Considering driver's intentions and road situations in AMT gear position decision

Abstract

A gear position decision method used in automated mechanical transmission (AMT) is introduced. The algorithm of the method is composed of a driving environments and driver's intentions estimator, the shift schedules suit each typical driving environment and driver's intention situation, and an inference logic to determine the most proper gear position for the present situation. The estimator identifies the driving environment and features of driver's intentions, which are divided into some typical patterns. Based on the identified results, the gear position inference algorithm calculates out the best gear position at the moment. The method just simulates the course of a driver making a gear position decision when driving an automobile with manual transmission. The test results show that the automated mechanical transmission with the method gives less unnecessary shifting and more proper gear positions than that with the shift schedule algorithms, which calculate the gear positions only based on the automotive state parameters.