Steering Angle Sensor
- Frank Yan
The steering angle sensor is responsible for determining the position angle of the steering wheel and the rate of change of the steering wheel turns.
This can be particularly useful for determining the car’s level of control. For example if the car is travelling at a fast speed with minimal turns then that means the car is most likely operating normally. However, if the steering angle is changing at a fast rate and the car is moving at a high speed then that can indicate the car is out of control. The importance of this sensor being accurate is crucial as this determines how safe and accurate the car can turn.
Since the pedal board uses analog measurements, an analog steering angle sensor uses voltage differences to determine the angle of the steering wheel. The sensor will toggle between 0 V and some other voltage, usually 5 V to measure the steering wheel’s angle.(when wheel is at 0 degrees the voltage is 0 and when wheel is at the max voltage then wheel is at 360 degrees). In most cases a positive voltage will mean a right turn is performed and a negative voltage will indicate a left turn.
The implementation we will most likely be using is attaching a potentiometer to the sensor. There are different types of potentiometers we can use:
Rotary potentiometers
Linear potentiometers
Magnetic rotary potentiometers
Whatever the configuration is, the easiest way would be attaching the sensor behind our wheel (attached to the steering column) and changing the measured voltage depending on the angle.
Sources:
Mounting:
https://www.css-club.net/isuzu_d7dl/HTML_Manual_E/TFHTML-WEN-1331_HTML/si/84393.html
https://www.autoblog.com/2016/10/21/how-to-replace-a-steering-angle-sensor/
https://www.vierol-shop.de/en/blog/installation-instruction-for-steering-angle-sensor
General:
https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:891479/FULLTEXT01.pdf