Vehicle and method of advising a driver therein

• US 9,493,171 B2
• Filed: 10/30/2009
• Issued: 11/15/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Inventors: Filev, Dimitar Petrov, Lu, Jianbo, Prakah-Asante, Kwaku O., Syed, Fazal Urrahman, Tseng, Fling
• Primary Examiner(s): MOYER, DALE S
• Application Number:
  US13/063,397
• Publication Number:
  US 20110187522A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,573 Days
• Field of Search: 340/439, 340/905
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2050/143 Alarm means
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2050/146 Display means
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2540/30 Driving style
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2554/801 Lateral distance
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 30/16 Control of distance between vehicles, e.g. keeping a distance to preceding vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 40/09 Driving style or behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 40/107 Longitudinal acceleration
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/16 Tactile feedback to the driver, e.g. vibration or force feedback to the driver on the steering wheel or the accelerator pedal

Abstract

A vehicle may include a driver interface and at least one controller operatively arranged with the interface. The at least one controller may be configured to determine a speed and acceleration of the vehicle, to predict a time until a future speed of the vehicle exceeds a predefined speed based on the predefined speed and the speed and acceleration of the vehicle, and to issue an alert via the interface if the time is less than a predefined time.

Claims

1. A method for advising a driver of a vehicle comprising:

generating a categorization of a driver'"'"'s dynamic control of the vehicle;

predicting an acceleration of the vehicle;

determining whether the predicted acceleration is greater than a threshold acceleration; and

activating a haptic interface before an acceleration of the vehicle exceeds the threshold acceleration when the predicted acceleration is greater than the threshold acceleration, wherein the threshold acceleration is based on the categorization.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the vehicle includes an accelerator pedal and wherein predicting an acceleration of the vehicle includes determining a position of the accelerator pedal.

3. A method for advising a driver of a vehicle comprising:

generating a categorization of a driver'"'"'s dynamic control of the vehicle; and

in response to a predicted acceleration of the vehicle being greater than a threshold acceleration that is based on the categorization, generating an alert for the driver before an acceleration of the vehicle exceeds the threshold acceleration.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the predicted acceleration is based on an accelerator pedal position.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein generating an alert for the driver includes activating a haptic interface.

6. A vehicle comprising:

an interface; and

a controller configured to generate a categorization of a driver'"'"'s dynamic control of the vehicle, and in response to a predicted acceleration of the vehicle being greater than a threshold acceleration that depends on the categorization, to generate an alert via the interface before an acceleration of the vehicle exceeds the threshold acceleration.

7. The vehicle of claim 6 further comprising an accelerator pedal, wherein the predicted acceleration is based on a position of the accelerator pedal.

8. The vehicle of claim 6 wherein the interface is a haptic interface.