"The next generation of vehicles will no longer have mechanical steering"
- PDF / 501,660 Bytes
- 4 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 69 Downloads / 148 Views
C OVER STORY Intervie w
“The next generation of vehicles will no longer have mechanical steering” X-by-wire is replacing the mechanical transmission of steering and commands to accelerate and brake with electronic signals. This results in a series of advantages such as weight reduction, improved driving dynamics and the simpler integration of steering functions in assistant systems up to automated driving. According to CEO Roland Arnold in the interview with ATZelectronics, Schaeffler Paravan Technologie’s Space Drive is the first road-legal drive-by-wire system.
ATZelectronics _ Roland Arnold,
Space Drive is a drive-by-wire system. How did its development start? ARNOLD _ Its
origins began with a random encounter: In 1997, I was at a service station trying to help a woman lift her husband out of his wheelchair and into her car in the rain. It was a disaster and the man fell to the ground. There was simply no easy way to maneuver him and his
14
wheelchair into the vehicle. My immediate thought was that there must be another way and since then we tailor vehicles to be suitable for people with disabilities. We began with a focus on the transport of people with disabilities in the vehicle’s cabin, for example next to the driver, and not as an item of “luggage” in the trunk. The next step was to answer the question how, in practical terms and
not just hypothetically, could the person not merely enter the vehicle but also steer it. As an inventor, that spurred me on and led to the next step. Before the alliance with Schaeffler, Paravan was seen as a small company from the Swabian mountains. How did you manage the development of functions such as drive-by-wire?
cles on the road or under extreme conditions on the race track, without the use of a mechanical connection between the steering unit and the steering box. This is the future! The system will be com-
Why was this important and what are the consequences regarding mechanical systems?
The mechanical solution simply does not offer the necessary functionality to enable a person with disabilities to drive. This is only possible if the input devices are adapted to the individual situation. To do this, the transmission of steering and even pedal movements often needs to be solved differently. The next logical step when considering our conversions was to no longer “translate” the entire communication mechanically, but to use cables carrying digital signals. We then partnered with companies such as the TÜV (German vehicle inspection and certification body) and electronics companies to develop our own control unit solution (ECU), which we then spent several years validating and launched with the name Space Drive in 2005. Our use cases motivated us to develop an x-by-wire operation in order to replace the entire mechanical system with a cable. It is not important what is located at the end of the cable. It could be a classic steering wheel, as we use in our adaptations in the GTC racing series, or simply a joystick or miniature steering wheel appropriate for the di
Data Loading...
