US 11,932,254 B1Granted

Powertrain torque control during a transmission shift

AssigneeFord Global Technologies, LLC

InventorsCory Benson LaRoche, Stephen Michael Cicala, Jianping Zhang, Bradley Dean Riedle, Jesse D. L. Brunais, Michael Simon, Leonard Dziubinschi

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Abstract

A vehicle includes an engine, a transmission, and a controller. The engine is configured to generate power. The transmission is configured to transfer power from the engine to at least one drive wheel to propel the vehicle. The controller is programmed to, in response to a command to shift the transmission and a corresponding command to decrease a torque of the engine to less than a threshold corresponding to a spark retard limit during the shift, (i) increase the pressure of an oncoming clutch to engage the oncoming clutch, (ii) retard an engine spark at the spark retard limit to reduce the torque of the engine to the threshold during the engagement of the oncoming clutch, and (iii) shutdown at least one cylinder of the engine to further reduce the torque of the engine to less than the threshold during the engagement of the oncoming clutch.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A vehicle comprising:

an engine configured to generate power;
a transmission (i) configured to transfer power from the engine to at least one drive wheel to propel the vehicle and (ii) having a plurality of clutches configured to shift the transmission between a plurality of gear ratios;
an accelerator pedal configured to generate a command corresponding to a desired engine torque in response to depression of the accelerator pedal;
and
a controller programmed to,
in response to a command to shift the transmission, (i) increase a pressure of an oncoming clutch to engage the oncoming clutch and (ii) reduce a torque of the engine from the desired engine torque to a reduced value,
in response to the reduced value exceeding a threshold, retard an engine spark and maintain operation of all cylinders of the engine to reduce the torque of the engine during the engagement of the oncoming clutch,
in response to the reduced value being less than the threshold, retard the engine spark and shutdown at least one cylinder of the engine to reduce the torque of the engine during the engagement of the oncoming clutch, and
in response to completing the shift of the oncoming clutch, increase the torque of the engine to the desired engine torque.

6 more elements

A vehicle comprising:

an engine configured to generate power;
a transmission configured to transfer power from the engine to at least one drive wheel to propel the vehicle;
and
a controller programmed to,
in response to a command to shift the transmission and a corresponding command to decrease a torque of the engine to a first value that is greater than a threshold during the shift, (i) increase a pressure of an oncoming clutch of the transmission to engage the oncoming clutch and (ii) retard an engine spark and maintain operation of all cylinders of the engine to reduce the torque of the engine during the engagement of the oncoming clutch,
in response to the command to shift the transmission and a corresponding command to decrease the torque of the engine to a second value that is less than the threshold during the shift, (i) increase the pressure of the oncoming clutch to engage the oncoming clutch and (ii) retard the engine spark and shutdown at least one cylinder of the engine to reduce the torque of the engine during the engagement of the oncoming clutch, and
in response to the command to shift the transmission and the corresponding command to decrease the torque of the engine to the first value, (i) ramp up a pressure of the oncoming clutch to a desired value and (ii) ramp down the torque of the engine to the first value during the engagement of the oncoming clutch, such that the pressure of the oncoming clutch reaches the desired value and the torque of the engine decreases to the first value within a predetermined time tolerance.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.