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Study of Electric Power Steering System

Conference Paper · January 2015

DOI: 10.2991/csic-15.2015.77

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 International Conference on Computer Science and Intelligent Communication (CSIC 2015)

Study of Electric Power Steering System

Shaoyun Zhang Yi Wang
School of Physics & Electronic science School of Physics & Electronic science
Guizhou Normal University Guizhou Normal University
Guiyang, China Guiyang, China

Abstract—Electric power steering system (EPS) has been used pinion power-assist. The type of steering mast power and
to replace traditional hydraulic power steering system (HPS) in pinion power is used in light vehicle, and the type of double
automobiles. In an EPS system, the assisting steering power is pinion power is used in heavy vehicle. On the constitution, all
from an electric motor. In principle, the control of the EPS electric power steering systems have three basic components:
system mainly involves magnitude and direction’s adjustment of electronic control unit (ECU), power-assisted motor and torque
motor current to control the torque in order to satisfy steering sensor mounted on the steering mast [2].
requirement. This research is aimed at developing steering agility
and stability, improving real-time performance of the EPS At present, the studies of EPS system mainly focus on
system. In this paper, the structure and working principle of advanced control theory, control methods, anti-interference,
electric power steering system are analyzed. The dynamic models hardware development, etc.. For the contradiction between the
of torque sensor, input shaft, output shaft, assist motor and linear steering agility and the sense of road of steering system, this
assist characteristic curves are established. A phase lead article establishes the system dynamics models and proposes a
compensation control strategy of PID closed-loop control is control strategy with phase lead compensation, based on
proposed. The simulation model of the EPS is established based analyzing the structure and working principle of electric
on MATLAB/simulink. The simulation results show that the power steering system.
designed control strategy promotes the real-time performance of
the system, and alleviates the contradiction between the steering
agility and the sense of road, which prove the validity of the II. STRUCTURE AND WORKING PRINCIPLE OF EPS
control strategy. The EPS system is mainly composed of steering wheel,
torque sensors, electronic control unit (ECU), motor,
Keywords—EPS; assist characteristic; control strategy; phase electromagnetic clutch, retarding mechanism, steering gear
compensation; simulation and rack. The structure diagram of electric power steering
system is shown in figure 1.
I. INTRODUCTION
Engine
Steering system is an important part of the automobile and Steering Starting Signal
its performance directly affects the driving experience and Wheel
Engine Speed
driving safety. Early automotive steering systems is a pure Vehicle Speed
mechanical steering system, without power-assist system, and Torque
the power of steering system is entirely provided by the driver, ECU
so that it can not get a good driving experience. Since the Torque Sensor
Clutch Control
1930s, power-assisted steering system has been developed CAN
Module
gradually. Power-assisted steering systems are mainly divided Speed Reducer Motor
Current Control
into three types: hydraulic power steering system (HPS),
Clutch Current Feedback
electronically controlled hydraulic power steering system
(EHPS) and electric power steering system (EPS)[1]. In recent Gear
years, the conventional hydraulic steering system has been
replaced by electric power steering system, because of its
advantages. Compared with the former two kinds, electric Rack
power steering system (EPS) has many remarkable advantages.
Vehicle
Without hydraulic oil system, the EPS that assist power is Wheel
provided by the assist motor, greatly reduces the complexity
and maintenance costs of steering system and the Fig. 1. Electric power steering system structure
environmental pollution degree. In addition, it heightens the
modularization degree and power-assisted effect of steering After the automobile engine igniting, when the driver turns
system, and improves the fuel efficiency of automobile. Thus it the steering wheel, the torque sensor installed on the steering
can produce a broad application prospect and economic benefit. shaft measures a steering torque, and sents it to the ECU, and
According to the different position of the motor, electric power then, according to the torque and speed, the ECU calculates
steering systems are divided into four types: steering mast and obtains a optimum current required for the assist motor
power-assist, rack power-assist, pinion power-assist and double by the preset assist characteristics curves. At the same time,
the ECU collects the signals real-timely, such as input torque,
﹡Professor Yi WANG is the corresponding author.
Phone: +86 0851 86700647

