Electric damper

• US 8,042,818 B2
• Filed: 03/03/2009
• Issued: 10/25/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/04/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda Motor Company)
• Inventors: Yamawaki, Shigeru, Shimizu, Yasuo, Yoneda, Atsuhiko, Watanabe, Katsuji
• Primary Examiner(s): Dickson; Paul N
• Assistant Examiner(s): ROCCA, JOSEPH M
• Application Number:
  US12/397,006
• Publication Number:
  US 20090224502A1
• Time in Patent Office: 966 Days
• Field of Search: 280/5.51, 280/5.515, 280/5.519, 267/140.15, 188/322.15, 701/37
• US Class Current: 280/5.515
• CPC Class Codes: B60G 17/021 the mechanical spring being a coil spring B60G17/0272 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: B60G 17/06 Characteristics of dampers , e.g. mechanical dampersB60G17/015 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: B60G 2202/25 Dynamic damper
• CPC Class Codes: B60G 2202/42 Electric actuator
• CPC Class Codes: B60G 2400/204 Vehicle speed
• CPC Class Codes: B60G 2400/252 vertical
• CPC Class Codes: B60G 2500/104 continuous
• CPC Class Codes: F16F 2232/04 Rotary-to-translation conversion

Abstract

An electric damper which does not transmit unbalance wheel vibration to a vehicle body is provided. A low-pass cutoff frequency setting unit and a high-pass cutoff frequency setting unit respectively set the cutoff frequencies for band-stop filters to a frequency band corresponding to unbalance wheel vibration based on a signal indicating a vehicle speed from a vehicle speed sensor, and a function as a band-stop filter comprising a low-pass filter computation unit, a high-pass filter computation unit and an adder is computed for a displacement rate of the vertical motion of a wheel calculated by a differentiating unit in a damper control unit. A damper control amount computation unit calculates a control amount of controlling an electric motor for a motor-driven damper based on the calculated filtered displacement rate, and outputs a control signal to a motor driving unit through a driving circuit output unit.

Claims

1. An electric damper comprising:

a conversion unit that converts a vertical motion of a wheel into a rotation of an electric motor;

a wheel vertical motion detector that detects a vertical motion of the wheel; and

a damping unit that controls the electric motor based on a signal from the wheel vertical motion detector to change damping force to damp vibration of a vertical motion of the wheel in a predetermined frequency band between a first predetermined frequency and a second predetermined frequency greater than the first predetermined frequency, wherein

the damping unit sets, in accordance with a vehicle speed, the predetermined frequency band in which the damping force is changed.

2. The electric damper according to claim 1, wherein the electric damper is mounted on a vehicle including an electric power steering device including a steering wheel torque sensor;

and

wherein the damping unit detects a magnitude of vibration corresponding to the predetermined frequency band based on a steering wheel torque detection signal from the steering wheel torque sensor, and changes the damping force based on the detected magnitude.

3. The electric damper according to claim 1, wherein the electric damper is mounted on a vehicle including an electric power steering device including a steering wheel torque sensor;

and

wherein the damping unit detects a frequency of a vibration component originating from unbalancing of the wheel based on a steering wheel torque detection signal from the steering wheel torque sensor, and changes the damping force based on the detected frequency.

4. The electric damper according to claim 1, wherein the electric damper is mounted on a vehicle including an electric power steering device including a steering wheel torque sensor;

the electric damper further comprising;

a power spectrum computation unit that computes a power spectrum of a steering wheel torque detection signal from the steering wheel torque sensor of the electric power steering device; and

an unbalance wheel vibration frequency acquiring unit that acquires a frequency of a vibration component caused by unbalance in the wheel, and a magnitude of the vibration in accordance with a vehicle speed from computation results of the power spectrum computation unit; and

the damping unit sets the predetermined frequency band based on the frequency of the vibration component acquired by the unbalance wheel vibration frequency acquiring unit, and changes the damping force in the predetermined frequency band based on the magnitude of the vibration component originating from unbalancing of the wheel.

5. The electric damper as claimed in claim 1, wherein the predetermined frequency band is a frequency band of the vertical motion of the wheel caused by unbalance vibration of the wheel.