Vehicle suspension control using a scaled wheel demand force
AssigneeGeneral Motors Corporation
InventorsScott W. Badenoch, David A. Shal, Scott A. Stacey
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of controlling a vehicle suspension system comprising the steps of: determining a relative velocity between a wheel and the corner of a vehicle body; determining responsive to the relative velocity, according to a non-linear passive function, a raw wheel demand force; determining an average vertical velocity of the wheel; determining, responsive to the average vertical velocity of the wheel, a first scaling factor; multiplying the first scaling factor by the raw wheel demand force to determine a scaled wheel demand force; and controlling the vehicle suspension system responsive to the scaled wheel demand force.
Claims6
A method of controlling a vehicle suspension system comprising the steps of:
- determining a relative velocity between a wheel and a corresponding corner of a vehicle body;
- determining responsive to the relative velocity, according to a non-linear passive function, a raw wheel demand force;
- determining an average vertical velocity of the wheel;
- determining, responsive to the average vertical velocity of the wheel, a first scaling factor;
- multiplying the first scaling factor by the raw wheel demand force to determine a scaled wheel demand force;
- and
- controlling the vehicle suspension system responsive to the scaled wheel demand force.
An apparatus comprising:
- a suspended vehicle body;
- four un-suspended vehicle wheels;
- four variable force actuators mounted between the vehicle body and wheels at four corners of the vehicle;
- four sensors, one sensor mounted at each of the four corners of the vehicle, each sensor comprising one member of a group of sensors comprising:
- a relative position sensor and a relative velocity sensor;
- a microprocessor control unit comprising, for each corner of the vehicle, (a) means for receiving a sensor signal from the sensor mounted at the corresponding corner of the vehicle, (b) means for determining responsive to the sensor signal, according to a nonlinear passive function, a raw wheel demand force, (c) means for determining an average vertical velocity of the wheel, (d) means for determining, responsive to the average vertical velocity of the wheel, a first scaling factor, (e) means for multiplying the first scaling factor by the raw wheel demand force to determine a scaled wheel demand force, and means for controlling one of the four variable force actuators responsive to the scaled wheel demand force.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.