A method for determining a friction coefficient potential of a road surface. A total torque for operating a vehicle is unequally distributed among at least two wheel torques at wheels of the vehicle. The friction coefficient potential is ascertained using a detected slip between the road surface and at least one of the wheels and the wheel torque present at the wheel.

A device 10 for controlling a vehicle 1 includes: a sensor 20 configured to detect a rudder angle; a calculation part 40a configured to calculate a target braking force for making a pitch angle equal to a target pitch angle, the target braking force increasing as the rudder angle increases; a determination part 40b configured to determine whether a steering action is in a steady state; a correction part 40c configured to correct the target braking force to be reduced by an offset amount when it is determined that the steering action is in a steady state; and an actuator 30 configured to apply the corrected target braking force to the vehicle.

A brake ECU sets target slippage degrees of three wheels other than the front outer wheel to the slippage degree of the front outer wheel and feedback-controls the braking forces of the three wheels such that the actual slippage degrees of the three wheels approach the target slippage degrees. The brake ECU computes a correction amount for the slip ratio deviation of the front inner wheel such that the slip ratio deviation becomes zero. The brake ECU multiplies the correction amount for the slip ratio deviation by a load ratio and uses the resultant value as a correction amount for the slip ratio deviation of the rear inner wheel. The brake ECU corrects the slip ratio deviation by using the computed correction amount.

Disclosed is a vehicle attitude control system for controlling the attitude of a vehicle in which a road wheel suspension is configured such that a roll axis of a vehicle body inclines downwardly in a forward direction. The vehicle attitude control system includes: a lateral acceleration sensor operable to detect a lateral acceleration; a brake actuator operable to apply a braking force; and a brake control device operable, based on a traveling state of the vehicle, to generate the braking force, wherein the brake control device is configured to execute vehicle attitude control of applying, to an inner rear road wheel, a larger braking force when the lateral acceleration of the vehicle is relatively large than when the lateral acceleration is relatively small, thereby suppressing uplift of an inner rear portion of the vehicle body.

A travel control method includes using the vehicle to autonomously control a travel of the vehicle. The vehicle has an autonomous speed control function for autonomously controlling a traveling speed of the vehicle and an autonomous steering control function for autonomously controlling the steering of the vehicle. The autonomous speed control function includes a curved route speed control function for controlling the traveling speed of the vehicle at a set speed corresponding to the size of a curve of a travel route. The curved route speed control function can be set to ON/OFF. Each of the autonomous speed control function and the autonomous steering control function can be set to ON/OFF. When the autonomous speed control function and the autonomous steering control function are set to ON, the curved route speed control function is operated regardless of whether the curved route speed control function is set to ON or OFF.

A turning control device is provided for use in a vehicle control system including a steer-by-wire system and a brake system. The turning control device is configured to calculate a braking force difference, which is a difference in braking force between the left and right tire wheels. The turning control device is further configured to perform a high turning control that provides the braking force difference to the left and right tire wheels to cause a smaller turning radius of the vehicle when a steering angle corresponding value is larger than a judgment threshold.

A vehicle control system for reducing turn radius of a vehicle may include a controller and a torque control module operably coupled to the controller and to front wheels of a front axle of the vehicle and rear wheels of a rear axle of the vehicle. The controller may also be operably coupled to components and/or sensors of the vehicle to receive information including vehicle wheel speed and steering wheel angle. The torque control module may be operable, responsive to control by the controller, to apply a negative torque to an inside rear wheel during a turn and apply a positive torque to the front axle during the turn to compensate for the negative torque applied to the inside rear wheel to reduce the turn radius based on the steering wheel angle and the vehicle speed.

The vehicle control system includes a braking force generating device (6, 22) configured to generate a braking force to shift a load of a vehicle to a side of front wheels thereof at an initial stage of a cornering, and a control device (31) configured to control the braking force generated by the braking force generating device. The control device calculates an additional deceleration (Gxadd) according to vehicle state information, calculates a requested fore and aft acceleration (Gxr) according to a requested fore and aft force (Fxr) for the vehicle, calculates a correction coefficient (K) for weakening the additional deceleration according to the requested fore and aft acceleration, corrects the additional deceleration by the correction coefficient, and calculates an additional braking force (Fbadd) to be generated by the braking force generating device according to the corrected additional deceleration.

A control device includes an additional deceleration calculation unit that calculates an additional deceleration (G×add) to be applied to the vehicle based on the steering angle, a target control amount calculation unit that calculates the control amount for the vehicle behavior changing device based on the additional deceleration, a rough road level calculation unit that calculates a rough road level of a road based on a wheel speed, and a control amount correction unit that corrects the control amount based on the rough road level, the rough road level calculation unit being configured to correct the wheel speed so as to remove a change thereof caused by the cornering maneuver of the vehicle, and to calculate the rough road level by using the corrected wheel speed.

A driving support system (1) for motorcycles including: an external sensor unit (2) which recognizes a road state ahead of one's own vehicle; a collision risk determination unit (62) which determines a level of collision risk between one's own vehicle and an object ahead of one's own vehicle based on a recognition result of the external sensor unit 2; an automatic braking control unit (61) which executes automatic braking to automatically operate a brake device (83) in response to the determination result by the collision risk determination unit (62); and a departure risk determination unit (64) which determines a level of departure risk of one's own vehicle to outside of one's own vehicle travel lane in a case of executing the automatic braking. The automatic braking control unit (61) ends execution of the automatic braking in a case of being determined that the departure risk is high.