Modeling and control of steering actuator for heavy duty vehicles

The paper presents a model and a control law for the steering actuator used in heavy duty vehicles. These results are pertaining to applications where new automatic vehicle features (i.e. lateral control) are to be designed. We first present a physical model of the steering actuator including: mechanic flexibilities, non linearities of the hydraulic power system, and tire-road contact friction forces. Then, we present some possible control designs seeking to improve the actuator performance, while using as less as possible information about the system.