Micro-electromechanical system based optimized steering angle estimation mechanism for customized self-driving vehicles

Abstract

In an automated steering system of the self-driving vehicles, the steering wheel angle is measured by the absolute angular displacement sensors or relative angle sensors. However, these sensors either encompass global navigation satellite systems (GNSS)/gyroscope – Micro Electromechanical-Sensor (MEMS) based solutions or comprise of the complex gear-based mechanical structure which results in latency and additive bias in the accumulative steering angle assessment. To address these issues, we propose a novel steering angle assessment system based on enhanced gear mechanism along with the adapted rotation paradigm for the customized self-driving vehicles. Additionally, a digital signal processing system has been introduced to resolve the issues in the identification of absolute central and max-bounding steering wheels position in self-driving vehicles. In assistance with the proposed mechanism, an algorithm has also been proposed to optimize the computed steering angle to minimalize the effect of additive bias in the accuracy. The proposed mechanism has been installed in the customized self-driving testbed vehicle and rigor validation has been performed in the straight and curvy road scenarios. Finally, the comparison study has been carried out between the conventional relative sensor and the proposed mechanism to show the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed mechanism in terms of error rate, stability, and deviation.

An Eddy-Current-Based Angle Sensor With a Minimally Modified Shaft as a Sensing Element

“…Sensors based on various non-contact sensing techniques, such as magnetic [2]- [5], MEMS (capacitive) [6], optical [7], and capacitive [8], [9], have been reported for steering angle sensing. In addition, other general-purpose rotary sensors reported in the literature can be incorporated to measure the steering position [10]- [12].…”