DESC:SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING VEHICLE FLUSH DOOR HANDLE

Field of the invention:

The present invention generally relates to vehicle door handles and more particularly, to a system and a method for controlling a flush door handle of the vehicle.

Background of the invention:

For some automotive vehicles, door handles needed for opening the vehicle doors sometimes detract from the overall aesthetic appearance of the vehicle. This is particularly true for door handles that extend outboard of an outer surface of the door. Also, the demands of aesthetics, aerodynamics and wind-noise control often make it desirable for a door handle to lie flush with the surrounding door skin of the vehicle. A flush type door handle may be used for this reason.

Efforts are seen in the prior art for employing a door handle that is flush with the outboard surface of the door. Fig. 1A and 1B illustrate the flush door handle concept. In figure 1A, the door handle is in a flush position and in figure 1B the door handle is in a deploy position. However, flush door handles for motor vehicles may suffer from various drawbacks.

Presence of different noise factors like dust ingress, snow formation, temperature, aging and the like may affect the operation of the door handle. Further, motion related behaviour of the door handle may get affected when the handles get exposed to these noise factors.

Thus, there exists a need in the art to provide a technique which overcomes the above mentioned problems to prevent effect of the noise parameters on the operation of the door handle.

Objects of the invention:

An object of the present invention is to move all the handles of a vehicle in a synchronous manner reaching their respective destinations like a flush position and a deploy position.

Another object of the present invention is to smoothly control the handle movement so that the handles reach their end positions with a soft stop thereby avoiding sudden stall/jerk at the end position.

Yet another object of the present invention is to smoothly control handle movement along the journey with a minimal acoustic noise and vibration below a threshold prescribed by an original equipment manufacturer (OEM).

Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a control logic that recognizes/learns the presence of different noise factors for different handles and auto-tunes the command parameters so as to ensure smooth and synchronous movement of all the handles and preserve the operating life in terms of number of operating cycles.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide a control logic that detects motor stall condition when a handle encounters a hurdle during travel thereof and issues appropriate command to salvage the situation.

Summary of the invention:

Accordingly, the present invention provides a system for controlling a vehicle flush door handle. The flush door handle includes anyone of an actuator and a motor coupled thereto.

The system comprises a master electronic control unit and a slave electronic control unit. The master electronic control unit is operably connected to the flush door handle. The master electronic control unit is selected from any one of a passive entry passive star unit and a body control module unit. The slave electronic control unit is operably connected to the master electronic control unit. The slave electronic control unit receives any one of a flush position command and a deploy position command from the master electronic control unit over a bus system of the vehicle. The slave electronic control unit includes a non-volatile memory, a microcontroller and a plurality of motor drivers. The non-volatile memory includes a database history stored therein. The plurality of motor drivers operates any one of the motor and the actuator of the flush door handle. The microcontroller is embedded in the slave electronic control unit. The microcontroller includes a self-learning algorithm, a data interpretation algorithm and an auto-tuning algorithm embedded therein. The self-learning algorithm senses different noise factors. The data interpretation algorithm scans the database history and concludes upon the presence and extent of the noise factors based on behavioural trends. The auto-tuning algorithm auto-tunes the command parameters issued to the motor of the flush door handle based on the behavioural analysis carried out by the data interpretation algorithm.

In another aspect, the present invention provides a method for controlling a flush door handle of a vehicle.

Brief description of the drawings:

Further aspects and advantages of the present invention will be readily understood from the following detailed description with reference to the accompanying drawings, where like reference numerals refer to identical or functionally similar elements throughout the separate views. The figures together with the detailed description below, are incorporated in and form part of the specification, and serve to further illustrate the aspects and explain various principles and advantages, in accordance with the present invention wherein:
Figures 1A and 1B illustrate a flush door handle concept, in accordance with a prior art;

Figure 2 illustrates a block diagram of a system for controlling an operation of a flush door handle of a vehicle, in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 3 illustrates a slave electronic control unit (ECU) for controlling the door handles, in accordance with an another embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 4 illustrates a flowchart of a method for controlling an operation of a flush door handle of a vehicle, in accordance the present invention;

Figure 5 illustrates a block diagram of an experimental modeling, in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 6 illustrates a block diagram of a computer simulation activity, in accordance with the present invention; and

Figure 7 illustrates a block diagram of a system for tuning a self-learning algorithm of the slave electronic control unit, in accordance with the present invention.

Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the drawings are illustrated for simplicity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the drawings may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of aspects of the present invention.
Detailed description of the invention:

The foregoing objects of the present invention are accomplished and the problems and shortcomings associated with the prior art, techniques and approaches are overcome by the present invention as described below in the preferred embodiments.

