Patent ID: 7676345

Claim:
A method of determining the velocity (ν) of a vehicle having at least one pair of a front and a rear wheel which are spaced by a wheel spacing (B), the method comprising for at least one pair of wheels: (a) determining front and rear wheel speed signals (ω) indicative of the time dependent behavior of the front and rear wheel speeds, respectively; (b) correlating the front and rear wheel speed signals (ω) based on a velocity-compensated correlation function (R) in which a velocity dependency is compensated with the wheel speed signal (ω) of the front or the rear wheel such that a correlation feature remains unchanged with varying vehicle velocity (ν) but changes with varying wheel radius (r) of the respective wheel, wherein the correlation feature is indicative of the wheel radius (r) of the respective front wheel or rear wheel, and further wherein the action of correlating is based on the correlation function (R) of the front and rear wheel speed signals, said correlation function (B) is a function of a wheel radius (r), and the correlation feature is the specific wheel radius ({circumflex over (r)}) which corresponds to the maximum of said correlation function (R); and (c) determining the velocity (ν) of the vehicle based on said specific wheel radius ({circumflex over (r)}) and the wheel speed signal (ω) of the respective front and rear wheel.