JPH0141528B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a constant speed travel control device for automatically maintaining the traveling speed of a vehicle equipped with a prime mover, such as an automobile, at a constant speed.

In cars, etc., the target speed is set to 60 per hour, for example.
Km, 100 Km, etc., and constant speed travel control devices (autodrives) are becoming available that automatically control the vehicle to travel at the specified set target speed during steady state. In the case of such a constant speed cruise control device, for example, when a return operation is performed after canceling constant speed travel related to a brake operation, or when the target speed is increased during constant speed travel, automatic acceleration is performed. The operation is about to take place.

However, with conventional constant speed cruise control devices, during the above-mentioned return operation or acceleration operation to increase the target speed, control is performed to pull the throttle actuator all the way to the speed increasing side. I was doing it. Therefore, its acceleration is
It is a specific thing determined by the acceleration characteristics of the vehicle. Therefore, the acceleration in such a case is sometimes larger than what the driver intends, which not only gives the driver a sense of discomfort but is also unfavorable for safe driving.

For this reason, it has been considered to set the throttle valve so that it opens about half when the throttle actuator is pulled through its full stroke. However, if this is done, the control characteristics on uphill roads, for example, may be sacrificed, making it difficult to perform preferable driving speed control.

This invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned points. For example, the acceleration at the time of return operation after canceling constant speed driving or when accelerating when increasing the target speed matches the driver's sense of acceleration. It is an object of the present invention to provide a constant speed driving control device for automobiles, etc., which eliminates complaints about too small acceleration and anxiety about too large acceleration, and enables safe and comfortable driving control.

That is, the constant speed driving control device according to the present invention detects the acceleration of the driver during normal driving, stores the acceleration in correspondence with the frequency of acceleration occurrence, and statistically calculates the acceleration of the driver. By processing and learning, the acceleration at the time of acceleration operation and return operation is made to match the driver's sense of acceleration.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows the overall configuration of a constant speed running control device. Reference numeral 11 is a control device that includes an arithmetic processing circuit 12 such as a microcomputer, and this control device 11 is connected to a throttle actuator 13. Give release commands, control commands, etc. This throttle actuator 13 is operatively connected to a throttle valve 14 serving as a speed regulating element, and is composed of a known negative pressure mechanism including a control valve and a release valve for regulating internal pressure. Ru. The control device 11 is given commands from a group of actuation switches, including a set switch 15 which instructs the start of constant speed driving, and a set switch 15 which instructs the start of constant speed driving, and a set switch 15 which instructs the start of constant speed driving, and a target speed by acceleration after the start of constant speed driving. accelerator switch 16 for setting speed increase;
From a resume switch 17 that returns to the target vehicle speed before the cancellation after constant speed driving and starts constant speed driving, and a constant speed driving cancellation switch 18 that is processed by logical sum with a normal brake signal, etc. configured.

Further, the control device 11 is supplied with vehicle speed information from a vehicle speed detection mechanism 19, which includes, for example, a rotating body 19 having four magnetic poles rotated by a meter cable corresponding to the rotation of the wheels.
a and a reed switch 19b which is driven to close each time the respective magnetic poles approach each other, and is configured to generate four pulse signals with one revolution of the meter cable, that is, the rotating body 19a. In this case, for example, when driving at 60 km/h, the meter cable rotates 637 times. A main switch 20 supplies a power source 21 such as an on-vehicle battery to the control device 11.

Figure 2 explains the flow of operation when the main switch 20 is turned on and powered on in the device configured as described above, and shows the steps.
When powered on at step 30, the initialization routine of step 31 is executed. This initial setting routine 31
performs inspection of the internal data memory included in the processing circuit 12, initialization of port input/output instructions and output ports, and initialization processing of internal data.
During the initial settings immediately after power-on, set switch 15 and resume switch 1 are set.
7 etc. has not been performed, so step 32
The determination of the set operation in step 33 and the determination of the resume operation in step 33 are both "NO", and the determination in step 100 is "NO".
The acceleration calculation is performed, and these steps 32, 33,
100 is executed repeatedly.

Step 32 is a routine for determining whether or not the set switch 15 has been operated, as described above, and if the set switch 15 has been operated, "YES" is returned.
Depending on the output, the process proceeds to step 34, where the controlled vehicle speed is stored. Also, step 33 is the resume switch 1.
7 has been operated and whether the target control vehicle speed has been memorized.
If the operation in step 7 is performed and the controlled vehicle speed is stored, the process proceeds to step 35 with a "YES" output, and a constant speed driving control start process is performed. And step 100
In this case, acceleration information is detected from the driving situation of the driver and a target acceleration suitable for the driver is calculated.The details will be explained later using FIG. 3.

