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Method for determining a tilt angle of a vehicle

Method for determining a tilt angle of a vehicle description/claims

The invention relates to a method for determining a tilt angle of a vehicle.

Gravity-referenced tilt sensors, such as accelerometers or electrolytic sensors, are subject to the coupling of sensed tilt angles and acceleration effects. These acceleration effects introduce errors in the sensed tilt angle. When used for automotive applications, maneuvers such as vehicle acceleration, braking, and centrifugal forces while turning introduce an error in the sensed tilt angle in a manner that is similar to water sloshing in a bucket. The sensed acceleration due to gravity and vehicle accelerations have an additive effect. The error in the resultant vector can for example vary by over 20 degrees in a vehicle that accelerates from 0-100 km/h.

Mechanical tilt sensors used in automotive products generally include a weighted ball suspended in liquid. The weighted ball is allowed to rotate, and usually reports tilt angles with an accuracy of ±5 degrees. A dynamic compensation in this type of mechanical sensor is achieved through its slow response. Further known are electrolytic inclinometers and low-cost inclinometers for laboratory applications that provide high accuracy but do not provide dynamic compensation. Low cost accelerometer-based tilt sensors are often used for a detection of a tilt in gaming applications, but generally, these low-cost accelerometer-based tilt sensors provide no dynamic compensation. Tilt sensors with dynamic compensation are used in avionics applications. These dynamic tilt sensors utilize gyroscopic sensors in addition to accelerometers and they use computational algorithms to provide compensation.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,259,999 B1 discloses a method and a device for determining an inertial state of a vehicle. The inertial state of the vehicle can be determined independently of dynamic vehicle movements by measuring the accelerations of the vehicle in the direction of its longitudinal, transverse and vertical axes. The measured acceleration components are filtered in order to filter out small disturbances of the individual acceleration components. A suitable filter is for example a median filter or some other digital filter with a low-pass characteristic. In a median filter, each acceleration component is sampled over a certain time interval and all of the sampled values are subdivided into several data tupels. For each data tupel, the average sampled value is determined. A resulting acceleration vector is formed from the filtered acceleration components and the magnitude of the resulting acceleration vector is determined. The magnitude of the resulting acceleration vector is subjected to a threshold decision with a window that is delimited by a threshold lying above and a threshold lying below the gravitational acceleration. A current course angle of the vehicle with respect to its longitudinal axis and/or the current course angle with respect to its transverse axis is then determined only if the magnitude of the acceleration vector lies inside the window. Otherwise, the previously determined course angles are retained. A disadvantage of the method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,259,999 B1 is that a dynamic vehicle movement may cause the magnitude of the acceleration vector to fall outside the window for an extended period. In such a case, the determination of the inertial state of the vehicle may be unreliable, because the determination of the inertial state is based solely on old and possibly outdated course angles.

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0022924 A1 discloses a method for propagating a position of a vehicle utilizing a multi-axis accelerometer for determining the pitch and roll of the vehicle and utilizes the calculated pitch and roll to propagate the position of the vehicle with the acceleration signals from the multi-axis accelerometer. Pitch and roll of the vehicle are determined by comparing information from the multi-axis accelerometer to other speed and/or heading information, such as GPS (Global Positioning System) information and/or an analysis of map matching information. The pitch and roll of the vehicle can also be determined solely by the multi-axis accelerometer when GPS velocity information and map matching information is not available. The pitch and roll of the vehicle is determined by the multi-axis accelerometers when gravity is substantially the only acceleration acting upon the multi-axis accelerometer. When the resultant vector from the orthogonal accelerometers and the multi-axis accelerometer is substantially 1 G (acceleration of gravity) and is substantially constant for a period of several seconds, the pitch and roll of the vehicle can be determined by comparison of the vehicle axes to the 1 G resultant vector. A disadvantage of the method disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0022924 A1 is that if no GPS information is available, then the pitch and roll can only be determined if there are no disturbances, i.e. if the resultant vector from the orthogonal accelerometers and the multi-axis accelerometer is substantially 1 G and is substantially constant for a period of several seconds.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,178,375 B1 discloses a method for determining rotational position angles of a vehicle by measuring accelerations of the vehicle in the x, y and z directions and calculating position angle values from the measured accelerations using two algorithms. Inertial position angles are determined by selecting the smaller of first position angle values and of second position angle values because the smaller position angle values have a higher likelihood of corresponding to the actual inertial position of the vehicle than the greater positional angle calculated. Corresponding rotation rates of the vehicle are measured and the respective rotational position angles are determined by integrating corresponding rotation rates with the respective inertial position angles as initial values.

