Controlling system for automatic transmission of a vehicle

Claim 3

A method according to claim 1, wherein the N/V ratio is determined in accordance with the determined gear selection, the method further comprising determining n' = |α - (N/V) X β| ; and further comprising comparing n' with y where y is a predetermined constant to compensate for error; and rendering the actuation signal effective if: a) n' < γ and a legal gear selection is determined, or b) n' >= γ, a legal gear selection previously existed, and an illegal gear selection is determined.

Claim 4

A diagnostic processing system for an automatic transmission of a vehicle, the automatic transmission including transmission gears (5) and a clutch (4) which are both activated by means of individual actuators (5',4') under the control of a control unit (9) which produces an actuation signal for the actuators (5',4'), with reference to a predetermined transmission map, in response to a variety of input data representing, at least, a rotation speed (a) of an input-shaft, a vehicle speed (a), an N/V ratio, an accelerator pedal (1) position, a clutch (4) position, and an engine speed, the system comprising a gear position sensor cooperating with the transmission gears (5), and the control unit (9) being operative to judge a gear position of the transmission gears (5) based on the gear position signals output from the gear position sensor and determining whether or not each gear change is completed by analysing the judged gear position and the input data representing the rotation speed (a) and the vehicle speed (β).

Claim 5

A diagnostic processing system for an automatic transmission of a vehicle, the automatic transmission including transmission gears (5) and a clutch (4) which are both activated by means of individual actuators (5',4') under the control of a control unit (9) which produces an actuation signal for the actuators (5',4'), with reference to a predetermined transmission map, in response to a variety of input data representing, at least, a rotation speed (a) of an input-shaft, a vehicle speed (a), an N/V ratio, an accelerator pedal (1) position, a clutch (4) position, and an engine speed, the system comprising a gear position sensor cooperating with the transmission gears (5), and the control unit (9) being operative to judge a gear position of the transmission gears (5) based on the gear position signals output from the gear position sensor and determining whether or not each gear change is completed by analysing the judged gear position and the input data representing the rotation speed (a) and the vehicle speed (β).

Claim 6

A system according to claim 3, wherein the gear position sensor comprises shift-side switches (G135, GN, G24R), to produce shift-side gear position signals, and selection-side switches (G12,G34,G5R), arranged in an orthogonal manner to the shift-side switches, to produce selection-side gear position signals, both the shift-side and the selection-side gear position signals providing the gear position signals.

Claim 7

A system acccording to claim 4, wherein the judgement of the gear position is performed with the use of a table memory (32), mounted in the control unit (9), the table memory defining a table which judges and produces output data corresponding to the gear position signals.

Claim 9

A system according to claim 6, wherein the determination factor (n) is defined as la - (N/V) X β| -γ, where y denotes a predetermined constant for compensation error.

Claim 10

A system according to claim 7, when dependent on claim 4, wherein the determining element (34) produces the determination result to render the actuation signal effective, if it is determined that a gear-in state of the gear change is completed under the conditions where n < 0 stands and one of the shift-side switches and one of the selection-side switches are both closed simultaneously, or if it is determined that a gear-out state of the gear change is completed under conditions where n >= 0 stands and the data representing the-judged gear position is in an illegal state, but the, preceding data was in a legal state, the illegal state comprising any one of the shift-illegal, selection-illegal, neutral-selection-illegal and shift-selection-illegal states.

Claim 11

A system according to at least claim 4, wherein the control unit (9) further includes a switch check and back up element (50) which is operative to check the normality of each of the shift-side and selection-side: switches and, if a failure occurs in the shift-side and selection-side switches, to back up the failed switch so as to still support the function of the control unit (9).

Claim 12

A system according to claim 9, wherein the switch check and back up element (50) comprises a short-circuit switch recovering element (51) which receives the gear position signals and is operative to detect a short-circuited switch to apply a mask bit to the failed gear position signal so as to make this failed gear position signal invalid and to reset the mask bit once the short-circuit switch is restored; a mode discriminating element (52) which receives the output from the short-circuited switch recovering element (51) and determines whether a running mode or a gear-changing mode is established; a gear-changing mode determining element (54) which is activated by the output from the mode discriminating element (52) and is operative to determine, at least, whether the clutch (4) is normal, whether the preceding gear position switch is closed, and whether the rotation speed (a) is reasonable; a running mode determining element (53) which is activated by the output from the mode discriminating element (52) and is operative to determine, at least, whether the clutch (4) is completely engaged, whether the desired gear position is neutral, and whether the desired gear position switch is closed; and a gear change confirmation element (55) which is responsive to the output of the running mode determining element (55) and the gear-changing mode determining element (54) and is operative firstly to find an open-circuit switch of the gear position sensor, if the gear-changing mode determining element (54) determines that the following conditions stand: the dutch is normal; the preceding gear position switch is closed; a) the desired gear position is neutral., or b) the rotation speed (a) is reasonable, and the desired gear position is not neutral; and the desired switch position switch is not the short-circuited switch, and secondly to find the open-circuit switch if the running mode determining element (53) determines that the following conditions stand: the clutch is completely engaged, the desired gear position is not neutral , and the desired gear position switch is not closed, and the gear change confirmation element (55) being further operative to back up, if the short-circuit or open-circuit switch is found to exist, the failed switch so that the completion of the gear change is determined the back up element finds the following conditions: a) the desired gear position switch is not closed, the desired gear position switch is the failed switch, the desired gear position is not neutral, and the rotation speed (a) is reasonable, or b) the back up element (55) finds one of the following conditions: the desired gear position switch is closed, and the desired gear position is neutral.

Claim 13

A system according to claim 10, wherein the mask bit is raised when two or more switches of the shift-side switches (G135, GN, G2 4R) are closed simultaneously or two or more switches of the selection-side switches (G12, G34, G5R) are closed simultaneously.

Claim 14

12 A system according to any of claims 3 to 11, wherein at least some of the elements of the control unit (9) are formed by a suitably programmed microcomputer.