Patent ID: 8370024

Claim:
A method for detecting a direction of travel or for detecting a change in the direction of travel of a motor vehicle which has at least two wheel speed sensor arrangements which each comprise an encoder with an incremental scale and a plurality of scale graduations and a wheel speed sensor and are connected to an electronic control unit (ECU), transmitting a speed signal to the ECU when a scale graduation is sensed by each wheel speed sensor, identifying the direction of travel or a change in the direction of travel of the motor vehicle by comparing a present order in which the speed signals are received by the ECU to a forward direction order and a reverse direction order, wherein the forward direction order and reverse direction order are determined based on a past order of the speed signals previously received by the ECU and a direction of travel corresponding to the past order, and wherein the following steps are carried out in the course of an identification of a direction of travel: generating a current sequence data record from the speed signals received last in the electronic control unit, generating at least one forward sequence data record, in which data are arranged in accordance with forward travel, and at least one reverse sequence data record, in which data are arranged in accordance with reverse travel, from at least one preceding sequence data record which is stored in the electronic control unit, comparing a current sequence data record with both the at least one forward sequence data record and with the at least one reverse sequence data record, wherein, in each case, a correspondence characteristic variable of the current sequence data record with the forward sequence data record and the reverse sequence data record is calculated, and carrying out a process for determining the direction of travel by evaluating at least the two correspondence characteristic variables.