A level adjustment system of a vehicle, comprising an electric engine a transmission driven by the electric engine; and a controller programmed to identify a motor current from the electric engine during an upward adjustment or downward adjustment of the vehicle, wherein the controller is further programmed to determine an actuator force generated by an actuator unit utilizing the motor current.

Vehicle body tilt, representing a difference between a vehicle body frame of reference and a wheel-base frame of reference, is determined by obtaining information from sensor assemblies for the vehicle body and for the wheel-base. Navigational solutions are generated for the sensor assemblies using motion sensor data from the assemblies and absolute navigational information. Correspondingly, vehicle body tilt is determined based at least in part on the vehicle body navigation solution and the wheel-base navigation solution.

A suspension control system allows a state variable of a vehicle used for the damper damping force control to be computed at a high precision without regards to the caster angle given to the suspension geometry. A suspension control system for a vehicle provided with a variable damper that can adjust a damping force according to an input signal comprises a wheel rotational speed sensor for detecting a wheel rotational speed, a gain circuit for computing the unsprung load of each wheel according to the wheel rotational speed variation detected by the wheel speed sensor, a single wheel model computing unit for computing the sprung velocity and the stroke speed by inputting the unsprung load to a single wheel model representing the behavior of the vehicle, and a damper control unit for controlling a damping force of the variable damper according to the computed sprung velocity and stroke speed.

A vehicle height adjustment device includes front forks, a rear suspension, a weight estimation unit, and a front wheel-side target movement amount determination unit. The front fork includes a front wheel-side suspension spring and a front wheel-side support member, which supports one end of the front wheel-side suspension spring, and moves toward another end of the front wheel-side spring to change the front wheel-side suspension spring length. The rear suspension includes a rear wheel-side suspension spring and a rear wheel-side support member, which supports one end of the rear wheel-side suspension spring, and moves toward another one end of the rear wheel-side spring to change the rear wheel-side suspension spring length. The weight estimation unit estimates a weight applied to a vehicle. The front wheel-side target movement amount determination unit decreases, a movement amount of the front wheel-side support member as the estimated weight increases.

An automatic tilting vehicle comprises left and right front wheels and a rear wheel. A control unit controls a vehicle tilting device so that the tilt angle of the vehicle becomes the target tilt angle. The control device is configured to swingingly vibrates the vehicle in the lateral direction by tilting the vehicle by the vehicle tilting device, to estimate a height of the center of gravity of the vehicle based on a resonance period of swinging vibration of the vehicle, and to correct the target tilt angle such that a perpendicular passing through the estimated center of gravity passes within a range of a triangle formed by connecting grounding points of the left and right front wheels and a grounding point of the rear wheel.

An automatic tilting vehicle is provided that includes left and right front wheels supported by knuckles, a steerable rear wheel, a vehicle tilting device, and a control unit. The vehicle tilting device includes a swing member, a tilt actuator for swing the swing member, and a pair of tie rods pivotally attached to the swing member and the knuckles. The control unit calculates a target lateral acceleration of the vehicle, estimates a lateral acceleration of the vehicle caused by the gyro moments of the wheels and calculates a target tilt angle of the vehicle based on a sum of the target lateral acceleration and the lateral acceleration caused by the gyro moments.

A damping force control apparatus for a suspension is applied to a damper whose damping force can be set based on a damping force control value and controls the damping force control value. The damper is attached to a support portion with a buffer member interposed between the support portion of a vehicle body and a cylinder of the damper. The apparatus includes: a displacement related quantity estimation device estimating relative displacement of a vehicle wheel and a relative speed of the vehicle wheel with respect to the vehicle body as estimated relative displacement and an estimated relative speed; and a damping force control value calculation device determining the damping force control value so as to suppress vibration of the vehicle body based on state variables provided from the vehicle body and the estimated relative speed.

A method for detecting a defective damper device of a vehicle, including the following steps: monitoring the specific damper travel values (DW) of at least two wheel carriers of the vehicle in a monitoring period (UZ), determining the specific damper speeds (DG) and the specific damper accelerations (DB) on the basis of the monitored specific damper travel values (DW) in the monitoring period (UZ), acquiring the specific damper work values (DA) on the basis of the determined specific damper speeds (DG) and on the basis of the determined specific damper accelerations (DB), generating a comparison result (VE) from a comparison of the acquired specific damper work values (DA) with one another, and generating at least one specific status signal (SS) on the basis of the comparison result (VE) for the at least two wheel carriers.

A damping force control device for controlling damping forces of shock absorbers by a control device, which is configured to extract first vibration components in a first frequency range and second vibration components in a higher frequency range than the first frequency range from vertical accelerations of a sprung mass at the positions of wheels, to calculate correction coefficients which decrease as the degree of the second vibration increases with respect to the degree of the first vibration, and to control damping coefficients of the shock absorbers so as to be the products of target damping forces calculated based on the vertical accelerations of the sprung mass and the correction coefficients.

A method for controlling a suspension system of a vehicle, as well as suspension systems, and a vehicle including a suspension system is provided. The suspension system may include at least one adjustable damping device that is controlled via a control signal, such as from a controller of the suspension system, in order to dynamically adjust the damping characteristic of the damping device. The control signal may be generated on the basis of at least one of current driving dynamics data and optically recorded information about an area of a ground surface.