Patent ID: 9573569
Date: 2017-02-21
CPC Classifications: B60L,B60T,B60W,B60Y,B62M,Y02T

Claim:
1. A regenerative brake device for a vehicle, comprising: a manual brake that applies a brake to a wheel of the vehicle by a manual operation of a brake lever; a motor configured to be coupled to a wheel of the vehicle, the motor being driven by a power from a battery, and also alternatively acting as a regenerative brake that charges the battery with an electromotive force of the motor; a brake sensor that senses an operation amount of the brake lever inclusive of a play of the brake lever in which the manual brake is not yet engaged; and a power control unit that performs regenerative power control for charging the battery with the electromotive force of the motor based on an output signal from the brake sensor so that the regenerative brake is generated in accordance with the operation amount of the brake lever, wherein the power control unit conducts a power control by pulse width modulation, and controls a duty ratio D in a regenerative mode so as to satisfy (Vbatt×D)<Vmotor, where Vmotor is a counter-electromotive force of the motor, Vbatt is an output of the battery, and D is the duty ratio of the pulse width modulation, wherein the power control unit performs the regenerative power control such that a regenerative braking force is gradually increased towards a maximum regenerative braking force as the operation amount of the brake lever increases across a manual brake application point at and beyond which the manual brake is engaged, and wherein the regenerative braking force continues to increase beyond the manual brake application point towards the maximum regenerative braking force, and a rate of the increase of the regenerative braking force before the manual brake application point is reached is larger than a rate of the increase of the regenerative braking force after the brake application point is reached.