Human-Machine Interaction in Vehicle Steering

The steering system is one of the most important human interfaces in a vehicle and it must be designed to ensure safety and comfort for the driver. However, these characteristics are difficult to express quantitatively. Therefore, the current controller design requires many experimental steps. One possibility to reduce the number of the steps is to use the concept of passivity. In this paper, we explore useful conditions from the viewpoint of passivity in the controller design for vehicle steering. Controllers involving damping, inertia compensation, and vibration suppression in electric power steering systems are proposed.