Increasing the Active Safety of Commercial vehicles by Using an Electronically Controlled Power Steering System

The aim of this paper is to analyse the component “steering” as a building block in an overall concept for the enhancement of active safety and driving comfort of commercial vehicles as well. The development steps will be elucidated regarding an electronically controlled power steering system, whereby the steering effort will be adapted to the dynamic parameters of the vehicle and thus to the prevailing driving conditions. Following the analysis of theoretical backgrounds, a concept for an electronically controlled power steering system was established that would comply to the stipulated technical specifications. In order to be able to select and determine the proper vehicle parameters for the micro-processor controlled steering system, the Mercedes-Benz driving simulator was put to use. After intensive parameter analysis and software optimization with the aid of the simulator, a conventional steering gear with minimum hysteresis was selected to build up a prototype for an electronically controlled power steering system.