Apparatus for controlling damping coefficient for vehicular shock absorber

Claim 1

An apparatus for controlling damping coefficients for vehicular shock absorbers, comprising: a) a plurality of shock absorbers, each shock absorber being interposed between a sprung mass and an unsprung mass of a vehicle; b) damping coefficient changing means for varying the damping coefficients of each shock absorber at at least one stroke direction with respect to a piston of the corresponding shock absorber in response to an input control signal; c) vehicle body behavior detecting means for detecting vehicle body vertical accelerations, for deriving vehicle body vertical speeds from said vertical accelerations, and for outputting signals representing said vertical speeds; d) filtering means for filtering the output signals from said vehicle body behavior detecting means so as to pass only signal components which fall in a predetermined frequency band from among the output signals outputted from said vehicle body behavior detecting means; e) damping coefficient controlling means for producing the control signal to the damping coefficient changing means so as to control the damping coefficients of the respective shock absorbers via said damping coefficient changing means on the basis of the signals passed through said filtering means; f) vehicle speed detecting means for detecting a vehicle speed; and g) cut-off frequency controlling means for variably setting a cut-off frequency of the filtering means to a frequency varied in accordance with the detected vehicle speed.

Claim 2

An apparatus for controlling damping coefficients for vehicular shock absorbers, comprising: a) a plurality of shock absorbers, each shock absorber being interposed between a sprung mass and an unsprung mass of a vehicle; b) damping coefficient changing means for varying the damping coefficients of each shock absorber at at least one stroke direction with respect to a piston of the corresponding shock absorber in response to an input control signal; c) vehicle body behavior detecting means for detecting vehicle body vertical accelerations, for deriving vehicle body vertical speeds from said vertical accelerations, and for outputting signals representing said vertical speeds; d) filtering means for filtering the output signals from said vehicle body behavior detecting means so as to pass only signal components which fall in a predetermined frequency band from among the output signals outputted from said vehicle body behavior detecting means; e) damping coefficient controlling means for producing the control signal to the damping coefficient changing means so as to control the damping coefficients of the respective shock absorbers via said damping coefficient changing means on the basis of the signals passed through said filtering means; f) vehicle speed detecting means for detecting a vehicle speed; and g) cut-off frequency controlling means for variably setting a cut-off frequency of the filtering means to a frequency varied in accordance with the detected vehicle speed.

Claim 11

An apparatus for controlling damping coefficients for vehicular shock absorbers, comprising: a) a plurality of shock absorbers interposed between a sprung mass and an unsprung mass of a vehicle and having damping coefficient changing means for changing the damping coefficients of the respective shock absorbers; b) vehicle body behavior detecting means for detecting vehicle body vertical accelerations, for deriving vehicle body vertical speeds from said vertical accelerations, and for outputting signals representing said vertical speeds; c) filtering means for passing only signals whose frequencies fall in a predetermined frequency band from among the signals outputted from the vehicle body behavior detecting means; d) damping coefficient controlling means for controlling the damping coefficient changing means on the basis of the signals passed through the filtering means; e) vehicle speed detecting means for detecting a vehicle speed; and f) cut-off frequency controlling means for setting a cut-off frequency of the filtering means to a frequency proportional to the detected vehicle speed.

Claim 12

An apparatus for controlling damping coefficients for vehicular shock absorbers, comprising: a) a plurality of shock absorbers interposed between a sprung mass and an unsprung mass of a vehicle and having damping coefficient changing means for changing the damping coefficients of the respective shock absorbers; b) vehicle body behavior detecting means for detecting vehicle body vertical accelerations, for deriving vehicle body vertical speeds from said vertical accelerations, and for outputting signals representing said vertical speeds; c) filtering means for passing only signals whose frequencies fall in a predetermined frequency band from among the signals outputted from the vehicle body behavior detecting means; d) damping coefficient controlling means for controlling the damping coefficient changing means on the basis of the signals passed through the filtering means; e) vehicle speed detecting means for detecting a vehicle speed; and f) cut-off frequency controlling means for setting a cut-off frequency of the filtering means to a frequency proportional to the detected vehicle speed.