JPH04146825A - Running controller for vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To quickly and certainly cancel automatic running control when abnormality occurs and improve reliability by judging that abnormality occurs when the grip of a driver of a vehicle keeps a given threshold or more in a given time and outputting automatic running control cancellation command when abnormality occurs. CONSTITUTION:A plurality of grip sensors 10 are provided at the steering wheel 11 of a vehicle, and each detected signal is entered in an electronic controlling unit ECU 12. Detected signals from a speed sensor are also entered in the ECU 12. When it is judged that there is an abnormality in the ECU 12, an automatic running canceling command is output to an ECU for automatic running. In this case, when the driver's grip detected by a grip sensor 10 keeps a given threshold or more in a given time, the ECU 12 judges there is abnormality. When it is judged to be abnormal, an automatic running control cancellation command is output.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Field of Application] The present invention relates to a vehicle running control device, and in particular, to a device for canceling automatic driving control using an abnormality release means when an abnormality unintended by the driver occurs during automatic driving control. The present invention relates to a vehicle travel control device having the function of

[Conventional technology] Conventionally, automatic tracking systems have been used to detect the distance and speed of the vehicle in front and follow the vehicle in front, and to detect the position of the garage and control the steering angle and speed of the vehicle to park the vehicle. 2. Description of the Related Art Travel control devices for vehicles such as automatic parking systems (for example, Japanese Utility Model Application No. 60-16206) are known. Normally, in such automatic driving control devices, when the system is in an abnormal state, such as abnormal steering such as steering lock or excessive steering, sudden braking, sudden start, etc., the system is switched from automatic control mode to manual control. An abnormality release switch for switching to the mode is provided on the dash board, instrument panel, etc. of the vehicle. That is, for example, if an abnormal steering is performed while the automatic parking system is operating, the vehicle driver can cancel the system by operating the abnormality release switch provided on the dash board or instrument panel, and then manually operate the system. The vehicle is operated to the desired state.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, as mentioned above, the conventional abnormality release switch is installed on the dash board or instrument panel of the vehicle, so it is not easy to operate because it is located far away from the vehicle driver. There is a problem that if you are not familiar with the operation, you will not be able to operate it immediately in an emergency. In particular, when the vehicle speed is high, it is necessary to shorten the time required from recognizing an abnormality to operating the abnormality release switch. There was a problem in that it was extremely difficult to shorten the length.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, and its purpose is to quickly and reliably cancel automatic driving control when an abnormality unintended by the driver occurs during automatic driving control. An object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle travel control device.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the vehicle running control device according to the present invention causes the vehicle to travel automatically, and when an abnormality occurs, the automatic driving control is canceled by the abnormality release means. The control device includes an abnormality release means that includes a grip force sensor that is provided on a steering wheel of the vehicle and detects the grip force of the vehicle driver, and a grip force sensor that maintains the grip force of the vehicle driver detected by the grip force sensor at a predetermined threshold value for a predetermined period of time. The present invention is characterized in that it includes a determining means that determines that there is an abnormality when the above conditions occur, and a control means that outputs a command to cancel the automatic driving control when the determining means determines that the vehicle is abnormal.

[Operation] The vehicle travel control device of the present invention has such a configuration, and a grip force sensor is provided on the steering wheel of the vehicle, and detects whether or not an abnormality has occurred based on changes in the grip force of the vehicle driver. .

In other words, if any abnormality occurs during automatic driving control,
A vehicle driver usually grips the steering wheel firmly and acts to perform desired steering. Therefore, when an abnormality occurs, the grip force of the vehicle driver detected by the grip force sensor will show a value larger than the grip force under normal conditions.

Therefore, it is possible to compare the vehicle driver's grip strength with a certain reference threshold, and if the grip strength exceeds this reference threshold, it can be determined that a situation different from normal has occurred.