The present invention provides a system and a method for controlling operation of a flush door handle of a vehicle. The method includes periodically sensing field parameters such as motor current, voltage, speed and travel time. The method further includes storing the sensed parameters in a database history and scanning the database history to conclude upon the presence and extent of the noise factors based on behavioural trends. Thereinafter, the method involves auto-tuning the command parameters issued to a motor of the door handle based on the behavioural analysis of the flush mechanism/motors.

The present invention is illustrated with reference to the accompanying drawings, throughout which reference numbers indicate corresponding parts in the various figures. These reference numbers are shown in bracket in the following description.

Referring to figure 2, a system (200) for controlling an operation of a flush door handle (206) of a vehicle in accordance with the present invention is shown. The flush door handle (206) includes at least one handle actuator (212)/motor, at least one handle open/close switch/sensor (214) and at least one switch/capacitive sensor (216). Specifically, anyone of the actuator (212) and the motor is coupled to the flush door handle (206). The at least one switch/capacitive sensor (216) are embedded in the flush door handle (206). Though figure 2 depicts only one flush door handle (206) however, it is understood that the vehicle may include more than one flush door handle (206) in other alternative embodiments of the system (200).
As shown in figure 2, the system (200) comprises a master electronic control unit (202) (hereinafter “master ECU (202)”) and a slave electronic control unit (204) (hereinafter, “slave ECU (204)”).

The master ECU (202) is operably connected to the switch/capacitive sensor (216) of the flush door handle (206) of the vehicle. In an embodiment, the master ECU (202) is selected from any one of a passive entry passive star (PEPS) unit and a body control module (BCM) unit. The BCM unit manages and controls all inter-ECU communication.

The slave ECU (204) is operably connected to the master ECU (202). In an embodiment, the slave ECU (204) is a flush door handle (FDH) ECU. The slave ECU (204) receives any one of a flush position command and a deploy position command over a bus system of the vehicle from the master ECU (202). The vehicle bus system is selected from any one of a controller area network (CAN) bus system and a local interconnect network (LIN) bus system.

The slave ECU (204) includes a microcontroller (208), a non-volatile memory (not shown) and a plurality of motor drivers (210) embedded therein. The non-volatile memory stores a database history therein.

The microcontroller (208) includes a self-learning algorithm (not shown), a data interpretation algorithm (not shown) and an auto-tuning algorithm (not shown) embedded therein. The self-learning algorithm senses different noise factors like dust ingress, snow formation, temperature, aging and the like. The sensed parameters are stored in the database history. The data interpretation algorithm scans the database history and concludes upon the presence and extent of the noise factors based on behavioural trends. The auto-tuning algorithm auto-tunes the command parameters issued to the motor of the flush door handle (206) based on the behavioural analysis carried out by the data interpretation algorithm. The plurality of motor drivers (210) operates the motor/the actuator (212) of the flush door handle (206).

Figure 3 illustrates an exemplary system interface with a slave electronic control unit (300) (hereinafter, “slave ECU (300)) in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention. In this one embodiment, the slave ECU (300) controls four individual motors (314) through four independent motor drivers (310). In figure 3, a single block is shown as motor driver, however, it is understood here that four independent motor drivers (310) are incorporated in a single block that drives four individual motors (314). In an embodiment, the motor drivers (310) are H-bridge motor drivers. However, it is understood here that any other type of motor drivers (310) may be used in other alternative embodiments of the present invention. Each H-bridge motor driver (310) is capable of driving the associated motor (314) thereof in both directions leading to flush/deploy movements for the respective handle. Each handle is equipped with two micro-switches (316) associated with two travel destinations of the handle namely a flush position and a deploy position. The slave ECU (300) needs to sense motor voltage, current and travelling time to understand door handle behaviour, presence of failure modes and influence of noise factors. The slave ECU (300) senses the above-mentioned parameters based on a flush/deploy status signal conditioning (312). In this one embodiment, the slave ECU (300) receives flush/deploy commands via a controller area network (CAN) transceiver (302).

In accordance with the present invention, the self-learning algorithm is incorporated in the slave ECU (204) in order to understand the presence of different noise factors like dust ingress, snow formation, temperature, aging and the like to which different handles are exposed that leads to differences in their motion related behaviour. For this process, the slave ECU (204) is equipped to auto-tune motion commands issued to different handles in order to ensure smooth and near-synchronous motion of all the handles. Further, the slave ECU (204) may also generate an early alert towards preventive maintenance on sensing onset of noise factors like ageing, dust ingress, snow formation and like. Therefore, a robust and consistent performance in terms of operating cycles, smoothness of operation without vibrations and noise, and consistent operation time for all four handles is ensured.

In another aspect, the present invention provides a method for controlling operation of a flush door handle of a vehicle. Specifically, the method is described in conjunction with the system (200) of figure 2.

