Patent ID: 8798906

Claim:
A vehicle control device comprising: a rotation detector to detect a rotational speed of a vehicle wheel; a vehicle movement amount detecting section to detect an amount of movement of a vehicle from a signal outputted by the rotation detector; a separation distance measuring section to measure, on a non-contact basis, the separation distance between the vehicle and an object located at a position within a region measurable from the vehicle; and a vehicle movement control section to control the movement of the vehicle with the utilization of the separation distance detected by the separation distance measuring section, and the amount of movement of the vehicle detected by the vehicle movement amount detecting section, wherein the rotation detector includes an annular encoder provided in a rotating ring, forming a part of a wheel support bearing assembly for supporting the vehicle wheel and having a plurality of circumferentially juxtaposed and equidistantly spaced to-be-detected poles, a sensor to detect the to-be-detected poles of the encoder, a multiplying segment to multiply the phase of the to-be-detected poles from an output of the sensor, and a pulse output segment adapted to receive an output of the multiplying segment or to receive both of the output of the multiplying segment and a detection output of the sensor to output pulses of at least two different magnification powers, the pulse of one of the magnification powers outputted by the pulse output segment being a phase difference signal of A and B phases different in phase by 90 degrees from each other, wherein the vehicle movement amount detecting section is operable to detect the amount of movement of the vehicle from a pulse output multiplied by the multiplying segment.