Note that the grip force sensor may output a detection signal due to factors other than the vehicle driver's operation (for example, an object collides with the steering wheel), but in such a case, the value detected by the grip force sensor will be in the form of a pulse. Therefore, by determining whether or not an abnormality has occurred based on whether or not it exceeds a predetermined time reference threshold, only changes in the vehicle driver's grip strength can be detected to determine the presence or absence of an abnormality. can do.

Then, when an abnormality is detected, the control device outputs a command to cancel the automatic driving control, thereby canceling the automatic driving control without any special operation by the vehicle driver.

[Embodiment] Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of the vehicle travel control device according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of the configuration of the abnormality release means of this embodiment. A plurality of grip force sensors 10 are provided on the steering wheel 11 of the vehicle as described later, and detection signals from each grip force sensor 10 are sent to interfaces 1/F and C.
The information is input to the electronic control unit ECU12, which has a built-in PU% ROM and the like and performs predetermined arithmetic processing, and it is determined whether the detected grip force is greater than or equal to a predetermined threshold value for a predetermined period of time.

Note that the detection signal from the speed sensor 14 is also input to this ECU 12, and is used as a parameter to set the threshold value with which the detected grip force is compared to an appropriate value according to the speed of the vehicle as described later. used. And this EC
When it is determined in U12 that there is an abnormality, an automatic travel cancellation command is output to the automatic travel ECU.

FIG. 1 shows a diagram of the installation of the plurality of grip force sensor units O shown in FIG. 2, and a sectional view of the structure thereof. As shown in FIG. 1(C), each grip force sensor 10 has a structure in which a pressure-sensitive conductive rubber sheet 10a is sandwiched between two plates 10b, and the pressure-sensitive conductive rubber sheet 10a is held between two plates 10b. By applying pressure, its resistance value changes, and the applied grip force can be detected from this change in resistance value (actually, a change in current or voltage).

In this embodiment, the grip force sensor 10 is installed at the circumference of the steering wheel 11 of the vehicle as shown in FIG. 11 inner frame ll
It is installed on the instrument panel side of a.

By providing the grip force sensor 10 at such a position,
This not only prevents erroneous detection due to a collision with an object from the vehicle driver side, but also makes it possible to efficiently detect changes in the vehicle driver's grip strength.

Then, when the grip force of the vehicle driver is detected by the plurality of grip force sensors 10, the presence or absence of an abnormality is determined by the ECU 12 as described above. Below, this ECU
The processing performed in step 12 will be explained in detail.

FIG. 4 shows a control flowchart of the ECU 12. First, in step 100, it is determined whether automatic operation is in progress. This automated driving is based on detection signals from various sensors such as visual sensors and side monitoring sensors that recognize the vehicle environment, as well as vehicle speed sensors, steering angle sensors, and acceleration sensors that detect the driving state of the own vehicle. It commands the automatic driving ECU, throttle actuator, brake actuator, steering actuator, etc. to perform automatic follow-up driving and automatic parking (see Fig. 3).

If the vehicle is under automatic driving control, the determination in step 100 is YES, and the process moves to the next step 102, where the above-mentioned grip force sensor is captured.

On the other hand, if NO at step 100, that is, if the vehicle is not under automatic driving control, the process moves to step 104, where it is determined whether the vehicle is currently running based on the detection signal from the vehicle speed sensor. If the vehicle speed is 1 km/h or higher, that is, if the vehicle is currently being driven manually, the flow moves to a threshold determination flow and sets a threshold that matches the driving characteristics of the vehicle driver. It will be done.

This threshold setting flow consists of three flows. First, the detection signal from the grip force sensor 10 is taken in,
The average value of the values is calculated in step 106. next,
Based on the calculated average value, in step 108, a shift amount for shifting the reference threshold value, which is set in advance to a certain grip strength value, is calculated.

