Patent ID: 8489355

Claim:
A method for determining long-term offset drills of an acceleration sensor in a motor vehicle, with the method comprising the steps: determining a longitudinal vehicle speed in a center of gravity of the vehicle from a measured value of at least one vehicle speed sensor; calculating a first share of driving dynamics for a longitudinal reference acceleration as well as a second share of driving dynamics for a transverse reference acceleration from the longitudinal vehicle speed and a yaw rate; calculating a third share of driving dynamics in a reference acceleration in a plane by transforming the first and second share for the position and orientation of the acceleration sensor; recording the third share of driving dynamics; and automatically determining a long-term offset drill of the acceleration sensor from measured values of the acceleration sensor and the recorded third share of driving dynamics in the reference acceleration by means of a situation-dependent averaging process, such that the long-term offset drift is determined as an average value of offset drift for an averaging period that includes both uphill and downhill travel of the motor vehicle, such that offset drift values corresponding to periods of uphill and downhill travel of the motor vehicle in which associated gravitational affects on the acceleration sensor are non-zero are included in the determined average value of offset drift, such that periods of non-zero acceleration due to gravity as a result of the uphill and downhill travel during the averaging period are assumed to average to zero over the averaging period; and wherein the situation-dependent averaging process incorporates the assumed average value of zero for the average acceleration due to gravity during the averaging period, such that acceleration due to gravity during the included periods of uphill and downhill travel is not factored into the long-term offset drift calculation.