Electric steering power electronics

Vehicular power steering systems incorporating electric motors to either drive the hydraulic pump or the steering gear must offer long term reliability and yet be cost competitive. The electronics used to manage the steering system´s electric motor includes large power transistor devices and single chip MCUs (microcontrollers). These active electronic devices and the motor type affect the performance of the steering system in numerous ways. Finding the best overall control strategy for motor speed and torque requires some compromise in the microcontroller´s computational ability and power efficiency of the motor. Usually high-end DSPs are selected for their fast computational speed which is required for some vector control type motor strategies. Other lower cost motor control specific MCUs can be used if reduced motor speed or torque performance is acceptable.