JPH01120433A - Clutch controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To properly control the completely uncoupled clutch position, half- coupled clutch position, and a clutch-operating speed by conducting the clutch coupling/uncoupling control in such a manner that a preset duty-pulse is given to a driving motor by means of an electric clutch actuator. CONSTITUTION:Signals from a gear-position sensor 21b of a speed change gear 20, a select sensor 25, and an engine speed sensor 17, an acceleration sensor 27, etc., are inputted into an electronic controller 31. When, for example, a clutch 13 is coupled aparting from its uncoupled position, the revolting speed detected by a rotary encoder 29, or the duty-pulse for driving, which corresponds to the load to a driving motor 28, is impressed to the driving motor 28, of an electric actuator 14 in order to control the half-coupled clutch position and the completely coupled clutch position. When the rotary encoder 29 is out of order, the controller 31 learns the half-coupled clutch position, based on both the signal from the stroke sensor 32 and the load current in the motor 28 in order to control and back up the clutch operation. With this contrivance, the completely uncoupled clutch position, the half-coupled clutch position, and the clutch operating speed can properly be controlled.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to an automatic clutch control device using an electronic control method, and more particularly to an automatic clutch control device using an electronic control method using an electric motor as a drive source for a clutch.

(Prior Art) A clutch is a device that is located between an engine and a transmission and connects and disconnects engine power to drive wheels. Friction clutches, fluid clutches, and electric clutches have been put into practical use, but manual transmission vehicles usually use a parallel shaft gear transmission and a dry short plate clutch, which is a type of friction clutch. It is.

On the other hand, automatic driving devices for vehicles using electronic devices have been developed, but these types of automatic driving devices usually use a planetary gear type transmission and a fluid clutch.

One reason for this is that control is relatively simple. However, since the structure is different from manual transmission vehicles, it has the disadvantage that parts cannot be shared with manual transmission vehicles.

However, recently, automatic driving systems for vehicles have appeared that use the parallel shaft gear type transmission and dry type short plate clutch used in manual transmission vehicles, and drive them with hydraulic actuators controlled by an electronic control unit. It is described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 11722/1983.

In dry single-plate clutches used in manual transmission vehicles and automatic driving devices such as those described above, the half-clutch position and fully engaged clutch position vary due to manufacturing variations, wear due to use, and other factors. In the automatic driving system, the half-clutch position and the fully engaged clutch position serve as reference positions for various operations, so it is desirable that these values be learned and constantly updated.

Regarding such a learning method, the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 60-11
Proposed in No. 722.

(Problem to be Solved by the Invention) However, the learning method for the half-clutch position and the fully engaged clutch position described in the above publication is learning at the fully engaged point and the starting point, but it is not applicable to all cycles. Because it is performed against
There was a problem in that it was greatly affected by abnormal values.

Furthermore, in such a conventional clutch control device,
Dispersion in clutch plate dimensions (conical amount), wear,
Alternatively, due to changes in the friction coefficient due to thermal deformation of the driven plate, the half-clutch position, which is the standard for controlling the clutch position, changes, causing problems such as shock when starting or engine revving. Was.

The installation of sensors to measure such dimensional variations, amount of wear, and amount of thermal deformation has been considered, but there has been a problem in that they have not yet been integrated into a form that is premised on mass production.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a clutch control device that can smoothly perform clutch control using a reference point corrected during clutch control in a clutch control device that drives a clutch of a vehicle using a clutch actuator controlled by an electronic control device. Our goal is to provide the following.

(Means for solving the problems) In order to achieve the objects of the present invention as described above, the present invention includes the following:
In a clutch control device that drives a clutch of a vehicle using a clutch actuator controlled by an electronic control device, the clutch actuator uses an electric motor as a drive source, a switching element that drives and controls the electric motor, and a means for measuring the current flowing through the switching element. a control means for controlling the current flowing through the switching element in accordance with the clutch load characteristic based on a signal from the measuring means; and a means for learning an inflection point of the clutch load characteristic and a half-clutch position; A clutch control device is provided, comprising means for correcting a reference point for clutch control based on the inflection point of the clutch load characteristic and the half-clutch position to execute clutch position control.

(Operation) The load current of the electric motor that drives the clutch actuator is measured, a characteristic diagram showing the relationship between the load current of the electric motor at each clutch position is created, and this is substituted for the clutch load characteristic. Then, the reference point for clutch control is corrected from the inflection point on the load characteristic curve and the half-clutch position.

