5540299 (1996-07-01), Tohda et al.
patent: 5809444 (1998-09-01), Hadeler et al.
patent: 6366841 (2002-04-01), Ohsaku
Delphi Technologies Inc.
Louis-Jacques Jacques H.
Sigler Robert M.
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