A Robust and Optimal LQR Controller Design for

Electric Power Steering System

Cristian Chitu, Jochen Lackner, Martin Horn Helmut Waser, Markus Kohlböck
Institute of Smart System-Technologies PROJECT HOUSE – Functional Area Steering
Control and Measurement Systems Group MAGNA Powertrain AG & Co KG
University of Klagenfurt A-8502 Lannach, Austria
A-9020 Klagenfurt, Austria
cochitu@ieee.org
MSW(t)

Abstract— This paper presents a Linear Quadratic Regulator

(LQR) employed to improve performance of an Electric Power φ
SW(t)
Steering (EPS) system. Generally, EPS is a full electric system
having an electric motor which provides the assist torque on the JSW
steering mechanism in order to reduce the workload and to
enhance the steering feel of the driver during steering process.
Three main technical areas are described in this paper. First, the cS dS
principle and structure of EPS are presented including the
dynamic model. Second, LQR technique is employed to derive an JRad
φ
optimal controller for the EPS system. Finally, the combined M J
LS(t)
Mot (t) Mot
tools of Matlab/Simulink and dSPACE provide the environment JLS
for modeling the controller in software and applying it to the m
R
actual hardware via a digital signal processing board based on
the DS1401 MicroAutoBox. Comparison and analysis between csps imotr csps
ilsr x
the simulation results and dSPACE hardware results are R
discussed.
Figure 1. EPS steering model.
Keywords— Electric power steering (EPS), linear quadratic
regulator (LQR), optimal control, robust controller.
system. The authors present a control strategy that eliminates
I. INTRODUCTION
the steering column torque sensor, a critical component in
A steering system is a significant subsystem for a vehicle existing EPS controller designs. Liao and Du [3] combined
operation. Since considerable steering effort is required with Matlab/Simulink and Adams to simulate the behavior of the
the increase of vehicle weight and parking convenience for EPS system on the vehicle motion. Choi et al. [4] associated
maneuvers, a power steering system was introduced to assist SimPowerSystem with Matlab/Simulink to describe the effect
the drivers in turning the steering wheel in such driving of power electronics on the EPS system, meanwhile,
conditions. Most power steering systems are hydraulic, which Kurishige and Kifuku [5] introduced a new EPS control
use a pump to supply hydraulic pressure. system that reduces steering torque during static steering.
Compared to the traditional hydraulic power steering on The major purpose of this research is to develop an EPS
device, the EPS system eliminates the need for a hydraulic controller for an electrical vehicle, to be produced by
pump, hoses, hydraulic fluid, drive belt and pulley on the MAGNA Powertrain (PROJECT HOUSE Department) and
engine, therefore the total system is lighter. EPS has the MAGNA Steyr (Chassis Department), respectively. The
advantages of safety, energy saving, and environmental mechanical model (see Fig. 1) of EPS is based on single-
protection. It has become the mainstream of power steering pinion architecture suitable for light vehicles and consists of
technology for passenger cars because the important role of following elements: a steering rack, a steering column coupled
the enhancement of handling stability and safety. Additional to the steering rack through a pinion gear, and the assist
EPS features like active damping, active return, friction motor. Tie-rods connect the steering rack to the tires.
compensation, and angle finding logic are considered
advantages for the driver. II. EPS MODEL DEVELOPMENT
Many papers on EPS topics have been published so far. The mechanical modules of the EPS system shown in Fig.
Chen and Chen [1] used Newton’s Law to build the dynamic 1 can be divided into a steering column part and an assist
model while Parmar and Hung [2] utilized the Lagrange’s motor part. Parameters description is shown in Table I. The
Equations to construct the dynamic equation of the EPS equation of motion of steering column part is expressed by

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 2
operation_mode
3 u fcn i_d k M_Mot M_LS 1
vehicle_speed M_LS
Gain1
1 Standard and Sport Boost Curve
M_SW x
M_SW
Terminator
State space

State Feedback M_Mot

K* u x_est M_SW

M_LS

Observer
Figure 2. Control block diagram of the EPS system.