The arithmetic processing performed in step 108 has the following meaning. That is, the grip strength value during normal driving differs depending on the driver of the vehicle, and therefore the threshold value used to determine whether an abnormality has occurred must also be changed depending on the driver of the vehicle. For example, as shown in FIG. 7, it is assumed that the grip strength profile of a certain vehicle driver A during normal driving is indicated by A, and the grip strength profile of another vehicle driver B is indicated by B. Here, the horizontal axis in FIG. 7 is time, and the vertical axis is the grip strength value of the vehicle driver. In this way, since the grip strength values differ depending on the vehicle driver, if the same threshold value is set for vehicle drivers A and B, it will not be possible to reliably detect an abnormal increase in the grip strength value due to the occurrence of an abnormality. Therefore, it is necessary to set the threshold value appropriately according to the grip strength characteristics of the vehicle driver, but step 1
In step 08, the shift amount of the reference threshold value is calculated based on the average grip strength value of the vehicle driver, and in the next step 110, the reference threshold value is shifted upward or downward by this shift amount. In the example of FIG. 7, in the case of a vehicle driver A who exhibits a grip force profile indicated by A, the reference threshold value is changed downward by the shift amount indicated by shift A, and the threshold value A'
On the other hand, in the case of vehicle driver B who exhibits a larger grip strength profile than this person, the reference threshold value is changed upward by the shift amount indicated by shift B to become threshold value B-.

In addition, instead of calculating the shift amount from the average grip strength value in this way, it is also possible to set a threshold value for each vehicle driver by setting the threshold value to be an increase of several tens of percent from the average grip strength value. In addition, when the vehicle driver is driving the vehicle manually, a threshold value is determined according to the grip strength characteristics of the vehicle driver, and during automatic driving, the presence or absence of an abnormality is determined based on this threshold value. That is, after the value of the grip force sensor is taken in step 102 described above, it is determined in step 112 whether or not this grip force value exceeds a threshold value. If YES in this step 112, that is, it is determined that the grip strength value exceeds the threshold value, the time during which the grip strength value exceeds the threshold value is counted in the next step 114.

After the time for exceeding the threshold is counted in step 114, it is determined whether the time for exceeding the threshold is longer than a predetermined time, that is, the change in grip force caused by an object colliding with the steering wheel 11. It is determined whether this is due to a change in grip strength of the vehicle driver due to the occurrence of an abnormality. This determination step consists of a flow for determining whether or not the threshold exceeding time exceeds a first predetermined time and a flow for determining whether or not the threshold exceeding time exceeds a second predetermined time. is set to several tens of milliseconds. And step 1
At step 16, the magnitude relationship between the threshold crossing time and this several tens of milliseconds is determined.

This size comparison is a step to eliminate the instantaneous increase in the grip force value due to the collision with an object as described above. That is,
The steering wheel 1 of the vehicle as shown in FIG.
The time required to exceed the threshold value is different between the grip force value profile A when an object hits the steering wheel 11 and the grip force value profile B when the vehicle driver grips the steering wheel 11. Normally, when an object collides with the steering wheel 11 of a vehicle, the grip force value profile becomes pulse-like, and therefore the time required to exceed the threshold value is several tens of milliseconds or less. Therefore, in this step 116, by determining whether the time exceeding the threshold value is several tens of milliseconds or more, it is possible to determine whether the grip strength value has increased due to a collision with an object, or whether it is due to an increase in the grip strength of the vehicle driver due to the occurrence of an abnormality. It will be determined whether this is the case.

If the result in step 116 is YES, that is, if it is detected that the vehicle driver has strongly gripped the steering wheel of the vehicle, a comparison is made with a second predetermined time period.

