Foley & Lardner, Schwartz, Jeffery, Schwaab, Mack, Blumenthal & Evans
Method and system for controlling automotive suspension system, particularly for controlling suspension characteristics in accordance with road surface conditions
 A suspension control system employs a road sensor monitoring road roughness or smoothness and producing a road condition indicative signal. The control system also employs other sensor or sensors for monitoring at least one preselected suspension control parameter, such as vehicle speed, steering angular variation and so forth, other than road roughness. The suspension switches between relatively hard and relatively soft characteristics based on the preselected suspension control prameters. In order to make suspension control more precisely suited to the vehicle driving conditions, the control characateristics of the suspension system are adjusted depending upon the road condition. With this arrangement, even when the suspension is controlled so as to suppress vehicular roll based on the steering angular displacement and when rough road conditions cause steering angular displacement due to kick-back from the road input through the steering mechanism, the erroneous judgement that steering adjustments are about to cause vehicular roll can be avoided. In case of acceleration responsive suspension control, rough road conditions tend to cause a driver to unconsciously operate the accelerator pedal so as to increase and decrease throttle valve angular position relative to the fully closed position. According to the present invention, by adjusting the control characteristics, erroneous detection that the vehicle is accelerating, which would normally cause winding-up, can be successfully avoided. 
Nissan Motor Company, Limited
B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B
B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G B60G
additional additional additional inventional additional additional additional additional additional additional additional additional additional inventional additional additional additional additional inventional additional additional
Masatsugu Satoru Kenji Hideo Kazunobu
Yokote Ishihara Kawagoe Ito Kawabata