Vibration damping control apparatus

A vibration damping control apparatus for a vehicle, comprising:

• a speed obtainment section configured to obtain information regarding speed of the vehicle;
• 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;
• and
• a control unit configured
• to compute a predicted route that the wheel is predicted to pass,
• to obtain first data from road surface information which is data in which relationships are established among position information representing a position on a road surface, a road surface displacement related value obtained when a measurement vehicle traveled and passed the position on the road surface, and speed information representing a speed of the measurement vehicle at the time when the measurement vehicle traveled and passed the position on the road surface, the first data representing a time series change of the road surface displacement related value on the predicted route,
• to obtain, from the first data, as preview information, the road surface displacement related value at a predicted passage position that the wheel is predicted to pass after elapse of an advance read time from a present point in time,
• to compute a target control force which is a target value of the control force by using the preview information, and
• to execute preview vibration damping control for controlling the control force generating apparatus on the basis of the target control force,
• wherein the control unit is further configured
• to obtain the speed Information at the predicted passage position from the road surface information,
• to execute a first process on the first data in the case where the speed of the vehicle at the present point in time is higher than a speed represented by the speed information, the first process being a low-pass filter process for reducing or removing components within a frequency band higher than a first cutoff frequency, and
• to obtain the preview information from the first data having been subjected to the first process.