TABLE I. PARAMETER DESCRIPTION and the rack movement can be expressed as

Parameter Symbol Units x R (t ) = ϕ LS ( t ) ⋅ ilsr . (4)

Steering wheel (driver) torque M SW (t ) Nm
Motor torque M Mot (t ) Nm
Steering wheel angular position ϕ SW (t ) rad Inserting the formulas (3) and (4) into (2), equation (2) can be
rewritten as follows:
Rack displacement x R (t ) m
ϕ LS (t )
J LS ⋅ ϕLS ( t ) = c S ⋅ [ϕ SW ( t ) − ϕ LS ( t ) ]
Steering column angular position rad
FRack (t ) (5)
+ d S ⋅ [ϕ SW (t ) − ϕ LS ( t ) ] + M Mot ( t ) ⋅ i motr
Rack force N
Steering column torque M LS (t ) Nm
− c sps ⋅ ϕ LS ( t ) ⋅ ilsr
2
− d sps ⋅ ϕ LS ( t ) ⋅ ilsr
2
.
Steering wheel moment of inertia J SW Kg m^2
Steering column torsional cS N m / rad The linear EPS system is of the fourth-order and can be
stiffness expressed in the state space form
Steering column damping dS N m / (rad / s)
Steering column, pinion, motor Kg m^2 ⎧ x ( t ) = A ⋅ x ( t ) + B ⋅ u (t ) (6)
J LS ⎨
moment of inertia ⎩ y ( t ) = C ⋅ x ( t ) + D ⋅ u ( t ),
Motor gear ratio imotr
where state assignment of the derived model is
Pinion radius ilsr m
x ( t ) = [ϕ LS ( t ) ϕ SW ( t ) ϕ LS ( t ) ϕ SW ( t ) ] .
T
The
Tire or rack centering spring rate c sps N/m
motor torque and the applied driver torque are considered as
d sps
Rack damping N / ( m / s) the inputs to the system, u ( t ) = [M Mot ( t ) M SW ( t ) ]T .
Output of the multi-input system is considered to be the
column torque, y ( t ) = M LS ( t ) , measured by a high
J SW ⋅ ϕSW (t ) = M SW (t ) − c S ⋅ [ϕ SW ( t ) − ϕ LS ( t ) ] (1) resolution torque sensor. The system matrices A, B , C and
− d S ⋅ [ϕ SW ( t ) − ϕ LS ( t ) ] D are given as

and for the assist motor the equation is

⎡ 0 0 1 0 ⎤
J LS ⋅ ϕLS ( t ) = c S ⋅ [ϕ SW (t ) − ϕ LS ( t ) ] (2)
⎢ 0 0 0 1 ⎥
⎢ ⎥
+ d S ⋅ [ϕ SW ( t ) − ϕ LS ( t ) ] + M Mot (t ) ⋅ i motr + F Rack ( t ) ⋅ i lsr .
2 2
− cS − c sps ⋅ i lsr cS − d S − d sps ⋅ i lsr dS
A=⎢ ⎥,
⎢ J LS J LS J LS J LS ⎥
The equation of tire loads is ⎢ cS c dS d ⎥
⎢ − S − S ⎥
⎢⎣ J SW J SW J SW J SW ⎥⎦
FRack ( t ) = − c sps ⋅ x R (t ) − d sps ⋅ x R ( t ) (3)

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 Standard Mode Sport Mode
80 80

70 0 Km/h 70 0 Km/h
40 Km/h 40 Km/h
over 240 Km/h over 240 Km/h
60 60
Assist motor current [A]

Assist motor current [A]

50 50

40 40

30 30

20 20

10 10

0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Steering torque [Nm] Steering torque [Nm]

Figure 3. Standard boost-curves. Figure 4. Sport boost-curves.

⎡ 0 0 ⎤ drive conditions: standard and sport. Totally, there are twenty-

⎢ 0 0 ⎥⎥ six curves per standard or sport drive mode at different vehicle
⎢i speeds selected by the signal vehicle_speed, as illustrated in
B=⎢ 0 ⎥,
motr
(7 ) Fig. 2. The signal called operation_mode activates the
⎢ J LS ⎥
⎢ 1 ⎥ standard or the sport driving mode. Finally, the determined
⎢ 0 ⎥ motor current is multiplied by the motor constant k
⎣ J SW ⎦
generating the motor assist torque.
The output and the two inputs of the EPS system (see Fig.
2) are fed into an observer to generate xˆ (t ) , an estimate of
C = [− c S cS 0 0],
the system state. A Luenberger observer is designed and the
state equation becomes
D = [0 0 ].
xˆ ( t ) = A ⋅ xˆ ( t ) + B ⋅ u ( t ) + L ⋅ ( y ( t ) − yˆ (t )), (8)

