Patent ID: 7386382

Claim:
A method of controlling a vehicle drive system for a vehicle having an internal combustion engine, free-wheeling steerable front wheels, driven rear wheels, an infinitely variable transmission (IVT) transmitting torque from the engine to the rear wheels, and a control unit for controlling the IVT as a function of sensed parameters and supplying a speed command to the IVT for commanding a speed of the rear wheels, the method comprising: sensing a steering angle of the front wheels; sensing a front wheel speed; sensing a rear wheel speed; generating two estimates of vehicle speed, the first estimate being a function of a gear ratio of a rear wheel drive, the rear drive motor rotational speed and a rolling radius of the rear wheel and the second estimate being a function of the front wheel speed, a rolling radius of the front wheel, and the steering angle of the steerable front wheels; generating a corrected estimated vehicle speed as a function of the vehicle speed estimates and the sensed steering angle; and increasing the speed command in response to a comparison between the corrected estimated vehicle speed and the rear wheel speed, the estimated vehicle speed value, VS=(V1*{2*WB*cos(α)+KS*sin(α)})÷{WB+{[WB*cos(α)+KS*sin(α)] 2 +WB 2 sin(α) 2 } 1/2 }, where RRfront is the rolling radius of the front wheels and WB is the wheel base of the vehicle, and KS is the distance between the kingpins of the front wheels, and α is the steer angle of the left front wheel from straight ahead.