Patent ID: 7234339

Claim:
A road surface frictional coefficient estimating apparatus for a vehicle, for estimating a frictional coefficient of a surface of a road on which the vehicle is traveling, comprising: a road surface frictional coefficient estimation unit that estimates a frictional coefficient of the road surface based motion parameters of said vehicle; and a display that varies a mode of display depending on an estimated road surface frictional coefficient, wherein the road surface frictional coefficient estimation unit comprises: a front wheel speed detection unit for detecting a speed of front wheels; a rear wheel speed detection unit for detecting a speed of rear wheels; a vehicle speed detection unit for detecting a speed of the vehicle; a vehicle deceleration detection unit for detecting deceleration of the vehicle; a steering angle detection unit for detecting a front wheel steering angle; a brake status detection unit for detecting the operation of vehicle brakes; a front and rear wheels slip ratio difference calculating unit for calculating a difference between slip ratios of the front and rear wheels by dividing a difference between the front wheel speed and the rear wheel speed by the vehicle speed; and a road surface μ estimation unit for estimating the current road surface frictional coefficient based on receiving a signal from said steering angle detection unit, the brake status detection unit, and from the relationship between the deceleration of the vehicle and the difference between the front and rear wheel slip ratios, wherein the road surface frictional coefficient estimation unit comprises: an actual value estimation unit for calculating an actual value of a yaw rate using an observer; a high-μ road reference value estimation unit for calculating a reference value of the yaw rate in a predetermined road having a high road surface frictional coefficient, as a high-μ road reference value, using a model of vehicle motion; a low-μ road reference value estimation unit for calculating a reference value of a yaw rate in a predetermined road having a low road surface frictional coefficient, as a low-μ road reference value, using the model of vehicle motion; a road surface μ relative to yaw rate estimation unit for estimating a second current road surface frictional coefficient by comparing the actual value of the yaw rate with the high-μ road reference value and the low-μ road reference value; and a selection unit for selecting one of the current road surface frictional coefficient estimated by the road μ estimation unit and the second current road surface frictional coefficient estimated by the road surface μ relative to yaw rate estimation unit, and wherein the display varies the mode of display depending on the road surface frictional coefficient selected by the selection unit.