Rear wheel toe angle control device and method for calibrating a reference position of an electric actuator in a rear wheel toe angle control device

A rear wheel toe angle control device, comprising:

• a linear electric actuator provided on each rear wheel for varying a toe angle of the rear wheel;
• a reference position setting unit for setting an operational position of the electric actuators that causes the rear wheel toe angles to be a neutral value as a reference position;
• an operational position detecting unit for detecting an operational position of the electric actuators;
• a rear wheel toe angle detected value computing unit for computing a rear wheel detected value of each rear wheel according to a detection result of the operational position detecting unit and the reference position;
• a target rear wheel toe angle setting unit for setting a target rear wheel toe angle;
• a drive control unit for controlling an actuation of each electric actuator according to the rear wheel toe angle detected value and the target rear wheel toe angle;
• a symmetric toe angle position setting unit for setting a symmetric toe angle position as the operational position of the electric actuators that causes the rear wheel toe angles to be symmetric to each other;
• and
• an axial force detecting unit for detecting an axial force acting on each electric actuator;
• wherein the reference position setting unit resets the operational position of the electric actuators detected by the operational position detecting unit as the reference position when the drive control unit has actuated the electric actuators from the symmetric toe angle position by an equal amount until the detected axial force has indicated that the rear wheel toe angles have reached the neutral value.