Vibration damping control apparatus

A vibration damping control apparatus for a vehicle, comprising:

• a control force generating apparatus configured to generate control force in a vertical direction for damping vibration of a sprung portion of the vehicle, the control force being applied between at least one wheel and a portion of a body of the vehicle, which portion corresponds to a position of the wheel;
• a control unit which obtains measurement data in which a road surface displacement related value obtained when a measurement vehicle traveled on a road surface and relating to displacement of the road surface in the vertical direction is related to position information representing a position where the road surface displacement related value was obtained, the control unit determining a predicted passage position that the wheel is predicted to pass after elapse of a predetermined time from the present point in time, obtaining, as preview information, the road surface displacement related value at the predicted passage position on the basis of the measurement data, and executing preview vibration damping control for controlling the control force generating apparatus in such a manner that, at a point in time when the wheel passes the predicted passage position, the control force coincides with a final target control force including a first target control force computed by using the preview information;
• and
• an information obtaining apparatus configured to obtain the road surface displacement related value while the vehicle is traveling, wherein
• the control unit is configured
• to obtain, from the information obtaining apparatus, as a first value, the road surface displacement related value at a passage position that the wheel of the vehicle has passed at the present point in time,
• to obtain, as a second value, the road surface displacement related value at the passage position on the basis of the measurement data,
• to determine whether or not a first condition is satisfied by using the first value and the second value, the first condition being satisfied when a probability that a road surface condition at the passage position has changed after creation of the measurement data is high, and
• to execute a particular control, when the control unit determines that the first condition is satisfied, so as to set the magnitude of the first target control force to be smaller as compared with the case where the first condition is not satisfied.