Methods are provided for proactively controlling a component of a system. The system may comprise a vehicle and the component may comprise a suspension of the vehicle. According to various aspects, methods may include obtaining information regarding a travel surface along a travel path that the system will travel at a future time and, based on the information regarding the travel surface, controlling the component of the system to traverse the travel surface. Controlling the component based on the information regarding the travel surface may comprise comparing the information regarding the travel surface to information regarding at least one physical constraint of the system and/or comparing frequency content of the information regarding the travel surface to a threshold frequency. Proactive control methods may provide improved response to disturbances and improved tracking and isolation because a suspension may be controlled with reduced or substantially zero delay.

It is an object of the present invention to improve accuracy in estimation of a state of a vehicle in order to achieve excellent ride comfort. An ECU (600) includes a reference vehicle model computation section (1100), which is configured to calculate a reference output by carrying out computation with respect to at least one of a plurality of state amounts in a planar direction and at least one of a plurality of state amounts in an up-down direction in an inseparable manner.

A state module selectively sets a present state to a first state in a predetermined order of states; a valve control module determines first target open and closed states for valves of a suspension system based on the present state and opens and closes the valves according to the first target open and closed states, respectively; a pump control module configured to, when the valves are in the first target open and closed states, respectively, selectively operate an electric pump of the suspension system in a first direction and pump hydraulic fluid toward the suspension system; and a diagnosis module configured to: record first and second values of pressures within the suspension system measured using pressure sensors, respectively, before and after the operation of the electric pump in the first direction, respectively; and selectively diagnose faults in a first subset of the valves based on whether pressure increases occurred.

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 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 damping control device for a vehicle includes a control force generating device configured to generate vertical control force between a vehicle body of the vehicle and at least one wheel suspended from the vehicle body by a suspension, and an electronic control unit configured to reduce, by controlling the control force generating device to change the control force, vibration of the vehicle body that is caused by vertical vibration occurring in the wheel in response to vertical road surface displacements while the vehicle is traveling, the vertical vibration being transmitted to the vibration of the vehicle body via the suspension.

A control device applies a target control force to a variable damping force damper in a suspension mechanism based on a damping coefficient of the variable damping force damper to eliminate unsprung tramp sensations and feelings of hardness when the stroke speed decreases in a conventional skyhook control. The control device includes a state estimation unit for calculating the sprung mass speed of the sprung mass based on a value detected by several of a plurality of sensors, an application control unit for calculating and outputting a damping coefficient of the variable damping force damper based on the calculated sprung mass speed, and a target control amount management unit for determining the target control force based on the damping coefficient output by the application control unit.

It is an object of the present invention to suitably estimate a state of a vehicle. A vehicle state estimation section (1200) includes: a main computation section (1210) configured to carry out linear computation with respect to a state amount related to a state of a vehicle; and a tire model computation section (1240) configured to carry out nonlinear computation with direct or indirect reference to at least part of a result of the linear computation carried out by the main computation section (1210).

A suspension control device which controls an operation of a suspension of a vehicle includes an operation-induced state quantity estimation portion which estimates an operation-induced state quantity caused by an operation of a vehicle, a road surface-induced state quantity estimation portion which estimates a road surface-induced state quantity caused by a road surface, an operation-induced state quantity conversion portion which converts the operation-induced state quantity into an operation-induced required damping force, a road surface-induced state quantity conversion portion which converts the road surface-induced state quantity into a road surface-induced required damping force, and a current value calculation portion which determines a current value to be applied to the suspension with reference to the operation-induced required damping force and the road surface-induced required damping force.

A control device applies a target control force to a variable damping force damper in a suspension mechanism based on a damping coefficient of the variable damping force damper to eliminate unsprung tramp sensations and feelings of hardness when the stroke speed decreases in a conventional skyhook control. The control device includes a state estimation unit for calculating the sprung mass speed of the sprung mass based on a value detected by several of a plurality of sensors, an application control unit for calculating and outputting a damping coefficient of the variable damping force damper based on the calculated sprung mass speed, and a target control amount management unit for determining the target control force based on the damping coefficient output by the application control unit.

It is an object of the present invention to improve accuracy in estimation of a state of a vehicle in order to achieve excellent ride comfort. An ECU (600) includes a reference vehicle model computation section (1100), which is configured to calculate a reference output by carrying out computation with respect to at least one of a plurality of state amounts in a planar direction and at least one of a plurality of state amounts in an up-down direction in an inseparable manner.