Automatic Electronic Steering - A New Approach

Full authority electronic controlled steering systems are emerging in both the off-highway and on-highway vehicle markets. Providing improved vehicle manueverability and resultant productivity requires a steering system more sophisticated than the traditional 2 wheel Ackermann hydraulic powered system dominant in today's mobile equipment.

This paper provides a general appraisal of the current state of the art steering systems in off-highway applications and introduces a concept for a fully electronic system. The industry trend is toward 4 wheel steering with augmented electronic control of the rear axle. In addition, there is a growing demand for fully automatic steering to avoid operator fatigue and provide remote control capability or repeatable positioning. [1,2] The concept of a full authority electronic controlled steering system meets these demands and has the versatility to provide many additional features described in this paper.