© 2015. The authors - Published by Atlantis Press 321

speed, voltage, current, rotor position of assist motor, and Combining (3) ~ (6) can obtain the following function,
adjusts the motor current by the preset control strategy , so as
to control the output torque and rotation direction of the assist T s  G k i i a  k c n  (G 2 J n  J a) n  (G 2 Ba  Bn) n (7)
motor, and then the wheels obtain a steering force adapting the
running condition by the mechanical transmission mechanism where G is the transmission ratio between assist motor and
to assist the driver steering in order to gain a better driving steering shaft, Ki is the electric torque coefficient of assist
experience[3-4]. In the whole process of system working, the motor.
fault diagnosis module monitors all parts of the system in real- Motor angle as in
time. Once a failure is detected, the system disconnects clutch
immediately, and uses pure manual steering, and gives a fault  r  G n (8)
signal, which ensure the driving safety.
Assist Motor Electrical Equation as in
III. DYNAMIC MODELS OF EPS u  Ria  Lia  ke r (9)
The EPS system model mainly includes torque sensor where u is the voltage of motor armature, R is armature
model, output steering axle model, input steering axle model,
resistance ， L is armature inductance ， ke is anti-electric
assist motor model and steering resistance moment model.
coefficient assist motor.
According to Newton's law, the following dynamics models of
the steering system can be established as follows[5]:
IV. CONTROL STRATEGY
Torque Sensor as in
A. Assistance Characteristic Curves
Ts  Kd ( m   n) (1)
Assist characteristic of EPS refers to the relationship
Input Steering Shaft as in between input signals (torque and speed) and output signal
(assist torque or current of the motor). In the process of
Td  Ts  Jm m  Bm m (2) driving, the steering resistance decreases with the increase of
automobile’s speed, so the assist torque of motor should
Output Steering Shaft as in decrease with the increase of speed, and the speed exceeds a
Ta  Ts  Tr  Jn  n  Bn  n (3) certain range, the motor without power. There are three
common assist characteristic curves: linear, folding lines and
Assist Motor as in curves type. Linear assist characteristic curves are simple in
form, easy to adjust, implement in practice, and used most
Tn  Ta / G  Ja  r  Ba  r (4) widely. Therefore, this article takes the linear assist
characteristic curves as the research object. Linear assist
Motor Electromagnetic Torque as in characteristic can be represented as the following function:

Tn  ki ia (5)  0, 0  Td  Td 0

where Ts is the output torque of torque sensor, Td is the input Th   f (v ) (Td  Td 0 ) , Td 0  Td  Td max （10）
torque of steering wheel, Ta is the torque which comes form  f (v ) (Td max  Td 0), Td  Td max
the assist motor by the retarding mechanism ， Tr is the 
resistance torque of output shaft，Tn is the electromagnetic where Th is the target torque of motor, f(v) is speed induction
torque from the assist motor ， Jm is the rotational inertia coefficient, Thmax is the maximum assist torque of motor，Td0
between steering wheel and input steering shaft，Jn is the is the minimum input torque of driver at the beginning of the
equivalent to the total rotational inertia of output shaft and motor’s output power，Tdmax is the input torque of driver at
pinions，Ja is the rotational inertia of assist motor, Bm is the the maximum power of motor.
damping coefficient between steering wheel and input shaft,
Ba is the damping coefficient of assist motor, Kd is the rigidity Establishing the characteristic parameters of assist curves
coefficient of torque sensor, ia is armature current, θm is the as follows[7-9]：
angle of steering wheel , θn is the angle of lower output shaft, Td0=1Nm, Tdmax=7.6Nm, Th max=22Nm.The speed induction
θr is the angle of assist motor. coefficient is determined in accordance with the rules shown
In the case of small angle (the angle of tire side-slip is less in Table 1 (needing to be corrected in real tests). The motor is
than 5°), the tire characteristics can be considered to be linear, no power at the speed more than 80 km/h.
so the resistance torque of steering shaft is described by the
following expression [6] : TABLE I. INDUCTION COEFFICIENT OF DIFFERENT SPEED
Tr  kc  n (6)
Speed （Km/h） 0 10 20 30 40 60 80
where kc is the steering shaft effective cornering stiffness of
front wheels. Induction Coefficient
3.16 2.15 1.85 1.50 1.30 1.05 0.72
f (v)

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 According to the above parameters of table 1, the assist Besides the delay of PWM, as the inertia and damping of
characteristic curves of EPS can be established as shown in steering system, the torque measured by the torque sensor has
figure 2. a certain hysteresis. These lead to the EPS system has a certain
hysteresis, especially in fast turning. In order to enhance the
response speed of EPS, it is important that designing a phase
Thmax

