Abstract: An electronic ignition and engine management system with anti-lockup and anti-kickback features for use in an internal combustion marine engine wherein the engine's operating speed is measured and appropriate ignition advance timing values are determined from the operating speed. An ignition pulse is generated at the ignition advances unless the engine is in a startup mode, or below a predetermined startup threshold speed. During startup mode, ignition pulses are generated at or top dead center to avoid overadvanced firing conditions and thus prevent engine lockup and kickback.

Abstract: A vehicle traction control system is controlled in-part by a signal value indicative of estimated wheel torque. The estimated wheel torque value is produced within the vehicle's electronic engine control (EEC) module by summing a first value which indicated the estimated torque attributable to engine combustion and a second value which is proportional to engine acceleration/deceleration which indicates the amount of torque attributable to the inertial movement of engine and drive train masses. Before summing the two signal components, the signal which indicates combustion torque is delayed with respect to the signal indicating inertial torque by a delay interval whose duration varies with engine speed to take into account the delay between intake fuel rate changes and combustion forces as well as delays attributable to the timing of the calculations themselves.

Abstract: The present invention is a control circuit for controlling the driving stability of a motor vehicle, in which the desired value of the yaw rate is calculated by a vehicle model. To make it possible to calculate a value of the highest accuracy possible using the vehicle model circuit at both very high and very low velocities, at least two vehicle models, which are associated with suitable velocity ranges, are used within the vehicle model circuit. The changing over between the two models is performed as a function of the range of velocity being used. Advantageous variants of the inventions use the hysteresis of the two velocity threshold values, at which the changeover is performed, and avoid jumps in the output signal of the vehicle model circuit during changing over between the models.

Abstract: According to an apparatus for automatically generating a logic circuit, when a request specification represented by a state transition diagram is input to the apparatus, the apparatus divides the specification into an information control part and an information processing part, divides the information control part into a transition state generator and a control signal generator, and specifies the transition state generator, the control signal generator, and the information processing part, as combinations of circuits, which are realized by combinations of logic elements and wirings, and wirings connecting the circuits. Therefore, the apparatus can easily cope with a change of use of the logic circuit, a change of a library of a final product, and the like.

Abstract: An electrical system providing automatic calibration of a vehicle compass for abrupt and significant changes in vehicle magnetism. The system includes a magnetic field sensor providing signal information representing the magnetic field sensed within the vehicle. Coupled to the sensor is an electrical circuit for processing the signal information from the sensor to determine if a shift in vehicle magnetism has occurred and for calculating compensation signal information to provide a corrected heading display.

Abstract: A vehicle speed calculation system capable of calculating a reference vehicle speed of a fourwheel drive vehicle with high accuracy when a fourwheel slip or lock occurs. An integrated value of a longitudinal acceleration is forcedly used for the calculation of the reference vehicle speed when the vehicle is accelerated and a variation of a lowest wheel speed is negative or when the vehicle is decelerated and a variation of a highest wheel speed is positive.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method for setting a trigger threshold value for an automatic braking operation. When the actuating speed of the brake pedal exceeds a threshold value, automatic braking operation is initiated, and a brake pressure is increased relative to the brake pressure corresponding to the position of the brake pedal. During each brake actuation a relation is formed between the pedal travel of the brake pedal and the derivative of the vehicle deceleration with respect to the pedal travel. A correcting value is defined from this relationship and the threshold value for automatic braking is determined as a function of a preset threshold value and the correcting value.

Abstract: A method and system are provided for positioning a gasoline engine throttle in response to an angular position input command signal. A multi-phase variable reluctance motor positions the throttle in response to motor current commands from a micro-controller. The micro-controller receives and processes the position input command and throttle position feedback signals from a multi-phase variable inductance position encoder rotatably coupled with the motor shaft. The motor current command are obtained from look-up tables that are derived from empirical data of the motor. The motor current command tables are a mapping from motor rotor position and desired motor torque to desired motor currents in the appropriate phases of the motor to hold the load.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for continuously prompting a pilot to manually control and guide a vehicle along a selected line segment of a pattern of coverage of a target area. An on-board receiver and computer receives navigation reference signals, computes navigation parameters and generates navigation signals to an indicator. The indicator is placed within the normal forward field of outside vision of the vehicle's pilot. In a virtual flagman mode, the indicator has lower and upper horizontal lightbars on which discreet lights are illuminated to the left or right of the centerpoint to simulate the relative lateral position of actual flagmen at the beginning and end points of the line segment being tracked. In a flight director mode, the indicator shows a composite sum of factored navigation parameters including angle of intercept between the line segment and vehicle track, perpendicular distance of the vehicle from the line segment, and rate of turn of the vehicle, as a control instruction to the pilot.

Abstract: In the process for optimizing operation of a group of agricultural machines a controlling processor, which exchanges data telemetrically with on-board processors of agricultural machines and devices, optimizes the internally optimized control cycles of the individual on-board processors and transmits controlling data to the on-board processors, which it has determined from collective scanning of operating data transmitted to it from the entire group of agricultural machines. Overloading of available data transmission capacity and excessively large memory capacity requirements are avoided by a special categorizing of data and an advantageous selection of memory locations for the resulting data.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a system for determining the roll angle (.phi.), as well as the position with respect to an axis (OX), of a moving body (2), said system (1) having an optical detector (3). According to the invention, said system (1) includes:three optical elements (8, 9, 10) mounted on said moving body (2) and capable of generating light flashes (7), two of said elements (8, 9) being mounted so as to be diametrically opposed and the third element (10) being arranged so as to be perpendicular to these two elements; anda computer (4) determining the position and roll angle of the moving body (2) from the position of said optical elements in a picture.