The flow of comparing the magnitudes of the second predetermined time, etc. is carried out at a vehicle speed importing step 118, which imports the detection signal from the vehicle speed sensor.
, step 12 of calculating the determination time from the detected vehicle speed.
0, and the determination time calculated in this way, that is, the second
The process consists of step 122 in which a predetermined time period is compared with a threshold value exceeding time period. This series of steps 118 to 122 is a flow for reliably detecting whether or not an abnormality has occurred according to the vehicle running condition, and is in line with the actual requirement that the higher the vehicle speed, the earlier the occurrence of an abnormality must be detected. It's a flow. That is, as shown in FIG. 6, the absolute value of the pressure value profile A when the vehicle driver grips the steering wheel 11 normally is significantly different from the grip force value profile B when the vehicle driver grips the steering wheel 11 strongly due to an abnormality. In the case of grip force value profile B when gripping strongly, whether the time exceeding the threshold value occurs or not, the driving state of the vehicle can be determined by changing the judgment time for determining the time exceeding the threshold value depending on the vehicle speed. This makes it possible to perform reliable detection according to the situation. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 8, a relationship may be set in which the vehicle speed and the determination time are inversely proportional to a certain predetermined vehicle speed, and the determination time is constant above a certain vehicle speed. As mentioned above, the higher the vehicle speed, the earlier it is necessary to determine the presence or absence of an abnormality, but by shortening the determination time as the vehicle speed increases, it becomes possible to determine the presence or absence of an abnormality more quickly. .

If the threshold crossing time exceeds the second determination time, the determination is YES in step 122, and the ECU 12 instructs the automatic driving ECU shown in FIG. 3 to cancel the automatic driving control. The automatic driving control is canceled by outputting
As shown in 4, this automatic driving control cancellation command is output as a manual switching signal, and simultaneously stops the operation of the automatic driving ECU and enables normal manual driving of the vehicle.

As described above, in this embodiment, the grip force sensor 10 is provided around the circumference of the steering wheel 11 of the vehicle to detect changes in the grip force value, and when comparing the detected grip force value with a predetermined threshold value, By setting the threshold value appropriately according to the vehicle driver's normal grip strength value and changing the time for determining whether or not this threshold has been exceeded depending on the vehicle speed, it is possible to accommodate multiple vehicle drivers. At the same time, it is possible to reliably detect the occurrence of an abnormality depending on the driving state of the vehicle.

In this example, the presence or absence of an abnormality was detected based only on the grip force value, but for example, if the steering wheel is turned beyond the desired angle while the automatic parking system is operating, the vehicle driver will not only have to grip the steering wheel strongly but also Torque is applied to the steering wheel to return it to the desired angle. Therefore, by adding the step of detecting the steering torque applied by the vehicle driver and determining the presence or absence of an abnormality, it is possible to more reliably detect an abnormality and cancel automatic driving control.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the vehicle travel control device according to the present invention, when an abnormality occurs, the automatic travel control can be canceled quickly and reliably, resulting in extremely reliable A highly automated driving control system can be obtained.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of a grip force sensor in an embodiment of the vehicle travel control device according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the configuration of an abnormality release means in the embodiment, and FIG. 3 is an illustration of an automatic grip sensor in the embodiment. FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the configuration of the travel control device, FIG. 4 is an operation flowchart of the abnormality ECU in the same embodiment, and FIGS. 5 to 8 are explanatory diagrams of setting thresholds and determination times in the same embodiment. 10...Grip force sensor 11...Steering wheel 12...ECU 14...Vehicle speed sensor (A) Grip force sensor Diagram Embodiment configuration diagram O'7 Diagram 2nd factor Configuration blocks of automatic driving control device Figure 3 Time (S) Grip force value profile Figure 5 Grip force value profile Figure 6 Time threshold setting Figure 7 Judgment time setting Figure 8

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A vehicle travel control device that causes a vehicle to travel automatically and, in the event of an abnormality, cancels automatic travel control by an abnormality release means, wherein the abnormality release means is provided on a steering wheel of the vehicle. a grip force sensor that detects the grip strength of a driver; a determination means that determines that the vehicle driver's grip strength detected by the grip force sensor is abnormal when it is equal to or higher than a predetermined threshold for a predetermined time; and the determination means determines that the vehicle driver is abnormal. A vehicle travel control device comprising: a control means that outputs a command to cancel automatic travel control when the automatic travel control is canceled.