Patent ID: 8437936

Claim:
An improved Electronic Stability Control system for a vehicle comprising: a map database that includes data that indicates properties of roads in a road network including shapes of roads upon which the vehicle travels; a positioning system operably coupled to the map database to determine a position of the vehicle on a road in the road network; an electronic control unit comprising a processor operable to execute programming functions, wherein said electronic control unit is operably coupled to sensors that indicate a vehicle yaw rate and a steering wheel position, and further wherein said electronic control unit is operably coupled to the positioning system to receive information indicating the position of the vehicle on the road, and wherein said electronic control unit includes outputs to brake actuators associated with brakes associated with individual wheels of said vehicle; and an ESC program run on the electronic control unit that uses inputs from the sensors and information from the map database that indicates a shape of a portion of the road upon which the vehicle is located that is ahead of the position of the vehicle so as to determine a derived vehicle yaw rate which would result from intended operation of the vehicle by a driver of the vehicle and to determine sensitivity to differences between the derived vehicle yaw rate and an actual vehicle yaw rate to determine whether to provide outputs to the brake actuators to reduce differences between the derived vehicle yaw rate and the actual vehicle yaw rate based upon the extent to which the shape of the portion of the road ahead will itself cause a reduction of the difference between the derived vehicle yaw rate and the actual vehicle yaw rate.