Figure 4 shows the detailed flow chart to illustrate the method for controlling operation of the flush door handle (206) of the vehicle from steps (401) to (410). At step (401), the method involves sensing the switch/capacitive sensor (216) embedded in the flush door handle (206) by the master ECU (202) on touching the flush door handle (206) of the vehicle by an authorized driver.

At step (402), the method involves authenticating the driver by the master ECU (202) using proximity sensing techniques. At step (403), the method involves providing the command by the master ECU (202) to the slave ECU (204) for deploying the flush door handle (206). At step (404), the method involves operating the motor/actuator (212) coupled with the door handle (206) by the slave ECU (204) to bring the door handle (206) in the deploy position in response to the command received from the master ECU (204).

At step (405), the method involves sending the command by the master ECU (202) to the slave ECU (204) to flush the door handle (206) when the vehicle is in motion. At step (406), the method involves operating the motor/actuator (212) coupled with the door handle (206) by the slave ECU (204) to bring the door handle (206) in the flush position in response to the command received from the master ECU (204). Specifically, the slave ECU (204) receives the flush/deploy commands over a vehicle’s bus system from the master ECU (202) and operates the motor/actuator (212) through on-board motor drivers (210). The bus system is selected from any one of a controller area network (CAN) bus system and a local interconnect network (LIN) bus system.

At step (407), the method involves sensing periodically field parameters such as motor current, voltage, speed and travel time by the slave ECU (204). At step (408), the method involves storing the sensed parameters in the database history. The database history is stored in the non-volatile memory of the slave ECU (204). At step (409), the method involves scanning the database history and concluding upon the presence and extent of the noise factors based on the behavioural trends by the data interpretation algorithm. These behavioural trends are progressively reflected in the database history such as accumulation of dust, formation of snow, aging and the like.

In final step (410), the method involves auto-tuning the command parameters issued to the motor of the flush door handle (206) based on the behavioural analysis of the flush mechanism/motors carried out by the data interpretation algorithm of the slave ECU (204). Therefore, this process not only ensures robust, consistent and smooth operation of all the handles in a synchronous manner but also generates early alerts for preventive maintenance.

The invention is further illustrated hereinafter by means of examples.
Examples:

Example 1: Experimental modeling

Figure 5 illustrates an experimental modeling utilizing an exemplary system (500) employed in arriving at/tuning command parameters and rule base formation for the self-learning algorithm of the slave ECU (204). As shown in figure 5, the system (500) comprises a test chamber (502), a data acquisition system (504) and a control console (506). The control console (506) was used for simulating noise factors based on temperature, humidity and other environmental factors. The sub-system (502) further comprises of at least one controller (not shown). The flush door handle (206) was placed in the test chamber (502). The control console (506) allowed application of various operational commands, apart from simulating influence of various noise factors by adjusting environmental factors like temperature, humidity and the like for simulating conditions like snow formation and ambient temperature changes. Similarly, the flush door handle (206) was exposed in a dust chamber (not shown) for dust accumulation and then placed in the test chamber (502) for studying effect of the dust ingress. For simulating various stages of aging the flush door handle (206) was exposed to endurance cycles.

In addition to simulating influence of the noise factors various operating commands were issued by a test engineer for simulating various use cases as well as failure modes. The data acquisition system (504) of the system (500) captured electrical parameters like motor current, motor voltage and traveling time. The motor speed was estimated from these three parameters. The resultant database was generated based on the data obtained from the experiment for further analysis.

Example 2: Computer simulation

Figure 6 illustrates an exemplary block schematic of a computer simulation activity. The computer simulation activity complemented the results obtained through the experimental modeling. This approach is also known as “Software in the Loop”. A control strategy model (606) and the flush handle mechanism (206) were modeled on a computer system (602). Unlike experimental modeling, it was easy to simulate worst case specifications/tolerances of the motor as well as the flush handle mechanism (206). Influence of the noise factor was also simulated through a control menu screen (604). The computer simulation allowed fast iterations of various use cases changes as well as parameter changes to simulate influence of noise factors. A data log was maintained by a data logging unit (610) that captured data obtained from the experiment for further analysis.

Example 3: Tuning of the self-learning algorithm of the slave ECU (204)

Figure 7 illustrates an exemplary system (700) that was utilized for tuning the self-learning algorithm of the ECU (204) based on the data obtained through the experimental modeling and the computer simulation. As shown in figure 7, the system (700) comprises a parameter tuning terminal (702), an electronic control unit (ECU) (704), a “Hardware in the Loop” (HIL) set-up (706) and a control menu (708). The HIL set-up (706) was employed for tuning the control strategy. The HIL set-up (706) emulated real life input/output devices such as motors and position sensing switches. The HIL set-up (706) comprised of a model of flush handle mechanism with motorized actuator. The ECU (704) under development was interfaced with the real-life field signals emulated by the HIL set-up (706). The control menu (708) screen allowed the test engineer to emulate various field situations like noise factors, use cases and failure modes. Based on the data obtained through the experimental modeling and the computer simulation, the control strategy was tuned for adaptive control of the flush handle mechanism so as to deliver robust performance in the presence of noise factors and various use cases. The ECU under development is the ECU that is used as a slave ECU unit.

