Method and Apparatus for Selecting Gears of an Automatic Transmission

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to a method of and apparatus for changing the gears of an automatic transmission which controls the gear selection by use of an electronic device such as a microcomputer and the like.

2. Description of the Prior Art

The prior method for changing the gears of an automatic transmission determines primarily the gear selection mode according to the opening of a throttle valve in an intake system and the vehicle speed, without changing the gear selection pattern according to the speed of the accelerator pedal depressed by the driver. Hence, even if the driver depresses the accelerator pedal rapidly, expecting large acceleration, or slowly, expecting small acceleration, the same gear selection mode is obtained when the depression amount of the accelerator pedal, i.e. the opening of the throttle valve in the intake system, is the same. Hence, if the accelerator pedal is depressed rapidly, shift-up occurs too soon to provide sufficient desired acceleration, and if depressed slowly, the shift-up tends to be delayed thereby increasing travelling time in the low gear mode, and giving dissatisfactory performance to the driver while producing losses in fuel efficiency.

An object of this invention is to provide a method of and apparatus for changing gears in an automatic transmission which can satisfy the expectation of the driver depressing the accelerator pedal.

According to this invention, the higher the depression speed of the accelerator pedal, the faster the vehicle speed is changed.

Consequently, the value of a reference vehicle speed to be changed in relation to the depression speed of the accelerator pedal is altered so that acceleration satisfying the expectation of the driver can be obtained, and engine noise and fuel consumption can be minimized.

The depression speed of the accelerator pedal may be obtained through the increased speed of the opening of a throttle valve in an intake system. The opening of the throttle valve in the intake system is detected at intervals of a predetermined time to detect the increased speed of the opening of the throttle valve in the intake system from the difference between the present and the previous opening of the throttle valve.

It is preferable that a defined factor TG, varying with the increased speed of the opening of the throttle valve in the intake system, sets a reference gear selection line which is shifted dependent on the accelerator pedal depression.

A constant multiplied by the difference .theta.-.theta..sub.0 between the opening .theta. of the throttle valve in the intake system detected at a present time and the opening .theta..sub.0 of the same detected at a previous time is defined as .DELTA.TG, and TG+.DELTA.TG is defined as a new TG. Also, the value of TG minus a predetermined amount tG at intervals of a predetermined time TG-tG, is preferably defined as a new TG.

Further, preferably, the reference gear selection line is initialized to correspond to TG=1, and if the vehicle speed to be changed when TG=1 is V.sub.1, the vehicle speed V.sub.2 to be changed when TG.noteq.1 is represented by the formula V.sub.2 =TG.times.V.sub.1.

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration showing an engine to which the present invention is applied;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an electronic device shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing a prior art gear selection method;

FIG. 4 is a gear selection diagram in the prior art gear selection method;

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of an embodiment of this invention;

FIG. 6 is a gear selection diagram in the embodiment of this invention; and

FIGS. 7, 8 and 9 are graphs showing, respectively, the changes in opening of a throttle valve, vehicle speed and coefficient of, sensitivity TG, as a function of time when an accelerator pedal is depressed with various speeds.

In FIG. 1, 1 designates an air cleaner, 2 a carbureter, 3 an intake manifold and 4 an engine body. Power of the engine body 4 is transmitted to a driving wheel (not shown) through an automatic transmission 5 and propeller shaft 6. The automatic transmission 5 comprises a fluid type torque converter 7, gearing 8 and oil pan 9 beneath the gearing 8. A hydraulic control (not shown) is disposed in the oil pan 9 to control the supply of oil pressure to a hydraulic servo for a frictional engaging unit in the gearing 8 for accomplishing a predetermined range and gear selection mode. An electromagnetic shift valve for 1st-2nd gear and an electromagnetic shift valve for 2nd-3rd gear are respectively designated by 14, 15 as shift valves for the hydraulic control, and are opened and closed to change the supply of oil pressure to the hydraulic servo for changing, respectively, between the 1st and 2nd gears and the 2nd and 3rd gears. An electromagnetic unit 16 is connected to a battery 17 of DC power supply to receive the input detecting signals from a potentiometer 18, for detecting the opening of a throttle valve in the carbureter 2, and a DC tachometer 19 as a vehicle speed sensor, for detecting the rotational speed of an output shaft of the automatic transmission 5 for controlling the opening and closing of the electromagnetic valves 14, 15. While the DC tachometer 19 generates analog signals in proportion to the rotational speed of the output shaft, an electromagnetic pick-up for generating pulses in synchronization with the rotation of the output shaft may be employed instead of the DC tachometer 19. The following table shows the relationship between the operational conditions of the electromagnetic valves 14, 15 and gear selection mode;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing details of the electronic unit 16 shown in FIG. 1. The detecting signals of the potentiometer 18 and the DC tachometer 19 are sent to an A/D (analog/digital) converter 23 to be converted to digital values, and then sent to an input port 24. A microcomputer 25 is connected through a bus line 26 to the input port 24, an output port 27, RAM 28 and ROM 29 for a program memory section used to compute the gear selection mode, and send the output corresponding to the computed result through the output port 27 and amplifiers 30, 31 to the electromagnetic valves 14, 15. 32 designates a voltage section for determining the terminal voltage of the potentiometer 18.

FIGS. 3 and 4 show respectively a flow chart and gear selection diagram of a prior art gear selection method.

