The Ackermann steering geometry is a geometric arrangement of linkages in the steering of a car or other vehicle designed to solve the problem of wheels on the inside and outside of a turn needing to trace out circles of different radii.
It was invented by the German carriage builder Georg Lankensperger in Munich in 1816, then patented by his agent in England, Rudolph Ackermann (1764–1834) in 1818 for horse-drawn carriages. Erasmus Darwin may have a prior claim as the inventor dating from 1758.[1] He devised his steering system because he was injured when a carriage tipped over.
- ^ Erasmus Darwin's Improved Design for Steering Carriages by Desmond King-Hele, 2002, The Royal Society, London. Accessed April 2008.