US 2006/0041358 A1Published application

Electric power steering apparatus

AssigneesNsk Ltd., NSK Steering Systems Co., Ltd.

InventorTakeshi Hara

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Abstract

The present invention provides an electric power steering apparatus that can detect straight traveling surely without using a special sensor or the like and can perform highly accurate correction of a neutral steering angle on which a latest steering angle, at the time when it is judged that a vehicle is traveling straight, is reflected. The electric power steering apparatus judges straight traveling of a vehicle on the basis of a steering torque, a traveling speed, and a steering angle speed that is calculated on the basis of the steering angle and corrects a neutral angle indicated by the steering angle after a period, in which the straight traveling judging means judges that the vehicle is traveling straight, continues for a continuous judging time or more and during a straight traveling continuing period in which the straight traveling judging means continues to judge that the vehicle is traveling straight.

Claims6

Dependent claims

An electric power steering apparatus including a torque sensor that detects a steering torque of a steering wheel of a vehicle, a steering angle sensor that detects a steering angle, and a speed sensor that detects a traveling speed of the vehicle, the electric power steering apparatus comprising:

a straight traveling judging means that judges straight traveling of the vehicle on the basis of the steering torque, the traveling speed, and a steering angle speed that is calculated on the basis of the steering angle;
and
a neutral angle correcting means that corrects an error between an actual neutral angle and a neutral angle indicated by a steering angle detected by the steering angle sensor by correcting the neutral angle indicated by the steering angle on the basis of the traveling speed after a period, in which the straight traveling judging means judges that the vehicle is traveling straight, continues for a continuous judging time (t0) or more and during a straight traveling continuing period in which the straight foreword traveling judging means continues to judge that the vehicle is traveling straight.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.