Steer-by-wire

SpeedE, an academic concept car developed for studying drive-by-wire technologies[1][2]

Steer-by-wire, in the context of the automotive industry, is a technology or system that allows steering some or all of a vehicle's wheels without a steering column that turns the direction of those wheels mechanically. It is different from electric power steering or power-assist, as those systems still rely on the steering column to transfer some steering torque to the wheels.[3] It is often associated with other drive by wire technologies.

A vehicle with a steer-by-wire system may be manually controlled by a driver through a steering wheel, a yoke, or any other controller which is connected to one or more electronic control units, which uses the input to control steering actuators that turn the wheels side-to-side, steering the vehicle. The steering wheel or yoke may be equipped with haptic feedback to simulate road feel and wheel resistance, and change depending on the vehicle speed or customizable settings.[3][4]

The safety of drive-by-wire systems is often ensured through redundancy, for example through redundant input sensors, redundant vehicle communication networks and power grids, redundant steering actuators per wheel, and fail-operational steering. If steering fails for one or even two wheels, the system can compensate with torque vectoring using the other available wheels.[5]

  1. ^ SpeedE - Forschungsplattform, ika - Institute for Motor Vehicles of RWTH Aachen University, 2016
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Eckstein2016 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b Chris Perkins (March 17, 2023), "How Toyota Is Making the Case for Steer-By-Wire", Road & Track
  4. ^ Jancer, Matt. "Take a Look Inside the First Steer-by-Wire Car". Archived from the original on 2014-03-16. Retrieved 2017-03-06.
  5. ^ Arunkumar Sampath, "Toward functional safety in drive by wire vehicles" (PDF), Mobility Engineering (December 2020)