Road friction coefficient estimating apparatus

Abstract

A control section of a road friction coefficient estimating apparatus inputs a vehicle speed, a steering wheel angle and a yaw rate from a vehicle speed sensor, a steering wheel angle sensor and a yaw rate sensor, respectively. The control section comprises a reference yaw rate calculating section, a yaw rate deviation calculating section, a yaw rate deviation dispersion calculating section and a road friction coefficient establishing section. The reference yaw rate calculating section calculates a reference yaw rate based on vehicle speed and steering angle in accordance with a vehicle motion model. The yaw rate deviation calculating section calculates a yaw rate deviation based on the reference yaw rate and the actual yaw rate. The yaw rate deviation dispersion calculating section calculates a dispersion of the yaw rate deviation for a specified sampling number. The road friction coefficient establishing section establishes and outputs a road friction coefficient by referring to a look-up table parameterizing the dispersion.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.