US 2001/0027371 A1Published application

Method and apparatus for controlling the travel speed of a vehicle

AssigneeRobert Bosch GmbH

InventorsHermann Winner, Jens Lueder

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

The method of controlling travel speed of a vehicle includes controlling vehicle travel speed according to a set vehicle speed given by a driver of the controlled vehicle in a speed control mode; detecting at least one object present in front of the controlled vehicle and measuring distance to and relative speed of the at least one object when present in front of the controlled vehicle; determining whether or not a preceding vehicle is among the at least one object present in front of the controlled vehicle; controlling the vehicle travel speed according to a set distance to the preceding vehicle in a distance control mode when the preceding vehicle is present in front of the controlled vehicle; establishing whether or not a stationary object is among the at least one object present in front of the controlled vehicle; when a stationary object is found to be present, calculating a predicted travel path of the controlled vehicle and determining if the stationary object is located in the predicted travel path; when the stationary object is in the predicted travel path, calculating a relevance value (REL) of the stationary object as an obstacle for the controlled vehicle and limiting vehicle acceleration of the controlled vehicle according to the relevance value (REL) of the stationary object as an obstacle. An apparatus for performing the method is described. The apparatus includes a radar detector and a connected microcomputer.

Claims10

Dependent claims

A method of controlling travel speed of a controlled vehicle, said method comprising the steps of:

a) controlling vehicle travel speed according to a set vehicle speed given by a driver of the controlled vehicle in a speed control mode;
b) detecting at least one object present in front of the controlled vehicle and measuring distance to and relative speed of said at least one object when said at least one object is detected in front of the controlled vehicle during the detecting;
c) determining whether or not a preceding vehicle is among said at least one object when said at least one object is detected during the detecting of step b);
d) controlling the vehicle travel speed according to a set distance to said preceding vehicle in a distance control mode when said preceding vehicle is determined to be among said at least one object detected in front of said controlled vehicle in step c);
e) establishing whether or not a stationary object is among said at least one object present in front of the controlled vehicle when said at least one object is detected during the detecting of step b);
f) when a stationary object is found to be present in front of the controlled vehicle in step e), calculating a predicted travel path of the controlled vehicle and determining if the stationary object is located in the predicted travel path of the controlled vehicle;
g) when the stationary object is determined to be in the predicted travel path of the controlled vehicle in step f), calculating a relevance value (REL) of said stationary object in the predicted travel path as an obstacle for the controlled vehicle;
and
h) limiting vehicle acceleration of the controlled vehicle according to the relevance value (REL) of said stationary object as said obstacle.

6 more elements

An apparatus for control of vehicle travel speed of a controlled vehicle, said apparatus comprising

distance- and relative speed-measuring means (24) for detecting at least one object in front of the controlled vehicle and for measuring respective distance to and relative speed of said at least one object detected in front of the controlled vehicle;
and
control means (14) connected with the distance- and relative speed-measuring means (24) to receive output signals from said distance- and relative speed-measuring means (24), said control means (14) comprising means for controlling the vehicle travel speed according to a set vehicle speed value input by a driver of the controlled vehicle in a speed control mode, means for determining whether said at least one object detected in front of the controlled vehicle includes a preceding vehicle when said at least one object is detected in front of the controlled vehicle, means for controlling said vehicle travel speed according to a predetermined set distance (Dsoll) to said preceding vehicle in a distance control mode when said preceding vehicle is determined to be among said at least one object in front of said vehicle, means for determining whether said at least one object detected in front of the controlled vehicle includes a stationary object when said at least one object is detected in front of the controlled vehicle, means for calculating a relevance value (REL) of said stationary object as an obstacle for the controlled vehicle when said stationary object is determined to be among said at least one object in front of the controlled vehicle independently of the control mode and means for limiting an acceleration of said controlled vehicle in accordance with said relevance value (REL).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 09/771,291Filed 26 Jan 2001
Priority: DE 1 00 15 300.328 Mar 2000
Published: 4 Oct 2001
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification6 codes

B60W 30/16
Adaptive cruise control: control of distance between vehicles, e.g. keeping a distance to preceding vehicle
B60K 31/0008
Vehicle fittings, acting on a single sub-unit only, for automatically controlling vehicle speed, i.e. preventing speed from exceeding an…:…
B60W 2720/106
Longitudinal speed: longitudinal acceleration
B60W 2754/30
Spatial relation or speed relative to objects: longitudinal distance

Family

US 6,496,770 B2Related patent
US 2001/0027371 A1This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.

Timeline

Citations

Open elsewhere

Building an agent or pulling many patents? Use the API or MCP server instead of scraping pages. Get an API key