Patent ID: 8220877
Filing Date: 2012-07-17
Classification: B60T

Abstract:
1. An electric parking brake system, comprising: a parking brake for changing a braking force of a vehicle; an actuator in driving communication with said parking brake; a relay device in communication with said actuator for having the actuator set the parking brake in one of a first mode, second mode or third mode, with the first, second and third modes being respectively represented by a parking brake release mode, a parking brake in a first brake force level mode, and a parking brake in a second brake force level mode which is at a higher brake force level than said first brake force level mode; a controller; a manual operation switch which comprises respective on and off switch setting positions, said manual operation switch being in communication with said controller such that said actuator is driven to cause said parking brake to assume a braking state upon the manual operation switch being manually set to on by an operator and to release the parking brake from the braking state upon the manual setting of the manual operation switch to an off state; a vehicle side unit that is in communication with said controller and monitors one or more vehicle running conditions and conveys to said controller information as to enable the controller to determine when a vehicle is in a running condition and when a vehicle is in a stopping condition; a parking condition detecting section that detects when a vehicle has changed from the stopping condition to a parking condition, said parking condition detecting section also being in communication with said controller to convey to said controller when the vehicle has adjusted from said stopping condition to a parking condition; and said controller having a control unit that is configured, when said vehicle side unit inputs information to the controller indicating that the vehicle has gone from said running condition to said stopping condition, to instruct said relay device to direct said actuator to go from said first mode to said second mode, and said control unit being further configured as to instruct said relay device to adjust from said second mode to said third mode upon an input from said parking condition detecting section that the vehicle has gone from said stopping condition to said parking condition and under a condition that said manual operation switch is set to off.