III. LQR CONTROLLER DESIGN where L is the estimator gain matrix and yˆ ( t ) is the estimated
The state-space approach is employed to obtain a suitable output. The equations of the closed-loop EPS system
controller for the single-pinion EPS system. It can be shown, including the observer can be summarized as follows:
that for the state-space model described in (7), the pair
( A, B ) is controllable and the pair ( A , C ) is observable. Thus, ⎧ x ( t ) = A ⋅ x (t ) + B1 ⋅ M Mot ( t ) + B 2 ⋅ M SW ( t )
Plant : ⎨ (9)
a state feedback control system with observer is proposed.
⎩ y (t ) = C ⋅ x ( t )
Closed-loop pole locations are computed using an LQR
because this approach [6] leads to good gain and phase
margins.
The structure of the proposed controller is shown in Fig. 2. ⎧ xˆ ( t ) = ( A − L ⋅ C ) ⋅ xˆ ( t ) + L ⋅ C ⋅ x ( t )
⎪ (10)
The EPS system is modeled by the fourth-order linear two- Observer : ⎨ + B1 ⋅ M Mot ( t ) + B 2 ⋅ M SW ( t )
input u (t ) and single-output y (t ) model, developed in Section ⎪ e ( t ) = x (t ) − xˆ ( t )
⎩
II. Within the block named Standard and Sport Boost Curve,
are so called practical boost-curves needed to produce the
assistance motor current to be applied to the steering motor in Control : M Mot (t ) = − K ⋅ xˆ ( t ) (11)
order to improve the driver’s feel. In our case, for instance, the
boost-curves shown in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, respectively, define
where e ( t ) is the estimation error and B1 , B 2 are the first and
the relationship between the driver steering torque M SW (t )
the second column of B = [B1 B 2 ] . An equivalent closed-
and the assist motor current at three vehicle speeds and in both

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 Bode Diagram
0

-10
Magnitude (dB)

Steering column torque MLS [Nm]

-20 Closed-loop MLS
-30 0.8 Open-loop MLS

-40
0.6
-50
0
Closed-loop MLS
-45
Phase (deg)

Open-loop MLS 0.4

-90
0.2
-135

-180 0
0 1 2
10 10 10 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Frequency (Hz) Time [s]

Figure 5. Frequency characteristic curve of EPS system. Figure 6. Step response of EPS system to driver torque.

loop EPS system can be derived from (9), (10), (11) and re-
written as ∞
J = ∫ ( x T ( t ) ⋅ Q ⋅ x ( t ) + R ⋅ M Mot
2
( t )) dt , (15)
0
⎧ ⎡ x (t ) ⎤ ⎡ A − B 1 ⋅ K B1 ⋅ K ⎤ ⎡ x (t ) ⎤
⎪⎢
e ( t ) ⎥=⎢ 0 A
⋅
− L ⋅ C ⎥⎦ ⎢⎣ e (t ) ⎥⎦ where Q and R are the state and control weighting matrices.
⎪⎣ ⎦ ⎣
⎪⎪ ⎡B ⎤ (12) In addition to the state-feedback gain
⎨ + ⎢ 2 ⎥ ⋅ M SW (t )
⎪ ⎣0 ⎦
⎪ K = R − 1 ⋅ B1 ⋅ S
T
(16)
⎡ x (t ) ⎤
⎪ y ( t ) = [C 0 ] ⋅ ⎢ ⎥.
⎪⎩ ⎣ e (t ) ⎦ the solution S of the associated Riccati equation
The selection of the LQR weighting matrices Q and R is
A T ⋅ S + S ⋅ A − P ⋅ B1 ⋅ R − 1 ⋅ B T ⋅ S + Q = 0 (17)
considered as follows. One should select Q to be positive
semi-definite and R to be positive definite. A reasonable and the closed-loop eigenvalues E = eig ( A − B1 ⋅ K ) are
choice for the Q matrix is found to be
returned The controller poles are defined as
p = eig ( A − B1 ⋅ K ) and the observer poles P are considered
⎡ a1 0 0 0⎤ to be five times faster P = 5 ⋅ p .
⎢0 a2 0 0 ⎥⎥ (13)
Q=⎢ IV. SYSTEM SIMULATION AND DSPACE IMPLEMENTATION
⎢0 0 a3 0⎥
⎢ ⎥ The resulting control system is simulated in Matlab and the
⎣0 0 0 a4 ⎦
characteristics of the closed-loop system are compared with
the open-loop system. Fig. 5 displays the frequency response
using an appropriate selection of a1 , a 2 , a 3 and a 4 . The
of the EPS system in terms of Bode diagrams proving the
R matrix is chosen as stability in closed-loop. The response of the open-loop and the
closed-loop system to a input step at the driver torque
R = b ⋅ I, (14) M SW ( t ) are shown in Fig. 6. It is observed, that the settling
time of the closed-loop system is considerably lower than the
where I is the identity matrix and b is a weight on the input. open-loop system. Additionally, in order to prove the stability
Within LQR procedure, the optimal gain control matrix K and robustness of the LQR controller, closed-loop step
is calculated such that the state feedback law responses to driver torque have been plotted in Fig. 7 when all
M Mot ( t ) = − K ⋅ x ( t ) minimizes the quadratic cost function model parameters J SW , J LS , c S , d S , c sps , d sps varied with

