Track: Energy

Abstract

Automobile steering system is used to steer a car to the desired path. Electro-Hydraulic Power Steering System can be found in Ford, Volkswagen, Audi, and Nissan cars. In this paper, an energy-saving electro-hydraulic power steering system for an automobile is presented. The proposed technique has reduced the energy consumption and improved the steering feel as compared to the conventional. In the proposed technique, use of a DC motor gear pump instead of engine driven pump ensures a good steering feel at high speed and good steering portability at low speed. The adaptive Fuzzy-PID controller reach the motor speed set point faster than PID hence improves the steering feel compared to the PID controller. The electric and hydraulic power consumption data are collected at 5.23 Nm steering torque. The experimental results show that, the hydraulic pressure developed in hydraulic chamber is proportional to motor speed. In conventional controller, the power consumption increases with car speed but in manual, PID and Fuzzy-PID controller, the power consumption decreases with car speed compared to conventional. The electric power consumption of conventional, manual, PID and Fuzzy-PID controller at 0-120 km/h vehicle speed are 5544 W, 1979.8 W, 1915.2 W and 2017.9 W, respectively. The hydraulic power consumption of conventional, manual, PID and Fuzzy-PID controller at 0-120 km/h vehicle speed are 1192.8 W, 349.85 W, 335.72 W and 361.19 W, respectively.