(Example) Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

In FIG. 1, 11 is an engine, 12 is a flywheel, 13 is a clutch, and 14 is an electric clutch actuator, the detailed structure of which will be described later. 15 is a piston rod, 16 is a release lever, and 117 is an engine rotation sensor. 19 is an input shaft, 20 is a transmission, 21a is an actuator of the transmission, 21b is a sensor that detects the gear position, 22 is an output shaft, 23 is a vehicle speed sensor, 24 is a select lever for driver operation, and 25 is a select lever. 26 is an accelerator pedal; 27 is an accelerator pedal sensor that detects the amount of depression of the accelerator pedal; 31
is an electronic control unit, and has a microcomputer configuration. That is, the electronic control unit 31 has a read-only memory (ROM).
) 31a, a readable/writable RAM memory 31b for storing calculation results, input data, etc., a human output interface 31c, and a processor 31d. (RO
M) 31a stores (a) a control program for clutch control, and (b) a clutch control pattern. 30 is an input shaft rotation sensor.

The electric clutch actuator 14 has a drive motor 28, as shown in FIG. The drive motor is a DC motor, and the direction of rotation can be changed by changing the polarity of the applied voltage. A rotary encoder 29 is attached to one end of the drive motor 28. The rotary encoder 29 is, for example, made of a glass disc that is fixed to the rotating shaft of the drive motor and rotates together with the rotating shaft, and a gray code is printed on the glass disc. Then, a light detection device consisting of a light emitting element and a light receiving element reads the gray code that changes with the rotation of the rotation shaft of the drive motor 28, and sends this signal to the electronic control device 31, thereby detecting the rotation angle of the rotation shaft of the drive motor 28. , rotation speed, and rotation direction.

A deceleration mechanism 32 is connected to the other end of the drive motor 28, and the rotation of the drive motor 28 is decelerated by this deceleration mechanism 32. The reduced rotational force of the drive motor 28 is transmitted to the actuator section. The actuator section 33 converts rotational force into linear driving force using, for example, a ball screw mechanism.

The linear motion converted by the actuator section 33 is transmitted to a rod 34 that operates the release lever 16 of the clutch 13, and the left and right movement of this rod 34 causes the clutch 14 to operate.

FIG. 2 shows a drive circuit for driving the drive motor 28. As shown in FIG.

The drive circuit includes a switch SW1 for switching the rotation direction of the drive motor 28, a drive transistor Tr, a resistor R1 for detecting the load current of the drive motor 28, a rectifier circuit Rec,
It consists of an analog-to-digital converter A/D.

A pulse whose duty changes depending on the load of the drive motor 28 is applied to the base of the drive transistor Tr. The load current of the drive motor 28 is then converted into a digital value by an analog-to-digital converter A/D.
It is sent to the electronic control unit 31.

Note that, as will be described in detail later, this drive circuit is useful as a backup when the rotary encoder 29 breaks down.

Next, the present invention will be explained in detail.

FIG. 3 shows the position of the release lever 16 of the clutch 13 when the release lever 16 of the clutch 13 is operated from the fully engaged position to the fully disengaged position, and then returned from the fully disengaged position to the fully engaged position. That is, it shows the relationship between the clutch position and the load that operates the clutch. As is clear from Fig. 3, when the clutch is fully engaged and the clutch is driven in the disengaged direction from this position, the clutch load is heavy, and when the clutch is operated in the disengaged direction from that point, the clutch load becomes It can be seen that it increases linearly with a slope. Then, when the clutch is about to move from the fully engaged position to the half-clutched position, the clutch load characteristic line bends at point A, and the slope becomes gentler than before. Then, it passes through the half-clutch position B, enters the clutch disengaged position, and reaches the clutch disengaged end position C.

When going to apply the clutch from the clutch disengaged position C, the clutch goes from point C to the closed position, passes through points E and F, and returns to point G, where the clutch becomes fully engaged.

By the way, it is generally known that the current flowing through a DC motor is proportional to the load on the motor.

In the present invention, as shown in FIG. 2, the drive motor that drives the clutch is controlled by a transistor Tr. Therefore, a pulse having the same frequency and a different duty depending on the load of the drive motor is applied to the pace of the transistor Tr to control the drive current of the IT motor. In other words, the clutch is controlled by determining the load force in the connecting or disconnecting direction of the clutch body based on the load current of the drive motor.
8 is connected to the power source so as to act as a load resistance, the duty of the driving pulse is made commensurate with the load force, and the load current applied to the drive motor 28 when the clutch is engaged or disengaged is changed. .

