A control apparatus for a hybrid vehicle including an internal combustion engine, a motor, and a storage battery and which charges the storage battery with electric power generated as a result of regenerative braking and electric power generated by using an output of the engine. When a planned travel route includes a downhill section whose height difference is greater than a predetermined height difference threshold, the controller executes a downhill control operation that decreases the target remaining capacity of the storage battery. The controller increases the height difference threshold as the estimated average speed of the vehicle during travel in the downhill section increases, to thereby restrain the execution of the downhill control for a downhill section in which an increase in the remaining capacity is not expected due to a large air resistance acting on the vehicle.

A method and an apparatus for controlling a hybrid electric vehicle are provided. The apparatus includes a navigation device that provides information regarding a gradient, a speed limit, and a traffic speed of a road. An accelerator pedal position detector detects a position of an accelerator pedal and a brake pedal position detector detects a position of a brake pedal. A vehicle speed detector detects a vehicle speed, a state of charge (SOC) detector detects an SOC of a battery, and a gear stage detector detects a gear stage that is currently engaged. A controller operates the hybrid vehicle based on signals of the navigation device, the accelerator pedal position detector, the brake pedal position detector, the vehicle speed detector, the SOC detector, and the gear stage detector.

A roadside object detection apparatus to detect a roadside object by analyzing images, detecting height information of an object in the images in a neighboring region having a distance less than or equal to a threshold from a vehicle, detecting a change of a height of a road surface due to the roadside object from the height information in the neighboring region, determining positions having the change of the height detected as characteristic points of the roadside object, extrapolating the characteristic points into a far-off region having a distance greater than or equal to the threshold from the vehicle, based on a road model, setting a search range for the roadside object in the far-off region based on a virtual line that is obtained by the characteristic points being extrapolated by the characteristic point extrapolation unit, and detecting the roadside object in the far-off region based on the search range.

A method and an apparatus for controlling a hybrid electric vehicle are provided. The apparatus includes a navigation device that provides information regarding a gradient, a speed limit, and a traffic speed of a road. An accelerator pedal position detector detects a position of an accelerator pedal and a brake pedal position detector detects a position of a brake pedal. A vehicle speed detector detects a vehicle speed, a state of charge (SOC) detector detects an SOC of a battery, and a gear stage detector detects a gear stage that is currently engaged. A controller operates the hybrid vehicle based on signals of the navigation device, the accelerator pedal position detector, the brake pedal position detector, the vehicle speed detector, the SOC detector, and the gear stage detector.

A control apparatus for a hybrid vehicle including an internal combustion engine, a motor, and a storage battery and which charges the storage battery with electric power generated as a result of regenerative braking and electric power generated by using an output of the engine. When a planned travel route includes a downhill section whose height difference is greater than a predetermined height difference threshold, the controller executes a downhill control operation that decreases the target remaining capacity of the storage battery. The controller increases the height difference threshold as the estimated average speed of the vehicle during travel in the downhill section increases, to thereby restrain the execution of the downhill control for a downhill section in which an increase in the remaining capacity is not expected due to a large air resistance acting on the vehicle.

A control apparatus and method for a hybrid vehicle that searches for and determines a scheduled travel route and a downhill section included in the scheduled travel route on the basis of positional information of the vehicle and road information. The control apparatus determines a section from a downhill control start point to an end point of a target downhill section as a controlled target section. The downhill control start point is located a predetermined first distance before a start point of the target downhill section. When the vehicle travels on the controlled target section, the control apparatus executes downhill control. Even in a situation in which a target downhill section is newly determined during execution of the downhill control, the control apparatus continues the downhill control until the vehicle reaches an end point of the controlled target section for which the downhill control is started.

A control apparatus for a hybrid vehicle determines a scheduled travel route. The control apparatus further determines a downhill section included in the scheduled travel route by using gradient information acquired for a road section at a time when the vehicle has traveled on the road section and using gradient information stored in a navigation database for a road section on which the vehicle travels for a first time. The control apparatus determines a section from a downhill control start point to an end point of the target downhill section as a downhill control section. The downhill control start point is a point located a predetermined first distance closer to the vehicle from a start point of the target downhill section. When the vehicle travels on the downhill control section, the control apparatus executes downhill control.

A control apparatus for a hybrid vehicle including an internal combustion engine, a motor, and a storage battery and configured to charge the storage battery with electric power generated as a result of regenerative braking and electric power generated by using output of the engine. The control apparatus extracts a downhill section contained in a planned travel route of the vehicle and executes downhill control which decreases the remaining capacity of the storage battery before the vehicle enters the downhill section. When the control apparatus extracts the downhill section as a target of the downhill control, if the downhill section contains a flat section whose distance is greater than a predetermined threshold, the control apparatus determines the downhill section is not a target of the downhill control.

A control apparatus for a hybrid vehicle including an internal combustion engine, a motor, and a storage battery and configured to charge the storage battery with electric power generated as a result of regenerative braking and electric power generated by using output of the engine. When a planned travel route of the vehicle includes a downhill section, the control apparatus executes a downhill control which decreases the remaining capacity of the storage battery before the vehicle enters the downhill section. In addition, when the downhill section includes a congestion section and the total distance of the congestion section is greater than a predetermined threshold, the control apparatus does not execute the downhill control.

Disclosed is a speed control system for a curved road section, which includes: a wireless communication module that supports communication with road-side units and receives road information from the road-side units for a plurality of points on a curved road adjacent to the road-side units; an allowable speed calculation unit that calculates maximum allowable speeds that are the highest speeds at which a vehicle is driven, for the plurality of points, using the road information; an optimum speed calculation unit that calculates an optimum speed in an acceleration and deceleration range that is set in consideration of a predetermined acceleration and deceleration limit of the vehicle; and a control module that displays the optimum speed calculated by the optimum speed calculation unit to the outside, or provides the calculated optimum speed to another control system in the vehicle such that the speed of the vehicle is controlled.