Preview damping control apparatus for vehicle and preview damping control method for vehicle

A preview damping control apparatus for a vehicle comprising:

• an on-board navigation apparatus, including a receiver that receives signals transmitted from positioning satellites and a map data base that has stored information including road map information in advance, configured to obtain a present position of the vehicle using the received signals transmitted from positioning satellites and to determine, based on the present position of the vehicle and the road map information stored in the map data base, a guidance route to a destination for providing a route guidance to a driver of the vehicle;
• a communication device configured to be able to communicate with outside of the vehicle;
• a control force generating device configured to generate a control force to a part corresponding to a wheel of the vehicle to damp a vibration of a sprung mass of the vehicle;
• a control unit configured to perform a preview damping control to damp the vibration of the sprung mass by letting the control force generating device generate, at a time point at which the wheel actually reaches a predicted passing through position which the wheel is predicted to reach and which is ahead of the wheel, the control force that corresponds to a force determined based on road surface displacement correlating information that correlates with a vertical displacement of a road surface at the predicted passing through position;
• and
• an on-board memory device configured to store the road surface displacement correlating information,
• wherein
• the control unit is configured to:
• obtain, through communication of the communication device, the road surface displacement correlating information from an external storage device that is located outside of the vehicle, and perform the preview damping control using the obtained road surface displacement correlating information, when the vehicle is traveling within a communicably area in which the vehicle can communicate with the external storage device;
• specify, at a time point at which the navigation apparatus determines the guidance route, a communication disruption area through which the guidance route passes, wherein the communication disruption area is an area in which the vehicle is hard to communicate with the external storage device;
• obtain, at the time point at which the navigation apparatus determines the guidance route, from the external storage device through communication of the communication device, the road surface displacement correlating information corresponding to the specified communication disruption area;
• store the obtained road surface displacement correlating information in the on-board memory device, when the road surface displacement correlating information is obtained from the external storage device;
• perform the preview damping control using the road surface displacement correlating information that has been stored in the on-board memory device, while the vehicle is traveling within the communication disruption area;
• specify, when the navigation apparatus does not determine the guidance route, as a predicted traveling route, a route from a present position of the vehicle to a point from which a road ahead of the vehicle diverges, based on the present position of the vehicle, a change in a position of the vehicle with respect to time, and the road map information that has been stored in the map data base in advance, while the vehicle is traveling within the communicably area;
• specify the communication disruption area within the predicted traveling route while the vehicle is traveling within the communicably area;
• obtain, through communication of the communication device, the road surface displacement correlating information for the specified communication disruption area from the external storage device, at a time point at which the vehicle reaches a position predetermined distance before the specified communication disruption area while the vehicle is traveling within the communicably area;
• store the obtained road surface displacement correlating information in the on-board memory device, when the road surface displacement correlating information is obtained from the external storage device;
• and
• perform the preview damping control using the road surface displacement correlating information that has been stored in the on-board memory device, while the vehicle is traveling within the communication disruption area.