It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide a method for determining a tilt angle of a vehicle which overcomes the above-mentioned disadvantages of the heretofore-known methods of this general type. It is in particular an object of the invention to provide a method for determining a tilt angle such that the sensed vehicle tilt angle is stable enough for applications such as a real-time display of actual vehicle roll and pitch angles. Another object of the invention is to provide a method for determining a tilt angle of a vehicle that decouples gravitational and lateral accelerations for low-cost tilt sensing in automotive applications.

With the foregoing and other objects in view there is provided, in accordance with the invention, a method for determining a tilt angle of a vehicle, which includes the steps of:

providing acceleration measurement values by measuring accelerations of the vehicle in directions along an X-axis, a Y-axis, and a Z-axis, the X-axis, the Y-axis, and the Z-axis being substantially perpendicular with respect to one another;

calculating a current tilt angle of the vehicle as a function of the acceleration measurement values;

calculating a magnitude of a vector sum of the accelerations of the vehicle in the directions along the X-axis, the Y-axis, and the Z-axis; and

calculating a compensated tilt angle as a function of the current tilt angle, which is calculated from the acceleration measurement values, of at least one preceding tilt angle, and of the magnitude of the vector sum of the accelerations in the directions along the X-axis, the Y-axis, and the Z-axis such that the at least one preceding tilt angle is used for calculating the compensated tilt angle if the magnitude of the vector sum of the accelerations in the directions along the X-axis, the Y-axis, and the Z-axis is substantially different from a magnitude of a gravitational acceleration.

An advantage of the above-defined method is that it can determine whether current sensor information is inaccurate and, in case the current sensor information is inaccurate, can compensate for the inaccurate current sensor information by relying at least to some degree on past sensor information. A further advantage of the method according to the invention is that it is suitable for low-cost embedded applications and that it does not require complex computation in real time. Another advantage of the above-defined calculation method is that it provides highly accurate tilt information in static situations and that it is resistant to dynamic disturbances.

Another mode of the method according to the invention includes the steps of measuring the accelerations of the vehicle in directions along the X-axis, the Y-axis, and the Z-axis such that the X-axis is substantially parallel to a longitudinal axis of the vehicle, the Y-axis is substantially parallel to a transverse axis of the vehicle and the Z-axis is substantially parallel to a vertical axis of the vehicle; and calculating the current tilt angle of the vehicle as a function of the acceleration measurement values by calculating a current roll angle as a function of accelerations of the vehicle in directions along the Y-axis and along the Z-axis and by calculating a current pitch angle as a function of accelerations of the vehicle in directions along the X-axis and along the Z-axis.

A further mode of the method according to the invention includes the steps of calculating the compensated tilt angle by calculating a compensated roll angle and a compensated pitch angle; calculating the compensated roll angle as a function of the current roll angle, of at least one preceding roll angle and of the magnitude of the vector sum of the accelerations in the directions along the X-axis, the Y-axis, and the Z-axis; and calculating the compensated pitch angle as a function of the current pitch angle, of at least one preceding pitch angle and of the magnitude of the vector sum of the accelerations in the directions along the X-axis, the Y-axis, and the Z-axis.

Another mode of the method according to the invention includes the steps of using a gyroscope for providing angular rate data; calculating a change in a roll angle and a change in a pitch angle over a given time period by using the angular rate data provided by the gyroscope; calculating the compensated roll angle as a function of the current roll angle, which is calculated from the acceleration measurement values, of at least one preceding roll angle, of the magnitude of the vector sum of the accelerations in the directions along the X-axis, the Y-axis, and the Z-axis, and of the change in the roll angle over the given time period, which is calculated from the angular rate data, such that the at least one preceding roll angle and the change in the roll angle over the given time period are used for calculating the compensated roll angle if the magnitude of the vector sum of the accelerations in the directions along the X-axis, the Y-axis, and the Z-axis is substantially different from the magnitude of the gravitational acceleration; and calculating the compensated pitch angle as a function of the current pitch angle, which is calculated from the acceleration measurement values, of at least one preceding pitch angle, of the magnitude of the vector sum of the accelerations in the directions along the X-axis, the Y-axis, and the Z-axis, and of the change in the pitch angle over the given time period, which is calculated from the angular rate data, such that the at least one preceding pitch angle and the change in the pitch angle over the given time period are used for calculating the compensated pitch angle if the magnitude of the vector sum of the accelerations in the directions along the X-axis, the Y-axis, and the Z-axis is substantially different from the magnitude of the gravitational acceleration.

An advantage of determining a change in a roll angle and a change in a pitch angle by using a gyroscope is that the tracking behavior of the tilt sensor is improved.

A further mode of the method according to the invention includes the step of calculating the compensated roll angle and the compensated pitch angle by using the following relations:

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Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location

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