Front and rear road wheel drive apparatus for motor vehicle
AssigneeHonda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsYasuji Shibahata, Shinji Ohkuma
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A motor vehicle has a pair of main drive road wheels, a pair of auxiliary drive road wheels, and a differential disposed between the auxiliary drive road wheels, the main and auxiliary drive road wheels serving as the front and rear road wheels of the motor vehicle. An apparatus for driving the front and rear road wheels includes a speed increasing device disposed in a power transmission path leading to the differential between the auxiliary drive road wheels, detecting means for detecting a speed of travel of the motor vehicle and a steering variable, and control member for enabling the speed increasing device by predicting a turn of the motor vehicle based on the detected speed and the detected steering variable.
Claims11
An apparatus for driving the front and rear road wheels of a motor vehicle having a pair of main drive road wheels, a pair of auxiliary drive road wheels, and a differential disposed between the auxiliary drive road wheels, said apparatus comprising:
- a speed increasing device disposed in a power transmission path leading to said differential between the auxiliary drive road wheels, said speed increasing device including input and output shafts and being switchable between a direct coupling state in which the rotational speed of the input shaft is the same as that of the output shaft and a speed increasing state in which the rotational speed of the output shaft is greater than that of the input shaft;
- detecting means for detecting a steering variable;
- control means for enabling said speed increasing device to be switched by predicting a turn of the motor vehicle at least based on the detected steering variable;
- and
- said differential including clutch means for adjusting the amounts of input drive forces to be transmitted via said power transmission path independently to each opposing one of said pair of auxiliary drive road wheels.
An apparatus for driving the main and auxiliary road wheels of a motor vehicle having main and auxiliary drive road wheel mechanisms, said apparatus comprising:
- a power transmission mechanism operatively interconnecting the main and auxiliary drive road wheel mechanisms in a power transmitting relationship;
- a speed increasing device disposed in said power transmission mechanism for increasing the speed of rotation of input drive forces to be transmitted to the auxiliary drive road wheel mechanism, said speed increasing device including input and output shafts and being switchable between a direct coupling state in which the rotational speed of the input shaft is the same as that of the output shaft and a speed increasing state in which the rotational speed of the output shaft is greater than that of the input shaft;
- detecting means for detecting a steering variable;
- control means for calculating a predicted steering value at least based on the detected steering variable, and for enabling said speed increasing device to be switched when a prescribed steering condition is predicted from the predicted steering value;
- and
- said auxiliary drive road wheel mechanism including clutch means for adjusting the amounts of input drive forces to be transmitted via said power transmission mechanism independently to each opposing one of said pair of auxiliary drive road wheels.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.