Active Damping of an Articulated Vehicles Steering System

Abstract:
The purpose with this PhD project, is to enhance the comfort level for operators of articulated frame steer vehicles by developing control strategies which dampens the oscillations/dynamics of the frame steer system that propagates to the operator. The challenge is then to do so, without compromising the precision of the steering system and the energy consumption.
The market for these vehicles is continuously increasing in parallel with the demands for operator comfort. The yearly production of these vehicles is around 250.000, which clearly indicates that there is a huge market potential.
The project will be split into four parts, which will involve different kind of theoretical or experimental methodologies. First part will be experimental, where different state-of-the-art power steering units will be benchmark tested and compared. Second part will be based on modelling the studied vehicle with a complex system model, where different analytical methodologies will be used to analyse and describe the control loop performance and dynamics of the system. Third part will involve different qualitative measurement methods, which can identify controllable parameters from the system that is related to the comfort level of the vehicle based on feedback information from a given number of operators. Fourth part will be based on optimization methods, where different control strategies will be evaluated through simulations and compared with defined requirements for the system comfort and performance.
The expected outcome of the project can be outlined in the following bullet points:
• To develop control strategy(ies) for articulated vehicles, which is designed to utilize an active damping method that controls the steering system with a given feedback signal.
• To quantify the steering comfort for an operator, to be able to compare different strategies
• To develop a control strategy that can be implemented in the existing platform of units at Danfoss, such that existing production facilities can be utilized

Funding: Innovation Fund Denmark