Patent ID: 7077484

Claim:
A brake control apparatus for a vehicle, comprising: a brake section to apply a regenerative braking force to a motor-driven wheel driven by a motor; a control section to vary the regenerative braking force in a direction to shift a front and rear wheel braking force distribution toward an ideal braking force distribution, in accordance with a wheel locking tendency of the motor-driven wheel when the regenerative braking force exceeding a braking force determined by the ideal braking force distribution is applied to the motor-driven wheel; and a sensing section to sense the wheel locking tendency of the motor-driven wheel; wherein the brake section is arranged to vary the front and rear wheel braking force distribution by manipulating a braking force of the motor-driven wheel and a braking force of a motor-non-driven wheel which is not driven by the motor in accordance with a brake control signal from the control section; wherein the control section controls the brake section to control actual front and rear wheel braking forces in a normal brake control mode when the wheel locking tendency is outside a slip restraint control range, and controls the brake section to control the actual front and rear wheel braking forces in a slip restraint brake control mode to shift the front and rear wheel braking force distribution toward the ideal braking force distribution, in accordance with the wheel locking tendency sensed by the sensing section; wherein the sensing section comprises a road surface friction sensing subsection to sense a road surface friction coefficient; wherein the control section modifies a characteristic of a brake control in the slip restraint mode in accordance with the road surface friction coefficient to increase effect of the brake control in the slip restraint mode when the road surface friction coefficient becomes lower; and wherein the control section varies the braking force to the motor-driven wheel by a correction quantity in the slip restraint mode, and calculates the correction quantity in accordance with the wheel locking tendency and the road surface friction quantity so that the correction quantity increases as the wheel locking tendency increases and the correction quantity increases as the road surface friction coefficient decreases.