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US 5,626,534 AGranted
Clutch control system
AssigneeAutomotive Products plc
InventorsJonathan D. Ashley, Charles J. Jones
Life of this patent
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AssigneeAutomotive Products plc
InventorsJonathan D. Ashley, Charles J. Jones
Estimating the term…
A clutch control system for the automatic control of a motor vehicle clutch which connects an engine with a gearbox under the control of a driver-operated gear ratio selector lever. The control system includes an electronic control unit which controls initial clutch take-up on starting of the vehicle, clutch re-engagment following each ratio change, clutch disengagment on movement of the gear selector lever to change the operative ratio of the gearbox, and clutch disengagment on the coming to rest, etc. of the vehicle. The control system also incorporates an automatic calibration routine which is invoked on the inital keying-on of the system, said routine comprising a predetermined sequence of events in which the system responds to actions of the operator and at predetermined that the system is ready to proceed to the next stage of the calibration.
A clutch control system for the automatic control of a motor vehicle clutch which connects an engine with a gearbox under the control of a driver-operated gear ratio selector lever, the control system comprising an electronic control unit which controls initial clutch take-up on starting of the vehicle, clutch re-engagement following each ratio change, clutch disengagement on movement of the gear selector lever to change the operative ratio of the gearbox, and clutch disengagement on the coming to rest of the vehicle, the control unit including an automatic calibration routine which is invoked on the initial keying-on of the system, said routine comprising a predetermined sequence of events (A to U) in which the system responds to actions (B,L,P3,R3) of an operator of the vehicle and at predetermined points (K,N,P11,T) in the calibration routine advises the operator that the system is ready to proceed to the next stage of the calibration.
A method of calibrating a clutch control system for the automatic control of a motor vehicle clutch which connects an engine with a gearbox under the control of a driver-operated gear ratio selector lever, the control system comprising an electronic control unit which controls initial clutch take-up on starting of the vehicle, clutch re-engagement following each ratio change, clutch disengagement on movement of the gear selector lever to change the operative ratio of the gearbox, and clutch disengagement on the coming to rest of the vehicle, comprising the step of keying on the system thus invoking an automatic calibration routine stored in the control unit in which the system responds to the actions of the operator and at predetermined points in the calibration routine advises an operator of the vehicle that the system is ready to proceed to a next stage of the calibration.
A method of calibrating each forward gear selector lever position of a clutch control system for the automatic control of a motor vehicle clutch which connects an engine with a gearbox under the control of a driver-operated gear ratio selector lever, the control system comprising an electronic control unit which controls initial clutch take-up on starting of the vehicle, clutch re-engagement following each ratio change, clutch disengagement on movement of the gear selector lever to change the operative ratio of the gearbox, and clutch disengagement on the coming to rest of the vehicle, comprising the step of moving the gear selector lever from a neutral plane to each gear selector position in turn and while in or moving towards each position performing the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.