Patent ID: 8078360

Claim:
A control apparatus of a variable damping force damper of a current control type used to suspend a vehicle body of a vehicle, comprising: a dynamic state sensor for detecting a dynamic state of the vehicle body; a road surface condition determination unit for determining a surface condition of a road on which the vehicle is traveling; a target damping force setting unit for setting a target damping force of the variable damping force damper based on the dynamic state of the vehicle body detected by the dynamic state sensor, the target damping force setting unit performing an attitude control under a prescribed dynamic state of the vehicle body; a target current setting unit for setting a target current for the variable damping force damper based on the target damping force set by the target damping force setting unit and a stroke speed of the variable damping force damper; a first low-pass filter for cutting off high frequency components of the target current; a second low-pass filter for cutting off high frequency components of the target current, the second low-pass filter having a different response characteristic from that of the first low-pass filter; and a low-pass filter selection unit for selecting one of the first and second low-pass filters based on at least one of the dynamic state of the vehicle body detected by the dynamic state sensor and the road surface condition determined by the road surface condition determination unit, the low-pass filter selection unit selecting the first low-pass filter when an irregular road surface is detected by the road surface condition determination unit or when the attitude control is not being performed, and selecting the second low-pass filter when an irregular road surface is not detected by the road surface condition determination unit and the attitude control is being performed.