Control apparatus
AssigneeDenso Corporation
InventorYoshinori Morita
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A control apparatus is used with a vehicle including an engine, a storage battery, and an electrical load. The control apparatus works as an automatic engine stop and restart system and calculates a SOC lower limit that is a minimum value of state of charge (SOC) of the battery required to continue to stop the engine in an idle stop mode. The control apparatus also calculates an amount of electric power expected to be consumed by the electrical load during the idle stop mode and determines an idle stop enable SOC at which the idle stop mode is entered and which is selected to be the sum of the SOC lower limit and a SOC of the battery which at least compensates for the consumed amount of electric power. This ensures chances to stop the engine in the idle stop mode and improves fuel economy.
Claims12
A control apparatus configured to be used in a vehicle having an internal combustion engine, a starter configured to start the internal combustion engine, a chargeable and dischargeable storage battery, and an electrical load which is configured to be supplied with electric power from the storage battery, comprising:
- a stop controller configured to stop the internal combustion engine in an idle stop mode when an automatic stop condition is met;
- a start controller configured to control an operation of the starter to restart the internal combustion engine when a restart condition is met during the idle stop mode;
- a lower limit calculator configured to calculate a SOC lower limit using a state of the storage battery, the SOC lower limit being a state of charge of the storage battery required to continue to stop the internal combustion engine in the idle stop mode;
- a consumed power calculator configured to calculate a consumed amount of electric power that is an amount of electric power expected to be consumed by the electrical load during a stop of the internal combustion engine in the idle stop mode;
- and
- a SOC determiner configured to determine an idle stop enable SOC that is a state of charge of the storage battery that permits the idle stop mode to be entered to stop the internal combustion engine, the idle stop enable SOC is the sum of the SOC lower limit and a SOC of the storage battery that is at least the consumed amount of electric power calculated by the consumed power calculator,
- wherein the control apparatus is configured such that the stop controller does not stop the internal combustion engine in the idle stop mode when the idle stop enable SOC is less than the state of charge of the storage battery.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.