The invention relates to a method of controlling a heavy-duty vehicle in a slope when the vehicle has come to a standstill due to service brakes of the vehicle having applied a service brake force, the method comprising determining a total brake force required for maintaining the vehicle at standstill, activating at least one park brake for providing a park brake force, gradually increasing the park brake force, and, while the park brake force is gradually increased, gradually reducing the service brake force while maintaining the sum of the service brake force and the park brake force at least equal to the determined total brake force.

Various examples of a controller, method and system for determining positions of a tractor-trailer vehicle train are disclosed. In one example a tractor controller is manually-initiated or a user-initiated tractor controller and includes an electrical control port for receiving an electrical start signal, and a communications port for receiving data. A processing unit of the tractor controller includes control logic and is in communication with the electrical control port. The control logic is capable of receiving, in response to the electrical start signal, a data signal at the communications port which includes a GPS signal and a unique identification which corresponds to the towed vehicle. At a predetermined response time, the tractor controller determines the position of the towed vehicle in the tractor-trailer vehicle train based on the data received from the towed vehicles.

A deceleration factor estimation apparatus estimating a deceleration factor of a vehicle includes: a driving force acquisition unit that obtains a driving force of the vehicle; a speed acquisition unit that obtains a speed of the vehicle; an acceleration acquisition unit that obtains an acceleration of the vehicle; and a deceleration factor estimation unit that estimates a plurality of deceleration factors on the basis of a relationship between the obtained driving force, speed, and acceleration, wherein the deceleration factor estimation unit switches the deceleration factor to be estimated on the basis of a travel condition of the vehicle.

There is provided an automatically guided vehicle (AGV), which is configured to detect if a payload mass differs significantly from a preset payload mass towed and/or carried by the vehicle, and if a payload mass different from the preset payload is detected, the control system of the vehicle is automatically updated to adjust either: i) the speed of the vehicle based on preset safety brake distance information associated with the detected different payload mass; or ii) increase the safety zone or switch to a safer safety zone in order to avoid collision with any obstacles.

A system for identifying a change in a load of a commercial vehicle, the commercial vehicle including an electronic stability program with at least one inertial sensor and a control unit for estimating a mass of the commercial vehicle and/or the load, including: a device for querying sensor data of the at least one inertial sensor; and an evaluation unit which is configured to identify the load change if the queried sensor data exceed a variation range, and inform the control unit of the identified load change to allow the load change to be taken into account in the estimation of the mass. Also described are a related commercial vehicle, method, and computer readable medium.

Monitoring the brake performance of a brake system of a machine and a control systems for performing such monitoring. The machine's brake system is monitored by detecting a brake engagement for decelerating the machine. When a brake engagement is detected, a parasitic loss decelerating the machine during the brake engagement is determined. The parasitic loss is used to predict deceleration of the machine during the brake engagement Brake performance of the brake system of the machine is processed from the predicted deceleration.

Various examples are directed to systems and methods for operating a vehicle comprising a tractor and a trailer attached for pulling behind the tractor. A center-of-mass system may determine a mass of the trailer and a tractor understeer. The center-of-mass system may determine the tractor understeer using steering input data describing a steering angle of the tractor and yaw data describing a yaw of the tractor. The center-of-mass system may determine a load center of mass using the tractor understeer and a mass of the trailer. The center-of-mass system may further determine that the load center of mass transgresses a center-of-mass threshold and send an alert message indicating that the load transgresses the load center-of-mass threshold.

A brake system for a combination vehicle in which a plurality of vehicles are coupled in a line, including: a plurality of brake devices respectively provided for the plurality of vehicles; and a controller configured to control the plurality of brake devices, wherein the controller is configured to control a braking force applied to each of the plurality of vehicles based on a loaded weight or a weight of each of the plurality of vehicles.

A method for warning sufficiency of a parking braking force may include operating a parking pedal or parking lever mounted on a vehicle; confirming a brake state of the vehicle; measuring a slope of the place where the vehicle is located; calculating an actual parking braking force of the vehicle and a required parking braking force of the vehicle; and determining whether the actual parking braking force is smaller than the required parking braking force.

From a set of point data, a set of scattered rays is constructed. From the set of scattered rays, a set of ray slopes is computed. The set of ray slopes is mapped to a corresponding set of trigonometric functions. Using an optimization method, a parameter of the set of trigonometric functions is selected. Using an inverse of the set trigonometric functions, a vehicle mass corresponding to the set of point data is computed. Based on the vehicle mass, a threshold braking distance of a collision avoidance system of the vehicle is adjusted, the threshold braking distance comprising a distance from an object predicted to collide with the vehicle. By braking the vehicle at least the threshold braking distance from the object, a predicted collision between the vehicle and the object is avoided.