Electric motor for a steering mechanism

Abstract

An electric motor which is capable of changing an output torque with a simple arrangement without using an expensive power unit for controlling the supply of voltage (current) to an armature. The electric motor has a motor section constituted by an armature, a first pole piece, and a second pole piece, and has a slide bevel gear which meshes with a bevel gear of an input shaft. The slide bevel gear moves in an axial direction in correspondence with the steering torque, which movement is transmitted to the second pole piece by a pressing lever to rotatively move the second pole piece. Consequently, the opposing positions of poles of the first pole piece and the second pole piece are relatively changed to change polarities, so that a driving force corresponding to the steering torque is outputted. In addition, the direction of energization of the armature is changed over in correspondence with the steering direction by an energization changeover section, thereby making it possible to cope with leftward or rightward steering.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.