A regenerative shock absorber that include a housing and a piston that moves at least partially through the housing when the shock is compressed or extended from a rest position. When the piston moves, hydraulic fluid is pressurized and drives a hydraulic motor. The hydraulic motor, in turn, drives an electric generator that produced electric energy. The electric energy may be provided to a vehicle, among other things. The regenerative shock absorber may also provide ride performance that comparable to or exceeds that of conventional shock absorbers.

A damping control system for a vehicle having a suspension located between a plurality of ground engaging members and a vehicle frame includes at least one adjustable shock absorber having an adjustable damping characteristic. The system also includes a controller coupled to each adjustable shock absorber to adjust the damping characteristic of each adjustable shock absorber, and a user interface coupled to the controller and accessible to a driver of the vehicle. The user interface includes at least one user input to permit manual adjustment of the damping characteristic of the at least one adjustable shock absorber during operation of the vehicle. Vehicle sensors are also be coupled to the controller to adjust the damping characteristic of the at least one adjustable shock absorber based vehicle conditions determined by sensor output signals.

A damping control system for a vehicle having a suspension located between a plurality of ground engaging members and a vehicle frame includes at least one adjustable shock absorber having an adjustable damping profile.

provided is an information processing device comprising: a map database in which a control parameter for controlling the behavior of the vehicle is recorded for each vehicle type at each point on a road; a data reading unit that acquires vehicle information including at least vehicle type information and positional information of the vehicle and reads the control parameter corresponding to the travel point of the vehicle from the map database based on the vehicle information; a parameter setting unit that sets an application control parameter to be applied to control of the vehicle based on the control parameter read by the data reading unit; and a data update unit that acquires an observation value related to the behavior of the vehicle controlled based on the application control parameter from the vehicle and updates the map database based on the observation value.

Realized is a technique for estimating a state quantity of a vehicle, which technique is applicable to estimation of a vehicle weight and allows an increase in accuracy and speed of the estimation. A state quantity estimating device includes a data storing section (101), a predictive quantity computing section (102), an obtaining section (107), a Kalman gain computing section (103), an estimated quantity computing section (104) which calculates an estimated state quantity and estimated covariance, and a process noise covariance correcting section (106) which corrects process noise covariance. The estimated state quantity, the estimated covariance, and the process noise covariance, each of which has been calculated or corrected, are written in the data storing section (101) as a state quantity, state covariance, and process noise covariance, respectively, and are used in a next computation for estimating a state quantity.

An electronically controlled suspension control system of a vehicle using road surface information may include a road surface recognition unit of recognizing a road surface, a road surface profile determination unit of determining a road surface profile using information as to the recognized road surface, a behavior estimation and determination unit of estimating and determining a vehicle behavior according to the determined road surface profile, a behavior information recording unit storing information as to the behavior of the vehicle, an electronically controlled suspension (ECS) control unit of controlling a suspension of the vehicle, and a behavior determination and control unit of comparing a determined value from the behavior estimation and determination unit with recorded values of the behavior information recording unit, determining a behavior level of the vehicle, based on results of the comparison, and sending a control command according to the determined behavior level to the ECS control unit.

The preview damping control includes an ECU. When the vehicle is traveling within a communications disruption area in which a radio communication device is hard to communicate with a cloud, the ECU uses road surface displacement correlating information that has been stored in an on-board memory device in advance for the communications disruption area so as to perform a preview damping control.

A suspension monitoring and adjustment system for an off-road vehicle includes a distance sensor arranged to measure shock displacement of a suspension of the vehicle. The system may include an output device configured to output shock displacement data generated by the distance sensor and a processor or programmable circuit operable to produce a visual representation of the shock displacement data output by the output device. The system may include a processor or programmable circuit operable to generate an adjustment signal based on shock displacement data generated by the distance sensor and a suspension adjuster arranged to adjust the suspension of the vehicle in response to the adjustment signal.

A damping control system for a vehicle having a suspension located between a plurality of ground engaging members and a vehicle frame includes at least one adjustable shock absorber having an adjustable damping characteristic. The system also includes a controller coupled to each adjustable shock absorber to adjust the damping characteristic of each adjustable shock absorber, and a user interface coupled to the controller and accessible to a driver of the vehicle. The user interface includes at least one user input to permit manual adjustment of the damping characteristic of the at least one adjustable shock absorber during operation of the vehicle. Vehicle sensors are also be coupled to the controller to adjust the damping characteristic of the at least one adjustable shock absorber based vehicle conditions determined by sensor output signals.

A damping control system for a vehicle having a suspension located between a plurality of ground engaging members and a vehicle frame includes at least one adjustable shock absorber having an adjustable damping characteristic. The system also includes a controller coupled to each adjustable shock absorber adjust the damping characteristic of each adjustable shock absorber, and a user interface coupled to the controller and accessible to a driver of the vehicle. The user interface includes at least one user input to permit manual adjustment of the damping characteristic of the at least one adjustable shock absorber during operation of the vehicle. Vehicle sensors are also be coupled to the controller to adjust the damping characteristic of the at least one adjustable shock absorber based vehicle conditions determined by sensor output signals.