In step 35, the input port 24, output port 27 and RAM 28 are initialized at the same time as the power supply is turned on. In step 36, the presently selected gear selection mode of the automatic transmission is detected. In step 37, the opening of the throttle valve in the carbureter 2 is detected according to the detecting signal from the potentiometer 18. In step 38, the vehicle speed is detected according to the detecting signal from the DC tachometer 19. In step 39, gear selection mode is calculated from the present, the opening of the throttle valve and the vehicle speed detected, respectively, in steps 36, 37 and 38. The gear selection range is determined as shown in FIG. 4 and the gear selection line (solid line represents the gear selection line for up-shift and broken line the gear selection line for down-shift) is fixed with respect to the opening of the throttle valve and vehicle speed; the right side of the respective gear selection lines represents the gear selection mode at the high speed side. In step 40, whether the calculated gear selection range is 3rd gear is detected, and if it is decided yes, the operation proceeds to step 44 to generate an output representative of 3rd gear, and if no, proceeds to step 41. In step 41, whether the computed gear selection range is 2nd gear is detected, and if it is decided yes, the operation proceeds to step 43 to generate an output representative of 2nd gear, and if no, proceeds to step 42 to generate an output representative of 1st gear.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing a gear selection method according to this invention.

Steps 51, 52 and 53 are described as fully corresponding to steps 35, 36 and 37 of FIG. 3. In step 54, a sensitivity compensating amount .DELTA.TG is calculated from the difference between the opening .theta..sub.0 of the throttle valve detected in a previous time and that .theta. detected at the present time in step 53:

where K is a factor determined according to design. Since the program is carried out at intervals of a predetermined time, .DELTA.TG is proportional to the depression speed of the accelerator pedal. This .DELTA.TG is added to the sensitivity factor TG obtained from the result of control up to the previous time to calculate a new sensitivity factor TG.

Namely, every time this program is carried out once, the change in the opening of the throttle valve, i.e. one corresponding to the depression speed of the accelerator pedal, is added to provide the new sensitivity factor TG. In step 55, TG minus a predetermined amount tG is made a new TG.

Namely, every time this program is once carried out, the predetermined amount is subtracted from TG irrespective of the change in the opening of the throttle valve. However, when TG=1, the subtraction in step 55 is interrupted. FIG. 6 shows a gear selection diagram between 2nd and 3rd gear. The down-shift line (broken line) is the same as the prior one and the up-shift line (solid line) is shifted to the high speed side with reference to the up-shift line of TG=1 in response to TG, i.e. the depression speed of the accelerator pedal. For example, when the opening of the throttle valve is 40.degree., vehicle speeds V.sub.1, V.sub.2 in the up-shift at TG=1 and TG=2 have the relationship of V.sub.1 <V.sub.2. The gear selection mode is calculated in step 57 on the basis of the speed change pattern in FIG. 6. In the example of the drawing, the speed range stage for acceleration is calculated according to V.sub.2 =TG.times.V.sub.1.

FIG. 7 shows the changes in the opening A of the throttle valve, vehicle speed V and sensitivity factor TG as a function of time when the accelerator pedal is rapidly depressed. In a period when the opening A of the throttle valve is increasing, the increase of TG due to the execution of step 54 in FIG. 5 is much larger than the decrease of TG due to the execution of step 55, and TG is increased. When the increase of the opening A of the throttle valve is stopped, TG is thereafter decreased with a predetermined inclination. Thus, the period in which TG has a large value and the transmission is maintained at the low gear mode is lengthened to provide more acceleration.

FIG. 8 shows the changes in the opening A, vehicle speed V and sensitivity factor TG as a function of time when the accelerator pedal is slowly depressed. Since the speed of increasing the opening A of the throttle valve is low, the increase and decrease of TG in steps 54 and 55 are approximately balanced with each other to provide TG=0, and the quick up-shift to the high gear mode is carried out to provide slow acceleration for reducing engine noise and fuel consumption.

FIG. 9 shows the changes in the opening A of the throttle valve as a function of time when the accelerator pedal is depressed by a predetermined small amount. While it is impossible in the prior art method to set such an opening of the throttle valve to 3rd gear, the vehicle response at the up-shift right after acceleration can be shifted to the high speed side by setting the up-shift line of TG=1 sufficiently to the low speed side to provide acceleration at the 2nd gear for a predetermined time and thereafter running at 3rd gear.

While the gear selection between the 2nd gear and 3rd gear was described with reference to FIG. 6, the gear selection is carried out similarly between the 1st gear and 2nd gear. Namely, the gear selection line is shifted to the high speed side in relation to the increase of TG to determine the gear selection range.

While, in the embodiment, only the vehicle response to be subjected to the up-shift is increased, particularly when the depression speed of the accelerator pedal is high, the vehicle response to be subjected to the down-shift can be also changed in response to the depression speed of the accelerator pedal to carry out the down-shift with high vehicle speed when large acceleration is needed for acceleration from the gear selection low gear mode.

In the gear section diagram, the down-shift line and up-shift line of TG=1 are stored as a numerical table in ROM 29, and predetermined values are read out of the numerical table to calculate the gear selection range during the execution of the program.

Further, instead of decreasing TG by a predetermined amount at every execution of the program such as in step 55, a timer may be used to reduce TG according to an interrupting program activated at intervals of a predetermined time. Furthermore, a pulse generator for generating pulses in synchronization with the rotation of the output shaft of the automatic transmission 7 may be provided to activate the interrupting program according to the pulse generated by this pulse generator, i.e. at every predetermined amount of travel, for decreasing TG by a predetermined amount according to this interrupting program. The travelling distance increases with time and is equivalent to time with respect to the decrease of TG.