Motor vehicle stability monitoring and alarm system and method

摘要

A stability monitoring and alarm system for a motor vehicle (e.g., a truck or a tractor trailer) provides an early warning to the driver of unsafe or potentially unsafe conditions. Front wheel desynchronization and rear load distribution are each monitored, and an alarm is generated if either the front wheels become desynchronized or the load is unevenly distributed in the rear of the vehicle. Various filtering and averaging techniques avoid false alarms and increase reliability and sensitivity. Thresholding of the front wheel desynchronization comparison is based on a model which takes turning lateral G force for particular speeds into account so that an alarm based on front wheel descynchronization is not generated because of taking turns too rapidly. Rather, such alarm is generated by monitoring shifting rear load distribution -a better and more accurate measure of vehicle stability. The resulting indications provided by an easy to read user interface warn the driver of a variety of conditions (e.g., loss of traction due to hydroplaning or ice, shifting rear load, equipment failure, etc.) to help avoid accidents.