Patent ID: 7121633

Claim:
An electric parking brake apparatus comprising: a parking brake of a vehicle, the parking brake being of the type which does not utilize fluid pressure for generating parking brake force; an electric driver for activating and deactivating the parking brake; manually operated member for generating activation and deactivation signals which instruct activation and deactivation of the parking brake, respectively; and an electric parking brake control unit for controlling the electric drive means on the basis of the signals, the electric parking brake control unit including an input section for receiving signals output from a second control unit mounted on the vehicle and instructing automatic activation and automatic deactivation of the parking brake, wherein the parking brake can be automatically activated and deactivated in the absence of the generation of activation and deactivation signals, respectively, by the manually operated member; wherein the second control unit is a brake hydraulic pressure control unit adapted to control hydraulic braking force applied to respective wheels of the vehicle, independently of operation of a brake pedal; the brake hydraulic pressure control unit is configured in such a manner that when a predetermined parking-brake-automatic-activation start condition is satisfied, the brake hydraulic pressure control unit maintains, for a predetermined period of time, a state in which a predetermined hydraulic braking force for stopping the vehicle and holding the vehicle in a stopped state is applied to the respective wheels independently of operation of the brake pedal, and outputs a signal for instructing automatic activation of the parking brake after elapse of the predetermined period of time; and the input section of the electric parking brake control unit is connected to the brake hydraulic pressure control unit to receive the signal output from the brake hydraulic pressure control unit and instruct automatic activation of the parking brake.