As described above, if the set switch 15 is operated while the vehicle speed is not yet under constant speed control, the process advances from step 32 to step 34, where the current vehicle speed is memorized as the target speed, and the process proceeds to the following step.
At step 35, flag processing for starting control and driving processing for the release valve of the actuator 13 are executed, and the process proceeds to step 40 of the control routine.

This control routine step 40 includes a step 41 for determining the presence or absence of an accelerator operation, a control vehicle speed storage step 42, an acceleration control processing step 43, a step 44 for determining the presence or absence of a cancel signal by operating the cancel switch 18, and a step 44 for determining the presence or absence of a cancel signal by operating the cancel switch 18.
Steps to determine whether or not the resume is in progress
45, it also includes a step 46 for determining whether or not the resume has ended, and a constant speed control processing step 47, and if the cancel switch 18 is not operated, each of steps 41 to 47 in the control routine 40 will be executed. .

That is, when the control state is entered by operating the set switch 15, if the accelerator switch 16 and cancel switch 18 have not yet been operated, it means that the resume operation does not yet exist, so steps 41, 45, Repeat steps 47 and 44.

Here, in step 45, as described above, the operation of the volume switch 17 is determined, and the operation of this switch 17 is determined.
It is determined whether or not the control routine 40 is entered by the operation of step 7. If the control routine 40 is entered by the operation of the set switch 15 as described above, the step 47 is entered.
If the resume switch 17 is operated, the process proceeds to step 46. Further, in step 47, constant speed control processing is performed, specifically, data for driving the negative pressure actuator 13 is obtained by proportional calculation using advance compensation, and processing is performed to control the vehicle speed to the target vehicle speed.

At step 44, where it is determined whether or not the cancel switch 18 has been operated, as described above, if the cancel switch 18 has not been operated, the process returns to step 41 and constant speed driving control is performed; There are steps
Proceed to 48. This step 48 is a control routine 40
This is a cancel processing routine that processes a flag to shift to a state in which the vehicle speed is not automatically controlled and releases the release valve, and then proceeds to step 32.
Steps 32, 33, and 100, which wait for a set operation, will be repeated.

As described above, constant speed running control is performed by the control routine 40 based on the actuation of the set switch,
When the vehicle speed is no longer controlled by the control routine 40 by operating the cancel switch 18, the resume switch 17 is operated to return the vehicle speed to the target vehicle speed before cancellation. That is, a command is given from step 33 to step 35, and control routine 40 is started.

In this case, there is no particular accelerator operation, so steps 41, 45, 46, 43, and 44 are repeated to execute acceleration control, and the current vehicle speed approaches the target vehicle speed, making constant speed control possible. The resume process is completed, and the process proceeds from step 45 to step 47. Steps 41, 45, 47, and 34 are repeated, and constant speed driving control based on the target vehicle speed is performed.

Here, step 46 is a routine for determining whether or not the resume process has been completed. Specifically, when the actuator drive signal enters the linear range possible with the proportional control, or when the current vehicle speed is lower than the target vehicle speed. When the size increases, the resume process ends. From this point on, the routine proceeds to step 47 of the constant speed control routine. If the resume process has not yet been completed, the process proceeds to step 43 of the acceleration control process, in which acceleration control is executed up to the target vehicle speed.

This step 43 executes proportional control using the target acceleration obtained in the target acceleration calculation routine of step 100 and the acceleration during resume (or during accelerator), and is a routine to obtain the target acceleration.

When the driver operates the accelerator switch 16 during execution of the control routine 40, that is, during constant speed driving control, based on the operation of the set switch 15 or the resume switch 17 as described above, "YES" is selected in step 41. An output is generated, and steps 41, 42, 43, and 44 are repeated to perform acceleration control processing. Here step 42 is step 34
Similarly, in the routine that rewrites the control target vehicle speed to the current vehicle speed, the control target vehicle speed is rewritten to the current vehicle speed at that time until the operation of the accelerator switch 16 is completed, and when the operation of the accelerator switch 16 is completed, the vehicle speed at this time is changed to the current vehicle speed. This is stored as a target vehicle speed, and steps 41, 45, 47, and 44 are repeated, and constant speed driving control is executed at the control target vehicle speed.

Figure 3 shows step 100 for calculating the acceleration.
will be explained in detail. In step 101, the current vehicle speed is calculated from the pulse interval data from the vehicle speed detection mechanism 19. Step 102 is a routine for determining whether or not time has elapsed, for example, one second.The routine proceeds to the acceleration measurement routine 110 every second, and otherwise immediately ends this acceleration calculation routine.

