Development of Damper for New Electronically Controlled Power Steering System by Magneto-Rheological Fluid

Abstract

Electronically Controlled Power Steering (ECPS) device is one of the new power steering systems with improved stability at high-speed condition compared with the conventional ones. We propose a new ECPS system, which uses Magneto-Rheological Fluid (MRF) and can be added to the conventional power steering system without major modification. MRF, which is one type of controllable fluid, changes its rheological characteristics from Newtonian fluid to Bingham fluid as the magnetic field is applied. It has several advantages such as high strength, robustness in impurities and wide operational temperature range. In order to confirm the performance of the developed MR damper for new ECPS systems, we perform experiments based on PID control. The experimental results show feasibility of the proposed device while further study on improved time of MR device are needed.