Nsk Corporation

Yukie Fujiwara

Takayoshi Sugawara

Hideki Sawada

Ryo Minaki

An electric power steering apparatus that drives and controls a motor which applies an assist torque to a steering system of a vehicle and has a function switching between an assist mode and an automatic mode, including a torsion bar torsional angle calculating section to calculate a torsion bar torsional angle based on a torque information, an output-side column shaft relative angle generating section to output an output-side relative angle from an electrical angle signal of the motor, an actual handle angle calculating section to calculate an actual handle angle based on the torsion bar torsional angle and the output-side relative angle, a resonance filter to obtain an estimated handle angle in a hands-off state from the output-side relative angle, and a hands-on/off judging section to judge a hands-on state when a time that a deviation angle between the actual handle angle and the estimated handle angle is equal to or more than a predetermined angle is continued for the predetermined time or more.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Yukie Fujiwara