Advantages of the invention:
1. The system (200) and the method facilitate auto-tuning of the command parameters that ensures synchronous movement of all the handles of the vehicle on reaching their respective destinations like the flush position and the deploy position thereby preserving the operating life of the flush door handle (206) in terms of number of operating cycles.
2. The system (200) and the method through auto-tuning help to avoid sudden stall/jerk at the end position that ensures smooth control of the handle movement so that the handles reach their end positions with a soft stop.
3. The system (200) and the method facilitate achievement of a minimal acoustic noise and vibration below a threshold prescribed by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) along the journey.

The foregoing descriptions of specific embodiments of the present invention have been presented for purposes of illustration and description. They are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the present invention to the precise forms disclosed, and obviously many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching. The embodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the present invention and its practical application, and to thereby enable others skilled in the art to best utilize the present invention and various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. It is understood that various omissions and substitutions of equivalents are contemplated as circumstances may suggest or render expedient, but such omissions and substitutions are intended to cover the application or implementation without departing from the scope of the claims of the present invention.
,CLAIMS:We claim:

1. A system (200) for controlling a vehicle flush door handle (206), the system (200) comprising:
a master electronic control unit (202) operably connected to the flush door handle (206), wherein the flush door handle (206) includes anyone of an actuator (212) and a motor coupled thereto; and
a slave electronic control unit (204) operably connected to the master electronic control unit (202) and capable of receiving any one of a flush position command and a deploy position command therefrom, the slave electronic control unit (204) having,
• a non-volatile memory having a database history stored therein,
• a microcontroller (208) embedded therein, the microcontroller (208) having,
a self-learning algorithm embedded therein for sensing different noise factors,
a data interpretation algorithm for scanning the database history and concluding upon the presence and extent of the noise factors based on behavioural trends, and
an auto-tuning algorithm for auto-tuning the command parameters issued to the motor of the flush door handle (206) based on the behavioural analysis carried out by the data interpretation algorithm, and
• a plurality of motor drivers (210) for operating any one of the motor and the actuator (212) of the flush door handle (206).

2. The system (200) as claimed in claim 1, wherein the master electronic control unit (202) is selected from any one of a passive entry passive star unit and a body control module unit.

3. The system (200) as claimed in claim 1, wherein the slave electronic control unit (204) receives any one of the flush position command and the deploy position command from the master electronic control unit (202) over a bus system of the vehicle.

4. A method for controlling a vehicle flush door handle (206), the method comprising the steps of:
sensing anyone of a switch and a capacitive sensor (216) embedded in the flush door handle (206) by a master electronic control unit (202) on touching the flush door handle (206) of the vehicle by an authorized driver;
authenticating the driver by the master electronic control unit (202) using proximity sensing techniques;
providing a command by the master electronic control unit (202) to a slave electronic control unit (204) for deploying the flush door handle (206);
operating any one of a motor and an actuator (212) coupled with the flush door handle (206) by the slave electronic control unit (204) to bring the flush door handle (206) in a deploy position;
sending a command by the master electronic control unit (202) to the slave electronic control unit (204) to flush the flush door handle (206) when the vehicle in motion;
operating any one of the motor and the actuator (212) coupled with the flush door handle (206) by the slave electronic control unit (204) to bring the flush door handle (206) in a flush position;
sensing periodically field parameters by the slave electronic control unit (204), wherein the field parameters to be sensed includes motor current, voltage, speed and travel time;
storing the sensed parameters in a database history, wherein the database history is stored in a non-volatile memory of the slave electronic control unit (204);
scanning the database history and concluding upon the presence and extent of the noise factors based on the behavioural trends by a data interpretation algorithm; and
auto-tuning the command parameters issued to the motor of the flush door handle (206) based on the behavioural analysis by an auto-tuning algorithm, wherein the data interpretation algorithm, the self-learning algorithm and the auto-tuning algorithm are embedded in a microcontroller (208) of the slave electronic control unit (204).

5. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the master electronic control unit (202) is selected from any one of a passive entry passive star unit and a body control module unit.

6. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the slave electronic control unit (204) receives any one of the flush position command and the deploy position command from the master electronic control unit (202) over a bus system of the vehicle.

7. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein any one of the motor and the actuator (212) of the flush door handle (206) are operated by a plurality of motor drivers (210) embedded in the slave electronic control unit (204).