Process for compensating acceleration sensor errors

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present invention relates to a process for compensating errors of an acceleration sensor and, more particularly, to such a process for use in a vehicle for measurement of an acceleration in a defined direction.
A process for compensating acceleration sensor errors is generally known as shown in DE 3,705,932 A1.
According to this process, a longitudinal-acceleration sensor is checked to determine if it is functioning and suitably calibrated when the vehicle is travelling without any wheel slip.
A longitudinal acceleration of the vehicle can therefore be derived from the wheel speeds.
A disadvantage of this known process is that calibration and, if appropriate, a detection of a functional fault of an acceleration sensor is possible only when the direction of the acceleration measured by the acceleration sensor coincides with the direction of the longitudinal acceleration of the vehicle.
A functional check of a transverse-acceleration sensor is therefore impossible.
Furthermore, DE 3,702,824 shows it is known to eliminate the influence of the gravitational acceleration g as a result of the occurrence of rolling angles of the vehicle in the determination of the transverse acceleration by arranging two acceleration sensors at a specific angle to one another and by evaluating their signals.
A disadvantage of this process is that two acceleration sensors have to be used in order to eliminate the influence of gravitational acceleration on the acceleration to be determined.
Moreover, the acceleration sensors have to be arranged at specific angles to one another, that is to say inaccuracies in respect of these angles cannot be detected in this known process.
It is likewise known from DE 3,627,241 A1 to check the functional capacity of an acceleration sensor by applying a test signal to the acceleration sensor and by comparing the output signal thereby obtained with a desired trend for this output signal.
A disadvantage of this test signal process is that only the electrical transmission of the acceleration sensor can be checked by a test signal