Compensated vehicle heading system
First Claim
1. A compensated vehicle heading system for use with a land vehicle including at least one undriven wheel, said compensated vehicle heading system comprising:
- a magnetic heading sensor for magnetically sensing the heading of a vehicle and generating a first heading signal in accordance therewith;
a vehicle dynamic heading sensor for sensing changes in the direction of a vehicle by sensing the dynamic movement of the vehicle and generating a second heading signal in accordance therewith, said vehicle dynamic heading sensor including a first rotation sensing means for sensing the rotation of said at least one undriven wheel;
comparison means connected so as to receive said first and second heading signals for comparing said first and second heading signals and generating an output denoting whether or not said signals are different, and, if so, which signal is greater; and
,control means connected to said comparison means and to said vehicle dynamic heading sensor for increasing or decreasing the magnitude of said second heading signal in accordance with the output of said comparison means so as to move said second heading signal toward said first heading signal.
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Abstract
A compensated vehicle heading system wherein magnetic heading information is combined with heading information determined by sensing vehicle dynamic movement to provide augmented heading information is disclosed. The magnetic heading information is provided by a magnetic heading sensor. The heading information determined by sensing vehicle dynamic movement is provided by a vehicle dynamic system that senses vehicle direction changes. In one form, the vehicle dynamic system includes magnetic sensors mounted so as to sense the speed of rotation of the undriven wheels of a land vehicle and generate pulse chains in accordance therewith. These pulse chains are scaled and applied to an UP/DN counter. The output of the UP/DN counter is continuously compared with the magnetic heading information and the results of the comparisons control the gating of a trickle pulse addition to the scaled pulse chains applied to the UP/DN counter. The thusly controlled output of the UP/DN counter is the augmented heading information. The trickle pulses are created by dividing the pulse chain related to one of the undriven wheels by a predetermined factor. In addition, the UP/DN counter is set to the magnetic heading state when the system is initially activated. Further, errors are prevented by interconnecting the pulse chains such that no more than one pulse can be gated to the UP/DN counter from a particular wheel when the other wheel stops producing pulses.
37 Citations
16 Claims
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1. A compensated vehicle heading system for use with a land vehicle including at least one undriven wheel, said compensated vehicle heading system comprising:
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a magnetic heading sensor for magnetically sensing the heading of a vehicle and generating a first heading signal in accordance therewith; a vehicle dynamic heading sensor for sensing changes in the direction of a vehicle by sensing the dynamic movement of the vehicle and generating a second heading signal in accordance therewith, said vehicle dynamic heading sensor including a first rotation sensing means for sensing the rotation of said at least one undriven wheel; comparison means connected so as to receive said first and second heading signals for comparing said first and second heading signals and generating an output denoting whether or not said signals are different, and, if so, which signal is greater; and
,control means connected to said comparison means and to said vehicle dynamic heading sensor for increasing or decreasing the magnitude of said second heading signal in accordance with the output of said comparison means so as to move said second heading signal toward said first heading signal. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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Specification