Developments in Steering Angle Sensing for Commercial Vehicle Applications

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety aspirations are to improve the safety of commercial vehicles through the voluntary adoption of stability control systems in new vehicle designs. The current technologies available today for commercial truck Stability Control Systems (SCS) designs involve costly sensing components that in many applications are not ideally suited to the demands in these commercial applications. In particular, steering angle sensors (SAS) have been adapted from automotive passenger car applications and involve both contacting and non-contacting sensing solutions. These technologies have struggled in commercial vehicle applications with the lack of design standardization, packaging flexibility along with environmental durability and cost issues. This paper reviews the limitations of the existing sensing technologies used in these steering shaft angle sensing applications. The paper summarizes the key design attributes of both absolute and incremental single turn steering angle sensors (SAS) and proposes new technology concepts to overcome these existing design issues. Applicability of this information includes Steering Angle Sensing, absolute shaft angle sensing, pivot point /articulated arm position sensing and other through-hole angle sensing applications.