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 Parameters Variation +20%, -20%

1
Steering column torque MLS [Nm]

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Time [s]

Figure 7. Closed-loop step responses to driver torque at parameters Figure 8. ControlDesk layout of EPS Simulink model.
variation.

+20% and -20%.
Combining Matlab/Simulink, which is used for designing,
analyzing and simulating block diagrams models with specific
block libraries provided by dSPACE for I/O hardware support,
results in a real-time functioning control environment. This is
then controlled and monitored interactively through dSPACE
ControlDesk. This is a comprehensive virtual instrument-
oriented experiment environment, that allows one to build the
system implementation and interface for the DS1401 dSPACE
MicroAutoBox. The combination of the tools: Matlab,
Simulink and ControlDesk forms a very powerful
environment for testing and developing real-time control
systems.
Fig. 8 presents the ControlDesk layout of the EPS system.
The Radio Button and the Data Acquisition Plotter are used to
set the input defined step constant and view the output signals
representing the open-loop and closed-loop real-time step
responses. The way to use ControlDesk to construct a step
response is to add a constant block at Simulink block instead
of standard Simulink step block. This constant value block is
adjusted by ControlDesk to provide the step input at the
required time. A step input is achieved by using an On/Off
button (On is set to 1 and Off value is 0), which can be
obtained as one of the options in the Radio Button Instrument,
to control the constant block. During functionality, the
constant value is set from Off to On triggering the Data
Capture and producing the step response. It can be seen that
the simulation results in Fig. 6 agreed each other with the real-
time results shown in Fig. 8.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the authors presented the dynamical equations
of motion for a simplified single-pinion EPS system and a
state-space formulation is derived for the model. An optimal
controller using LQR is designed for the system model along
with the implementation of the boost-curves which provide an
improved driver steering feel. Notable advances offered
by the proposed controller are stability in frequency,
robustness and closed-loop stable step responses during
parameters variation. Both Matlab/Simulink simulations and
dSPACE ControlDesk real-time results are compared and
analyzed showing a very good matching.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is founded by the PROJECT HOUSE –
Functional Area Steering, MAGNA Powertrain AG & Co KG,
A-8502 Lannach, Austria.
REFERENCES
[1] X. Chen, and X. Chen, “Control-Oriented Model for Power Steering
System,” SAE Technical Paper Series, 2006-01-0938.
[2] M. Parmar, and J. Y. Hung, “A Sensorless Optimal Control System for
an Automotive Electric Power Assist Steering System,” IEEE Trans.
Ind. Electronics, vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 290-298, Apr. 2004.
[3] Y. G. Liao, and H. I. Du, “Modeling and Analysis of Electric Power
Steering System and its Effect on Vehicle Dynamic Behavior,” Int J. of
Vehicle Autonomous Systems, vol. 1, no. 2, 2003.
[4] C. Choi, W. Lee, J. Hong, S. Kim, J. Kim, J. Song, and J. Oh, “Multi-
domain Modeling of Electric Power Steering with PMSM Drive
System,” Electric Machines and Drives Conference, vol. 2, no. 2, pp.
1355-1360, May 2007.
[5] M. Kurishige, and T. Kifuku, “Static Steering-Control System for
Electric Power Steering,” Technical Report, Mitsubishi Electric
Advance.
[6] W. S. Levine, “The Control Handbook,” pp. 635-650, 1999.

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