Self-driving vehicle with integrated active suspension

Abstract

A self-driving vehicle with an integrated fully-active suspension system. The fully-active suspension utilizes data from one or more sensors used for autonomous driving (e.g. vision, LIDAR, GPS) in order to anticipate road conditions in advance. The system builds a topographical map of the road surface. Suspension and road data is delivered back to the vehicle in order to change autonomous driving behavior including route planning. Energy storage is regulated based on a planned route. Forward and lateral acceleration feel is mitigated through active pitch and tilt compensation. The fully-active suspension pushes and pulls the suspension in three or more operational quadrants in order to deliver superior ride comfort, handling, and / safety of the vehicle.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims priority to PCT application serial number PCT / US2014 / 029654, entitled “ACTIVE VEHICLE SUSPENSION IMPROVEMENTS”, filed Mar. 14, 2014, which claims the priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 61 / 913,644, entitled “WIDE BAND HYDRAULIC RIPPLE NOISE BUFFER”, filed Dec. 9, 2013, U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 61 / 865,970, entitled “MULTI-PATH FLUID DIVERTER VALVE”, filed Aug. 14, 2013, U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 61 / 815,251, entitled “METHOD AND ACTIVE SUSPENSION”, filed Apr. 23, 2013, and U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 61 / 789,600, entitled “IMPROVEMENTS IN ACTIVE SUSPENSION” filed Mar. 15, 2013, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference in their entirety.BACKGROUND[0002]1. Field[0003]Disclosed embodiments are related to active suspension systems for autonomous vehicles.[0004]2. Discussion of Related Art[0005]Self-driving or autonomous vehicles enable ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent is about improving the comfort of self-driving vehicles by integrating sensor data with active suspension technologies. It also includes methods for planning routes based on road quality, adjusting energy storage based on planned routes, and mitigating acceleration feel through adaptive pitch and tilt correction. Furthermore, the patent describes a system that can collect data on road roughness and use it to adjust the vehicle's driving plan to reduce the impact of road roughness on the vehicle's ride comfort.

Problems solved by technology

According to one aspect, in a force-limited saturation regime of the actuator, ride height command authority may be limited in comparison to large acceleration events causing large roll or pitch moments, and the control system may not fully achieve such compensation attitude behavior.

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