A 3DoF-sidestick user interface for four wheel independent steering vehicles

In the past few years x-by-wire has evolved into the trend-setting technology in the field of transport. It allows for the design of new modular vehicle concepts such as the robotic electric vehicle ROboMObil. Through its four wheel robots, which can be accelerated, decelerated and steered independently, a highly maneuverable design is achieved. A fully actuated three degree of freedom sidestick is proposed in this paper as a haptic interface to the three horizontal degrees of motion of the ROboMObil. The main focus lies on the user access to the rear wheel steering behavior or to the instantaneous center of rotation respectively. Two approaches have been designed and analyzed to improve the robustness against pilot induced oscillations.