Tire contact load control system

Abstract

An active actuator is interposed between the unsprung mass and the sprung mass of a vehicle, and a controller selectively extends and retracts the actuator at a prescribed acceleration so as to selectively apply an additional contact load to the wheel by making use of the inertial force of the sprung mass and/or the unsprung mass of the vehicle. Thus, the tire contact load of each wheel can be increased at will and independently from the other wheels so that the gripping force available to each wheel can be increased as required by appropriately operating the corresponding actuator. Therefore, the braking performance and the accelerating performance for the given road condition can be improved. Additionally, even when a frictional coefficients for the right and left wheels differ from each other, by appropriately applying an additional contact load to the wheel travelling over the more slippery part of the road surface, the stability of the vehicle can be also substantially increased.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.