Controller design for electric power steering system using T-S fuzzy model approach

Pressure ripples in electric power steering (EPS) systems can be caused by the phase lag between the driver's steering torque and steer angle, the nonlinear frictions, and the disturbances from road and sensor noise especially during high-frequency maneuvers. This paper investigates the use of the robust fuzzy control method for actively reducing pressure ripples for EPS systems. Remarkable progress on steering maneuverability is achieved. The EPS dynamics is described with an eight-order nonlinear state-space model and approximated by a Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model with time-varying delays and external disturbances. A stabilization approach is then presented for nonlinear time-delay systems through fuzzy state feedback controller in parallel distributed compensation (PDC) structure. The closed-loop stability conditions of EPS system with the fuzzy controller are parameterized in terms of the linear matrix inequality (LMI) problem. Simulations and experiments using the proposed robust fuzzy controller and traditional PID controller have been carried out for EPS systems. Both the simulation and experiment results show that the proposed fuzzy controller can reduce the torque ripples and allow us to have a good steering feeling and stable driving. © 2009 Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Springer-Verlag GmbH.