Patent ID: 7837281

Claim:
An apparatus for maintaining a braking force of a vehicle, comprising: a reference braking force setting section that sets, as a reference braking force, a braking force applied by a braking section to wheels of the vehicle after a reference time has elapsed since stopping of the vehicle through application of the braking force to the wheels by the braking section; a threshold value setting section that sets a threshold value by adding the reference braking force to a predetermined reference value; a braking force determining section that determines whether the braking force applied by the braking section to the wheels through depression of a braking pedal of the vehicle after setting of the threshold value has become greater than or equal to the threshold value; a control section that controls operation of the braking section in such a manner that, when the determination of the braking force determining section is positive, the braking force acting on the wheels is maintained for preventing rotation of the wheels regardless of release of the brake pedal from the depression; a braking force change rate detecting section that detects a change rate of the braking force applied by the braking section to the wheels after the threshold value has been set; and a change rate determining section that determines whether the change rate detected by the braking force change rate detecting section is a negative value, wherein, if the determination of the change rate determining section is positive, the reference braking force setting section resets, as the reference braking force, the braking force applied by the braking section to the wheels after the threshold value has been set, and the threshold value setting section resets the threshold value by adding the reference braking force that has been reset by the reference braking force setting section to the reference value.