Patent ID: 11872991
Assignee: nan
Field: Mechanical elements (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  F | IPC B  F

Claim 0:
1. A transmission control apparatus for controlling a transmission of a vehicle, the vehicle having an engine in mechanical communication with the transmission, the transmission comprising:
an input shaft;
an output shaft;
at least two dog clutches;
at least two sets of gears which are selectively engageable; and
a selector drum that when rotated into a selected one of a plurality of gear engagement positions corresponding to a selected gear set causes one of the dog clutches to engage with the selected gear set, causing the selected gear set to engage, causing power to be transmitted from the engine to drive the output shaft from the input shaft, the selector drum having a neutral position between each pair of adjacent gear engagement positions,, the transmission control apparatus comprising:
a. a control motor which is mechanically connected to the selector drum and is actuable to rotate the selector drum;
b. a torque sensor which senses torque applied to the selector drum by the control motor;
c. a controller configured to control the control motor based on signals received from the torque sensor to thereby control the engagement and disengagement of the dog clutches;
d. a cam indexer connected to the selector drum, the cam indexer comprising (i) a cam sprocket having one gear detent corresponding to each of the gear engagement positions of the selector drum, and one neutral detent corresponding to each of the neutral positions of the selector drum, and (ii) a cam follower that engages with the gear detents and biases the selector drum into either a corresponding gear engagement position or a corresponding neutral position;
e. a selector drum position sensor;
f. an input shaft angular speed sensor that senses the angular speed of the input shaft; and
g. an output shaft angular speed sensor that senses the angular speed of the output shaft,
wherein the controller is further configured to detect excessive relative angular speed of a disengaged dog clutch when (iii) based on information provided by the selector drum position sensor, the selector drum is determined to be in one of the neutral positions, and (iv) the relative angular speed of the disengaged dog clutch exceeds an upper predetermined value as determined from information provided by the angular speed sensors.