Four-wheel-drive vehicle and control unit for four-wheel-drive vehicle

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9022158-B2
Application number	US-201313772549-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 21, 2013
Priority date	Feb 29, 2012
Publication date	May 5, 2015
Grant date	May 5, 2015

Abstract

A four-wheel-drive vehicle includes a dog clutch provided between a propeller shaft and an engine, a torque coupling provided between a rear differential and rear wheels, and an ECU that controls the dog clutch and the torque coupling. When a drive mode is switched from a two-wheel-drive mode where the transmissions of torque by the dog clutch and the torque coupling are both interrupted, to a four-wheel-drive mode, the ECU sets the amount of torque that is transmitted by the torque coupling to a first torque value (T 1 ) to increase the speed of rotation of the propeller shaft, and then sets the amount of torque that is transmitted by the torque coupling to a second torque value (T 2 ) that is lower than the first torque value (T 1 ), and engages the dog clutch when the rotations of first and second rotary members of the dog clutch are synchronized with each other.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A four-wheel-drive vehicle that is able to travel in any one of a two-wheel-drive mode and a four-wheel-drive mode, comprising:
a drive source that generates torque for causing the four-wheel-drive vehicle to travel;
a pair of right and left main drive wheels to which the torque is constantly transmitted from the drive source regardless of whether the four-wheel-drive vehicle is traveling in the two-wheel-drive mode or in the four-wheel-drive mode;
a pai…

Assignees

• Jtekt Corp

Inventors

• Mita Masaki

Classifications

• B60K23/0808

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic

• B60K17/34 Primary

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic

• B60K17/3505 Primary

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic