Automatic Steering Using Ultracapacitor

Abstract

In today’s scenario, parking a vehicle is big challenge due to space availability, lack of driver attention, etc. In developed countries such as North America and Europe, several car manufacturers such as Ford, Audi, BMW, and GM are in market introduction of auto parking cars. In emerging market such as Indian subcontinent, still this feature is not introduced due to traffic congestion and affordability by buyers. This proposal is to develop a retro fit auto parking assist which can be a module and fitted in any vehicle manufacturer. Once the driver enables auto parking mode, the steering wheel rotates automatically based on the parking trajectory required. The speed, angle and direction of rotation of steering column will be sensed by Hall effect-based multi turn steering position sensor which will be powered by ultracapacitor to provide power back up for recording the turn when main power goes off. Based on the sensor information, the controller based on Labview/PLC will take effective action on the motor drive which in turn controls the speed, angle, and direction of motor. The real-time location of the car can be viewed in GUI developed in PC/tablet. Indian road conditions such as pedestrian crossing and neighboring vehicles can be simulated and based on that the parking trajectory will vary. The parking trajectory can be parallel parking, perpendicular parking, reverse parking, etc. The acceleration and speed location of the vehicle can also be simulated and shown in tablet/PC GUI. Later this project can be extended with wheels, transmission, and chassis to show entire car in auto parking mode. In this paper, a Simulink model of the concept is also described. This concept is filed for a patent in India patent office.