The present invention relates to a method of controlling a variable damper
in a vehicle wherein a rear-wheel variable damper can be controlled by
estimating a vertical acceleration value of a rear wheel based on the
fact that there is a certain time delay in a wheel motion between front
and rear wheels due to the wheelbase and vehicle speed. To this end, the
method of the present invention comprises the steps of (a) detecting
vehicle body accelerations other than a desired vehicle body acceleration
of a vehicle body; (b) calculating the desired vehicle body acceleration
based on the other detected vehicle body accelerations according to a
geometric rule; (c) calculating vehicle body vertical velocities by
filtering the vehicle body accelerations to eliminate DC offsets
therefrom and integrating the filtered accelerations; (d) detecting
accelerations of front right/left vehicle wheels; (e) calculating front
wheel vertical velocities by filtering the detected accelerations of the
front right/left wheels to eliminate DC offsets therefrom and integrating
the filtered accelerations, and then calculating accelerations of rear
wheels by time delaying the accelerations of the front wheels by a time
interval taken while a road input to the front wheel is delivered to the
rear wheel at a vehicle speed; and (f) calculating damper velocities
based on the calculated vehicle body vertical velocities and the
calculated vehicle wheel vertical velocities. Accordingly, the Sky-hook
determination can be more accurately made. Further, since it is not
necessary to use all the four sensors, the number of parts of vehicles
can be reduced when mass-producing the vehicles. Consequently, the
selling prices for finished vehicles can be lowered, and thus, an
unnecessary economical burden cannot be imposed on the consumers.