Vehicle control apparatus and method therefor.

摘要

A vehicle control apparatus and method therefor has a number of controllers (50, 63, 56) interconnected with one another by a data highway (10), the engine controllers being formed for example by a CPU. The engine controllers are each connected to a sensor for sensing a vehicle parameter and the controllers are also connected to a respective actuator (53, 58) for varying the associated vehicle parameter. The apparatus is arranged so that the controllers operate in cooperation with one another so that two or more controllers cooperate to control the same object or purpose. As an example (shown in Figure 20) an engine controller (50) provides torque data to a transmission controller (63) which in turn provides data to a throttle controller (56), whereby a gear shift is effected by the transmission controller (63) in synchronism with the throttle controller (56) changing the position of a throttle actuator so that a jerk-free gear shift is effected. In another embodiment (shown in Figure 33) an engine controller (50) cooperates with a throttle controller (56) and a suspension controller (64) whereby data from the engine controller determining whether the vehicle is accelerating or braking is transmitted to the throttle controller (56) and the suspension controller (64) and the throttle position is adjusted in synchronism with the suspension controller (64) for adjusting the front-back ride height of the vehicle. Thus, for example, when the vehicle is braking, the throttle controller closes the throttle and the suspension controller increases the ride height of the front dampers and reduces the ride height of the rear dampers. Other embodiments control ignition timing and fuel injection in cooperation with gear shift (Figure 37), control fuel injection pulse width and ignition timing in cooperation with a knock detector controller (Figure 49), and upon detection of abnormal data received from sensors display a warning of the abnormality, and in the event of seriously abnormal data being detected transmits a pseudo signal to ensure that the vehicle keeps running.