0Km/h compensation module, corrects the torque signal measured by

the torque sensor.
10Km/h Phase compensation module can be described as the follow
Th / Nm

20Km/h
30Km/h
formula:
40Km/h
G(s)  (1  aTs) / (1  Ts) , a >1 （15）
60Km/h
80Km/h where a is the attenuation coefficient, T is time constant.
0 Td0 Td / Nm Td max The EPS control structure model, with the input signal
phase compensation, is established, as shown in figure 3.
Fig. 2. Assist characteristic curves
Td T

The target current of assist motor can be obtained by (11):

Steering Mechanical
Input Shaft
Wheel Steering System
Th
i （11） Phase Compensation
ki G
Torque Voltage Output
Ts assist characteristic + PID PWM
Sensor - Limit Shaft
B. Control Algorithm I
V Motor Tn
EPS control is a current control of motor (magnitude and
direction), requiring quick, sensitive and accurate. The stand
Fig. 3. Control structure model
or fall of EPS control algorithm directly affects the
performance of the steering system. Therefore, there must be a
reasonable current controller to control the motor current, V. SIMULATION AND RESULT ANALYSIS
thereby controlling the output torque of motor. The control
algorithm of PID controls the controlled object by adjusting A. Establishing Simulation Model of EPS
three parameters (proportion, integral and differential) of
EPS system model includes the model of mechanical
control errors. PID control，with strong stability and high steering system, motor model and the model of controller.
reliability, is easy to implement and debug, and is suitable for According to the established mathematical model and control
the automobile electric power steering system. structure model, the Simulation Model of EPS can be
Expression of PID algorithm can be represented as the established based on MATLAB/Simulink, as shown in figure
following formulas: 4.
e(t )  r (t )  y(t ) （12）
 1 t de(t ) 
u (t )  Kp e(t )   e(t ) dt  Td （13）
 Ti 0 dt 
where r(t) is the target current of assist motor, y(t) is the actual
current of assist motor, u(t) is the output signal of PID
controller, Ti is integral time constant, Td is differentiating
time constant.

C. Phase Compensation
The controller of EPS, with speed (V) and output of torque
sensor (Ts) as input signals, determines the target current of
assist motor by the pre-set assist characteristic curves, then
controls the motor’s power by PWM technology. At the same
time, the controller computes the difference between actual
current and target current, and adjusts the motor’s power
through PID arithmetic.
PWM module has time-lag effect. Its transfer function is as
follow:
G(s)  1/ (Ts 1) ，T=（1/20000）s （14） Fig. 4. Simulink simulation model of EPS

323
B. Simulation Result Analysis Integrating the whole simulation experiment results, the
According to the Simulink model, combining with the design of the EPS control strategy can make the output of the
hardware parameters, six groups of simulation experiments are controller follow the input well, and improve the response
done in MATLAB/Simulink. In order to facilitate observation, speed of the system after adding the phase advance
respectively taking three kinds of step signal, slope signal and compensation of input signal. It can obtain the effect of agile
sinusoidal signal do the simulation experiment. The steering and good road sense.
experiment result is shown in figure 5.
VI. CONCLUSION

Ta/Nm
In view of the characteristics that low vehicle-speed
Ta/Nm

Phase Compensation Ta
Phase Compensation steering is not enough agile and the road sense of high vehicle-
Ts speed is bad, this paper researched the system dynamics
Ta Phase Uncompensation Ta models，and designed a linear assist characteristic curves and
Ts
Ta Phase Uncompensation a control strategy with phase lead compensation, and verified
the design in Simulink. The experiment results show that the
control strategy designed obtain the effect of agile steering and
(a) Ts for step signal，V=20Km/h t/s (b) Ts for ramp signal，V=20Km/h t/s
good road sense, and improves the system real-time
performance. The optimization of control performance, will be
T/Nm

Tr
T/Nm

Tr
implemented in the further research of EPS.
Ta Ta
Ts ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Ts
This work was supported by International Science &
Technology Cooperation Research Foundation of Guizhou
t/s Province (Grant No. [2014]7007) ,in part by Key Laboratory
(c) Ts for sine signal，V=0Km/h t/s (d) Ts for sine signal，V=20Km/h
of Education Department of Guizhou Province (Grant No. KY
Tr Tr word[2014] 213).
T/Nm
T/Nm

Ts
Ta
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