Vehicle roll stability control (RSC) schemes are used to address the issue of friction-induced rollovers. RSC systems include a variety of sensors that sense vehicle states and a controller that controls a distributed brake pressure to reduce a tire lateral force such that the net moment of the vehicle is counter to the roll direction.
During an event causing the vehicle to roll, the vehicle body is subject to a roll moment due to the coupling of the lateral tire force and the lateral acceleration applied to the center of gravity of the vehicle body. This roll moment causes suspension height variation, which in turn results in a vehicle relative roll angle (also called chassis roll angle or suspension roll angle). The relative roll angle is an important variable that is used as an input to the activation criteria of RSC and to construct the feedback brake pressure control command. The sum of such a chassis roll angle and the roll angle between wheel axle and the road surface (called wheel departure angle) provides the roll angle between the vehicle body and the average road surface, which is another important variable feeding back to the roll stability control module.
Such a chassis roll angle can be calculated as in U.S. Pat. No. 6,556,908 using the lateral acceleration of the center of gravity of the vehicle body and the roll angular acceleration, together with vehicle parameters such as the sprung mass, the vehicle body roll moment of inertia, the roll stiffness and damping ratio of the suspensions and the anti-roll-bars, and the distance between the center of gravity of the vehicle body and the floor of the vehicle body. The disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 6,556,908 is hereby incorporated by reference.
One problem with using these parameters in the computation is that the aforementioned relative roll angle may vary with the vehicle operating conditions. For example, a 150 pound roof loading for a typical SUV with a curb weight of 5000 pounds may cause more than 30% error in relative roll angle calculations if computed assuming no roof load. From the vehicle mass point of view, although a 150 pound roof loading accounts for only a 3% mass variation over the vehicle curb weight, it could account for a 30% error in the chassis roll computation, which is ten times larger. If the above parameters are fixed at certain nominal values in the RSC system, it is conceivable that optimal control performance may not be achieved under a different loading condition. For example, if the relative roll angle is computed with nominal vehicle loading condition assumptions, without considering roof loading, the relative roll angle may be under estimated for vehicles with roof loadings, which results in a reduced control. That is, the control system may not be as effective as desired. On the other hand, if the relative roll angle is computed with maximum roof loading, it may be over estimated for vehicles without roof loadings causing unintended control. That is, the control system may become too sensitive or intrusive. Therefore, in order to improve the overall performance of the RSC system, it may be desirable to estimate and update the vehicle parameters periodically or adaptively in real time based on the detected roof loading.
Certain schemes for obtaining vehicle parameters have been disclosed. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,548,079, a method is disclosed for determining vehicle mass directly using engine torque and vehicle acceleration. Similarly, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,490,063, push force is determined from the driveline torque and gear ratio to obtain vehicle mass. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,167,357, instead of calculating vehicle mass directly, a recursive least square (RLS) algorithm is proposed to estimate both vehicle mass and aerodynamic coefficient online. The latter method is considered to be more reliable since it recursively adjusts for estimation error of the previous estimates. Furthermore, the use of vehicle acceleration, which is usually very noisy, is avoided. The mass estimation schemes proposed in the above-cited patents may not accurately indicate changes to parameters that impact the roll dynamics of the vehicle. For example, a 150 pound roof loading on a 5000 pound SUV, i.e., 3% mass change, might be undetectable in the above schemes due to the potential error in the engine torque, which usually is much larger than 3%. Other error sources include the tire rolling radius change due to tire pressure drop and due to the vehicle loading variations, the vehicle drag and the offset or uncertainty in the longitudinal accelerometer.
The above schemes focus mainly on large mass variations, which may have significant influences on the vehicle longitudinal dynamics and vehicle fuel consumption. They do not differentiate when the vehicle mass change is due to a floor loading or due to a roof loading. However, the roof loading causes much more significant roll motion parameter changes than does the same amount of floor loading. That is, there is a need to detect not only the amount of loading (maybe much smaller than that can be detected by the existing method), but also the location of the loading (the vertical and longitudinal distance of the loading with respect to the vehicle floor or the center of gravity of the vehicle body, for example).
Furthermore, the other parameters that affect vehicle body roll and lateral dynamics, such as the roll stiffness and damping in the suspensions and the total center of gravity height of the vehicle body with respect to the vehicle floor, the roll moment of inertia, should also be taken into account.
With the advance in electronic controls, currently, some actuators designed for vehicle's ride and handling performances are now finding their ways to be utilized for stability control and safety. For example, suspension controls might be used for achieving certain yaw stability control function through individual suspension controls. The same is true for the actuators designed for stability control are utilized for vehicle's comfort and ride handling performances. For example, the selective braking and engine torque reduction used in stability control might be utilized for adjusting the vehicle's response during non-stability event such that the driver is experiencing a smooth and less intrusive driving. As another example, the control suspensions to achieve the vehicle's ride comfort and handling performance usually adjust only the suspension parameters to counteract these road disturbances such as gravel and potholes and they are not necessarily designed to account for vehicle loading, which, as stated above, can affect vehicle response too.
Therefore, there is a need for a technique that can detect or adaptively update the vehicle parameters, including vehicle loading and loading location, the roll moment of inertia, in order to refine and improve a vehicle control system relating to both the stability control functions including roll stability control function during vehicle stability control events and the ride comfort and handling functions during normal driving events.