The present invention is configured such that a signal from a rotary encoder 29 connected to the drive motor 28 is input to the electronic control device 31 during normal operation. In the electronic control device 31, a table of clutch positions corresponding to the rotational speed of the drive motor 28 is stored in an internal ROM. Then, the drive motor is rotated a desired number of times to perform clutch position control.

In the clutch control device as described above, there is no guarantee that the rotary encoder 29 will fail due to vibrations of the vehicle or other causes. When such an unexpected situation occurs,
The clutch control circuit shown in FIG. 2 can be used as a backup system in the event of a rotary encoder failure.

Next, the knob pick-up system when the rotary encoder fails will be explained.

According to experiments conducted by the present inventors, in the characteristic diagram shown in Fig. 3 showing the relationship between the clutch position and the load that operates the clutch, when the driven plate that constitutes the clutch wears out, It turns out that although the position of point A changes, the distance from inflection point A to point 0 does not change.

For this reason, one inflection point A is learned by the rotary encoder h (during normal or latching operation without failure), and is stored in the memory in the electronic control unit 31. to clutch position C where the clutch is completely disconnected.
The clutch stroke up to this point is also stored in the memory within the electronic control device 31. If damage occurs to the rotary encoder 29 for some reason, the electronic control unit 31h will detect this and stop the manual input of signals from the rotary encoder 29, as well as transmit signals from the analog-to-digital converter A/D. Switch to the operation of importing the output digital value into the electronic control device. The electronic control device detects the load current of the drive motor 28 based on the digital value output from the analog-digital converter A/D, and determines the clutch position from this value using the characteristic diagram shown in FIG. . When the clutch is driven from the disengaged position to the engaged direction, when the clutch reaches the inflection point A, the number of pulses N to operate the clutch up to point B is applied to the transistor Tr, and the clutch is activated. Completely cut off. The operation from the clutch completely disengaged position to the fully engaged position is performed by detecting the load current of the drive motor 28 using a digital value output from the analog-to-digital converter A/D.
The load current value is changed while changing the pulse duty along the characteristic diagram shown in FIG. After the current value reaches the inflection point F, the clutch is continued to operate up to point G.

The above control will be explained with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 4. The count number of the counter in the electronic control unit 31 is set to N=1 (step 1), and a set duty pulse is applied to the motor (step 2). Determine whether or not the set time has elapsed (step 3); if yes, hold the motor 28;
Stop the clutch (step 4). Next, the current flowing through the motor 2 is detected (step 5) and stored in the RAM 31b as the Nth current data (step 6).

It is determined whether the count number N=1 (Step 7), and if N=1, the difference between the Nth and N-1th currents is determined (Step 8). Step 9) Determine whether the difference is smaller than the set value.
, if yes, it is further determined whether the Nth current value is greater than or equal to the set value (Step 10). If yes, apply a set duty pulse to the motor 2 (step 11), check whether the set time has elapsed (step 12), hold the motor 28, and stop the clutch (step 13).

Next, to explain the operation of clutch engagement control, check whether it is start control (step 14), if yes, apply a set duty pulse to motor 2 (step 15), and check whether the set time has elapsed (step 16). . Said step 1
If the answer in step 4 is NO, a set duty pulse is applied to the motor 28 (step 17), and it is checked whether the set time has elapsed (step 18).

When using the electric clutch actuator 14 shown in FIG. 1, the failure can be detected by measuring the load current flowing through the motor 28 and by learning the clutch disconnection load diagram that appears in the combination of the fluctuation elements. can be resolved. First, the load current is I=V/R as mentioned above.
It is. As already mentioned, the current flowing through a DC motor is generally proportional to the load on the motor. Therefore, by measuring the position of the piston rod 15 and the current of the motor, it is possible to learn the breaking load characteristics of the clutch. The load diagram shown in Fig. 3 appears as a result of a combination of factors such as variation in clutch plate dimensions, amount of wear, and thermal deformation, so if clutch control is performed based on this load diagram, The above-mentioned inconvenience will be resolved.

As shown in FIG. 3, there is an inflection point A in the coil spring type clutch. Further, assuming that the half-clutch position is B, the slope of the clutch load is different between the control between A-8 and the control between A-0. Especially in tangential control,
Near point A, the clutch load changes suddenly with respect to the unit clutch position, so it goes without saying that if the clutch is connected carelessly, a shock or the like is likely to occur. Clutch control is configured based on eight half-clutch positions, but this point B is affected by variations in clutch plate dimensions, thermal deformation, and changes in transmission drag torque. Therefore, the amount of engagement of the clutch is corrected based on the distance to the inflection point A. That is, clutch engagement amount = [f (accelerator) + f (engine rpm) + f
(Input rpm) ] x [(Distance between AB 1m
)/(set value) 1. . . . (1) Below, FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the process of half-clutch learning. First, it is determined whether the gear position sensor 21b is in neutral or not (step 1).