Acceleration measurement routine 110 processed every second
Then, in step 111, a one second timer is cleared, and the routine advances to step 112 to determine whether or not acceleration is being performed. In this case, accelerating is defined as a case where the speed difference in one second is, for example, 1 km per hour or more.If the acceleration is less than this, the process proceeds to step 130 without determining that the vehicle is accelerating, and the current vehicle speed is memorized and processed. let If the speed difference per second is 1 km/h or more, it is determined that the vehicle is accelerating, and the process proceeds to step 113, where the following frequency processing is performed.

That is, in step 113, the previous stored vehicle speed is subtracted from the current vehicle speed to obtain a one second speed difference, that is, acceleration. The obtained acceleration information is then ranked in step 114, and a histogram of the frequency of occurrence of acceleration is created in the data area of the processing circuit 12 by incrementing the information of the corresponding rank. Then, in step 115, a counter that counts the number of acceleration samples is incremented, and in step 116, it is determined whether the number of samples has reached a certain specified value, for example "200", and the number of samples has reached "200". When this happens, the process goes to the target acceleration calculation routine 120, and when it does not reach "200", the process goes to step 130.

In step 121 of the target acceleration calculation routine 120, target acceleration calculation is executed, and the target acceleration is obtained by dividing the sum of "acceleration" x "frequency of that acceleration" by the number of samples. It is obtained by executing a process that sets the average value to a value within a range of a separately determined minimum value and maximum value. Next, in step 122, the sample number counter is cleared, and in step 123, the frequency data is cleared. This acceleration calculation processing routine 120 becomes a current vehicle speed storage routine for obtaining vehicle speed difference data one second later. .

Immediately after turning on the power, for safety, set the minimum value of the target acceleration, for example, if the vehicle speed difference in 1 second is 1 km/h.
It is assumed that the settings are as follows.

In the acceleration calculation processing routine 100 described above, the target acceleration calculation is performed with the number of samples specified. However, this can also be done by calculating the acceleration over a specified time range. however,
In this case, if the number of samples within the specified time range is small, the target acceleration calculation cannot be valid, so in such a case, a process is required to prevent the previous value from being rewritten. .

FIG. 4 explains an acceleration calculation processing routine 100 that specifies such times and samples acceleration. Steps 201, 202, 211, 212,
213, 214, and 215 are the steps in Figure 3, respectively.
They correspond to 101, 102, 111, 112, 113, 114, and 115, respectively, and their explanation will be omitted. Also, step 230 is the same as step 130 in FIG.

That is, in step 221, it is determined whether or not a certain period of time specified as, for example, 4 minutes has elapsed during the acceleration measurement time, and before 4 minutes elapse, this target acceleration calculation is terminated, and the target acceleration calculation routine is executed every 4 minutes. 2
Execute 30. Steps of this routine 230
231 is for clearing a timer that determines this calculation cycle, and steps 232 and 233 are the same routines as steps 121 and 123 in FIG. 3 above.

In short, the means for measuring acceleration based on the driver's acceleration driving operation include means based on the number of specified samples as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, respectively, and means using samples within a specified time range. etc. Further, in the above description, the acceleration is measured in units of one second, but it goes without saying that this value may be larger or smaller as long as the acceleration can be measured accurately. Further, the minimum value of the acceleration in the frequency processing was set to 1 km/h, which is the vehicle speed difference per second, but this may be set as appropriate depending on the type of car equipped with this device.

As described above, according to the present invention, by detecting and learning the acceleration during normal driving of the driver, an acceleration that matches the driver's sense of driving is set, and when the constant speed driving control is returned Or, the acceleration at the time of the target vehicle speed acceleration operation matches the acceleration intended by the driver. Therefore, not only can driving operations using the constant speed cruise control device be performed with peace of mind, but the speed is also sufficient when the driver reduces acceleration depending on the road surface condition, road congestion level, etc. This allows safe acceleration control to be carried out and has a significant effect on safe driving.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a constant speed cruise control device according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating the control section of the device, and FIGS. 3 and 4 are target acceleration calculations, respectively. This is a flowchart illustrating a routine for performing the following steps. 11...Control device, 12...Arithmetic processing circuit, 1
3... Throttle actuator, 14... Throttle valve, 15-18... Operating switch, 19
...Vehicle speed detection mechanism.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. An operating mechanism that displaces a speed adjustment element of a vehicle; a group of operating switches that command the start and return of constant speed running, as well as an increase in running speed and cancellation of constant speed running; and operation of the operating mechanism. means for detecting acceleration caused by a person's operation; means for storing this detected acceleration information in correspondence with the frequency of occurrence of acceleration; and calculating a reference acceleration in accordance with the detected acceleration and acceleration frequency stored in the storage means. The vehicle is equipped with means for learning and storing this, and means for performing acceleration control based on the learned and stored reference acceleration in response to a return or speed increase command from the group of actuating switches, so that acceleration to a constant speed running state is achieved. . A constant speed cruise control device characterized in that the control is performed using the learned and stored reference acceleration.