Abstract: A method and system for adjusting the gain of an output from a replacement component in a system with plural components responsive to changing operating conditions so that a power level of an output from the system is approximately the same as a power level of an output from the system before installation of the replacement component. A system memory stores a relationship of gain responsive to changing operating conditions for each of plural components in the system, and each replacement component has a component memory for storing a relationship of gain responsive to changing operating conditions. The relationship stored in the component memory is copied to the system memory when the replacement component is installed in the system.

Abstract: A loan processing system to aid a potential loan applicant preparing the necessary financial statement, loan application, and business plan to apply for a business loan. The loan applicant merely completes the requested information using a computer and transmits the completed information to the lending institution via modem or by mailing the information stored on disk. The lending institution then reviews the transmitted information, checks for inaccuracies, completeness, etc. and responds accordingly. If the loan applicant, in filing out the loan application, has any questions or, if the lending institution has any questions upon receipt of the information, the loan applicant and lending institution may communicate with one another on-line to respond to the query or via mail, e.g. mail a disk with the necessary questions or requests. The system also includes a "HELP" mechanism to access stored information to aid in the preparation of the loan application.

Abstract: The present invention relates to an automatic driver system for a vehicle, the system comprising:means for evaluating the switching distance D.sub.switch ;means for computing a reference speed V.sub.ref ;means for generating a reference acceleration .gamma..sub.ref ;means for generating a deceleration reference .gamma..sub.brake ; andmeans for generating a traction command T.The present invention also relates to a method of generating a reference acceleration.

Abstract: The present invention discloses a method and system for performing risk and credit analysis of financial service applications with a neural network. The neural network imitates and perfects a credit manager's evaluation and decision process to control loss and guide business expansion. In particular, the neural network screens applications to control loss and to find directions where business volume can increase with a minimum increase in loss. Initially, data variables are pre-processed and applied to the neural network. The neural network in the present invention is optimized by a non-iterative regression process, as opposed to the computationally intensive back propagation algorithm.

Abstract: A vehicle chassis system control according to the steps of: determining relative velocity between a corner of a vehicle body and a vehicle wheel responsive to a sensor signal from one of: (i) a relative position sensor mounted between the vehicle body corner and the vehicle wheel and (ii) a wheel rotational velocity sensor mounted to the wheel; estimating, responsive to the sensor signal, a body acceleration signal indicative of a vertical acceleration of the corner of the vehicle body; estimating, responsive to the sensor signal, a wheel acceleration signal indicative of a vertical acceleration of the vehicle wheel; estimating a dynamic normal force between the wheel and a road surface responsive to the estimated body and wheel accelerations; and providing the estimated normal dynamic force to a chassis system controller, wherein a chassis system actuator is controlled by a control command determined responsive to the estimated dynamic normal force.

Abstract: A method and system, for use with a vehicle including a pair of front wheels, a pair of rear wheels, and an anti-lock brake system (ABS), for detecting when the vehicle is executing a turning maneuver. The system includes means for performing the method steps of determining a speed difference between one pair of the vehicle wheels, determining the deceleration of each of the one pair of vehicle wheels, comparing the speed difference to a turning detection threshold, comparing the decelerations to a deceleration threshold, and detecting a turning maneuver based on those comparisons.

Abstract: A driver emulative vehicle control system for use with a vehicle. The vehicle control system includes a video camera which transduces the field of view into a plurality of scan lines each comprising a plurality of pixels. A digitizer serves to digitize the frames from the video camera. A computer inputs the digitized frames and processes the same to control the steering, acceleration, deceleration, and braking of the vehicle. More particularly, the processing means includes addressing means, steering control processing means, and speed control processing means. The addressing means serves to map the digitized frames into a mapping memory which is read by the steering control processing means and the speed control processing means. With reference to a lane stripe or stripes in the field of view, the steering control processing means determines the location of the vehicle and generates a steering control signal corresponding thereto.

Abstract: An in-car navigation apparatus capable of searching an optimal or a quasi-optimal route always, and further capable of shortening the waiting time until a route is obtained, has an operating section which receives a starting point, a destination and searching conditions for searching from a handling section to read digital map data to be used for searching from the map database section of the apparatus. The operating section holds a plurality of weighting factors of each heuristic term to be used in an evaluation function or computing formulae to be used for the evaluation function, and searches an optimal or a quasi-optimal route by selecting an appropriate one in accordance with the road conditions and the searching conditions of the map data read in when searching is performed.

Abstract: An improved method and apparatus for constructing a cellularly structured environment map of a self-propelled, mobile unit is provided. Examples of such self-propelled, mobile units are household robots, self-propelled vacuum cleaners and industrial transport vehicles. To this end, a higher increment for the occupancy degree of a currently evaluated cell is selected for near objects. Further, the occupancy degree is also incremented dependent on a velocity. As an additional measure given standstill of the unit, all cells of the environment map that are located within the aperture cone of a wavefront that emanates from the sensor of the mobile unit are modified in terms of their occupancy degree values. Additionally, a blind zone in which grid cells of the environment map experience no modification of the occupancy degree is defined around the mobile unit.