Preview damping control apparatus and method for a vehicle

A preview damping control apparatus for a vehicle comprising:

• an in-vehicle control device including a pair of road surface displacement-related information detection devices that detect road surface displacement-related information related to a vertical displacement of at least one of positions of left and right wheels and a position in front of the left and right wheels while the vehicle is traveling, and a first control unit that controls the road surface displacement-related information detection devices,
• a preview reference database control device including a storage device that stores a preview reference database and a second control unit that controls the storage device,
• the first control unit is configured to associate the road surface displacement-related information detected by each road surface displacement-related information detection device with a position information capable of identifying a position where the road surface displacement-related information was detected, and send the associated information to the second control unit,
• the second control unit is configured to calculate road surface displacement-related values related to vertical displacements of road surfaces at two points corresponding to the left and right wheels based on detected road surface displacement-related information transmitted from the vehicle or other vehicles, and store sets of data of the road surface displacement-related values and corresponding position information associated with each other in the storage device as a part of the preview reference database, and
• the first control unit is further configured to perform preview damping control for reducing vibration of a sprung of the vehicle by using the road surface displacement-related value and the position information in the preview reference database, wherein
• at least one of the first and second control units is configured to assume that an in-phase component of road surface displacement-related values at two points corresponding to the left and right wheels is the same as a road surface displacement-related value at a point adjacent to one of the two points in a direction crossing a traveling direction of the vehicle.