Lateral power controller for unmanned vehicles

This paper deals with autonomous vehicles. This could be considered a Utopian goal nowadays but recent advances bring it closer than ever. Automation of the actuators involved in the management of a car, and control of the steering wheel constitute two of the most complex issues involved. We here describe an automatic power steering architecture to manage the steering wheel via an Ethernet controller. An on-board PC is connected to the controller to permit handling by computer generated signals. An electric car has been equipped with the system, and we present the results of tests of the behaviour of the system in real situations on the private driving circuit at the IAI facilities.