Electric power steering: Recreating steering feel:

Application of electronics in the automotive industry is extensively spreading. Electric power steering is hereby an exciting improvement to steering systems since the introduction of hydraulic power steering systems, which was first introduced as early as 1970s. Drivers desire hydraulic power steering behaviour because of its natural feel while providing assistance, but it has many disadvantages such as component lifecycle, oil leaks and power consumption. The use of electronic power steering provides the opportunity to remove such problems associated to hydraulic power steering and introduce benefits in terms of adaptability, comfort and safety. Since today's vehicles are making use of the by-wire technology for most components in the car, the additional electronic power steering will make it possible to have a full range of automated driving aids. Even though electric power steering comes with many advantages, there are still some disadvantages which are mentioned in numerous articles. These problems are mostly described as a lack in steering feel. More precisely it's described as if the front wheels are disconnected from the ground wheels. Many studies show different algorithms to minimise this, however it can be seen that even in the most successful products there is some complaint about this. An important tool to analyse this problem is the use of driving simulators. The implementation of a steering model that maintains high fidelity dynamics will bring many advantages. At the moment steering systems are developed by vehicle testing which is considered expensive and time consuming. The study of steering models will give more insight for the development in steering systems and the implementation in a HIL-simulator will ease the process of steering system development. This thesis will show the implementation of a steering model in a high fidelity steering simulator and it will propose a different method for solving the problem of steering feel loss. Finally it will conclude with driver in the loop experiments to show and evaluate the proposed method.