Danfoss Power Solutions Aps

Sauer Danfoss Aps

Preben Albrecht

John Kristensen

Kjeld Buus Jensen

Steve Crow

The invention provides a method and a system for moving an element, e.g. a rudder of a ship or a wheel of a vehicle. The element is moved by a hydraulic fluid. According to the invention, an operator indicates a desired movement, and in accordance with the desired movement, at fluid is provided from at least three fluid providers each providing a share of the fluid in parallel streams and only considering the desired movement not the shares provided by the other fluid providers. The invention allows continuation of a steering task even if one fluid provider is disabled, and the invention allows the continuation even without having to notice that one provider is disabled. Accordingly, the invention provides an improvement and simplification relative to the known hydraulic steering systems.

Actuator control system

The invention provides a steering system for a vehicle, a ship etc. The steering system has a steering handle for the operator of the vehicle, a set of signal processors, a sensor which determines a position of the steered element of the vehicle, and a controller which moves the steered element. The steered element could e.g. be the front wheels of a car. The signal processors are adapted to determine an error between the desired position of the steered element and an actual position of the steered element. In order to make the steering system more fault tolerant, the error signal is amplified based on the speed by which the steering handle is moved, and an error in the sensor therefore becomes less critical. The invention further provides a steering method, a steering control unit and a vehicle provided with a steering system of the mentioned kind.

Growing community of inventors

Soenderborg, Denmark

Preben Albrecht