If yes, the half-clutch learning flag is determined to be 0N10FF (step 2). If YES, the clutch is set to a fully engaged control state (step 3), and the presence or absence of a voltage change of the clutch stroke sensor is determined (step 4). If there is a change, the process returns to step 3, but if there is no change, the voltage value of the clutch stroke sensor is set as the complete contact learning value (step 5). Step 6): Disengage the clutch by the set amount.
The load current of the motor 28 is detected (Step 7), the voltage value of the clutch stroke sensor 32 is read (Step 8), and the voltage value of the clutch stroke sensor 32 and the current of the motor 28 are stored in the RAM (Step 9). In step 10, the voltage value of the clutch stroke sensor 32 is compared with a set value, and if it is larger than the set value, step 11
Proceed to.

The clutch is gradually engaged (step 11), the input rotational speed Ni and the engine rotational speed Ne are compared (step 12), and if Ni≧1/2−Ne, the clutch is stopped (step 13). It is determined whether the input shaft is rotating (step 14) and whether the set time has elapsed (step 15), and if both are YES, the voltage value of the clutch stroke sensor 32 is set as the half-clutch learning value (step 16). ). Next, the gradient of change in the load current flowing through the motor 28 is determined from the stored value in the RAM, and the inflection point is set as point A, and the corresponding current value is determined.

and the clutch position as the learned values at point A (step 1
7). To calculate the difference between the learned value of the half-clutch and the learned value of point A, step 18) and turn on the half-clutch learning flag.
(Step 19).

Also, if it is determined in step 1 that the transmission is not in neutral, the half-clutch learning flag is cleared (step 20), steps 2 to 19
All the steps up to this point are omitted and the control ends.

Although this invention has been described in some detail with respect to its most preferred embodiment, the description of the preferred embodiment does not include modifications in the detailed parts of the structure unless they are contrary to the spirit of the invention as described in the claims. It is clear that various modifications or combinations of these can be made.

(Effects of the Invention) As explained above, according to the present invention, in the clutch control device, the system for electronically controlling the clutch applies a constant duty pulse to the drive motor by applying an electric actuator to the clutch actuator. In addition, we have developed a clutch control device that can perform clutch disengagement control and appropriately control the clutch disengagement point, half-clutch position, and clutch operating speed by measuring the current flowing through the drive motor and determining the current change. Can be provided.

Therefore, according to the present invention, by learning the corrected and accurate latch reference position, inconveniences such as a shock when starting or engine revving caused by variations in the half-clutch position can be prevented, and the system is always stable and safe. It is capable of operating vehicles.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the clutch control device of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a drive circuit diagram of a clutch actuator drive motor, FIG. 3 is a clutch load characteristic diagram, and FIG. , Clutch Control Flowchart, FIG. 5 is a half-clutch position learning flowchart. 14... Clutch actuator, 17... Engine rotation sensor, 23... Vehicle speed sensor, 28... Drive motor, 29... Rotary encoder, 30...
Input shaft rotation sensor, 31... Electronic control device, 32... Clutch stroke sensor. Patent applicant: Representative of Isuy Automobile Co., Ltd. Patent attorney: Minori Tsuji +-
/-＋I”shi! Kotter Figure 2 Hand Sales Neho Tadashi () (Method) 1. Indication of the case 1986 Patent application No. 335130 2, name of the invention Clutch control device 3, person making the amendment Relationship to the case Patent applicant address 6-22-10 Minamiinui, Tokyo Parts Industry Ward Dosha name Isu-X Automobile Co., Ltd. Tobya 7 Kazusai Representative Tobiyama - Male 4 Address of agent 3-14 Kanda Ogawa-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101 July 6, 1986 (Total delivery date 63.7.26) ) 6. Drawings subject to amendment 7. Contents of amendment

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a clutch control device that drives a clutch of a vehicle using a clutch actuator controlled by an electronic control device, the clutch actuator uses an electric motor as a drive source, a switching element that drives and controls the electric motor, and a means for measuring the current flowing through the switching element. and a control means for controlling the current flowing through the switching element in accordance with clutch load characteristics based on the signal from the measuring means;
means for learning the inflection point of the clutch load characteristic and the half-clutch position; and means for correcting a reference point for clutch control from the inflection point of the clutch load characteristic and the half-clutch position to execute clutch position control. A clutch control device comprising: