Abstract: The invention provides a motor for a brushless DC motor, which has small torque ripple even if a trapezoidal wave current is supplied and has a small size and reduced motor noise. Respective phase current command values are calculated on the basis of vector control. Pseudo-vector control for controlling respective phases separately is used as current feedback control.

Abstract: This invention provides a control method for a motor that calculates a voltage command value based on a difference between a current command value and a current detected value and controls a PWM based on the voltage command value. The control method includes steps of: detecting a failure or an undetectable state of a current detecting system; obtaining a current estimated value of a failure phase or an undetectable state phase by using the current detected value except the failure phase or the undetectable state phase when the failure or the undetectable state is detected; and continuously controlling the motor by using the current estimated value.

Abstract: There is provided an electric power steering apparatus having an electric motor 12 for generating a steering assist torque to a steering mechanism and a motor control part 24 for controlling the electric motor 12 by a pulse-width modulating signal in accordance with a current command value corresponding to a steering torque. The motor control part 24 has a motor torque detection part 67 detecting a motor torque, a motor torque change rate detection part 68 calculating a motor torque change rate, and a duty ratio limiting part 64 fixing a duty ratio of the pulse-width modulating signal to a predetermined value for limiting a torque transmitted to a torque transmitting member disposed between a steering shaft of a steering mechanism and a steering road wheel when a calculated torque change rate is not less than a threshold value for judging a steering limit position.

Abstract: In a control apparatus of an electric power steering apparatus constructed so as to calculate a current command value of a motor for applying steering assist force to a steering mechanism based on steering torque and a vehicle speed and drive and control the motor based on the current command value, there are provided an SAT detection part for detecting or estimating an SAT detection value, a standard SAT calculation part for calculating a standard SAT value based on a steering angle and the vehicle speed, and a correction part for calculating a correction amount based on the SAT detection value and the standard SAT value and correcting the current command value.

Abstract: An electrically driven power steering apparatus is structured such that a large impact on a rack shaft occurs upon an impingement of a steering stopper, and, even when an axial force acting on a ball bearing of a presser member becomes zero, a rotation of the presser member is hindered by caulking c at a thin plate member. Therefore, the presser member does not slacken, and a predetermined axial force can be given again to the ball bearing when the impact dissipates. The thus structured power steering apparatus exhibiting, though the cost is low, an excellent shockproof characteristic and capable of preventing the bearing from coming off a ball screw nut, can be provided.

Abstract: To provide an electric power steering device that can reliably detect the abnormality of a steering angle sensor and prevent the generation of a wrong decision. When both the two differences (|?a??r |, |?a??e|) between an absolute steering angle value ?a obtained from a steering angle sensor and a relative steering angle value ?r estimated from the rotating angle sensor of a motor, and an estimated steering angle value ee estimated from the induced voltage of the motor respectively exceed predetermined values (threshold values), the steering angle sensor is determined to be failed.

Abstract: It is an object of the present invention to provide a control unit for an electric power steering apparatus for accurately detecting an abnormality of a steering angle sensor without forming the steering angle sensor as a double system or using an expensive position detection sensor. The object is achieved by calculating a relative steering angle by using inexpensive position detection sensors disposed at a motor of the electric power steering apparatus to output binary values and comparing a change amount of an absolute steering angle detected by the steering angle sensor and a change amount of the calculated relative steering angle with each other to thereby detect the abnormality of the steering angle sensor.

Abstract: The present invention provides an excellent electric power steering apparatus in which torque ripple caused by a quantization error of a current control system generated in case of slow steering state and steering holding state, namely, vibration and noise on a steering wheel can be suppressed. A current controller in which a steady state gain of feedback control is a finite value is used so as to be capable of suppressing the vibration and noise. Further, according to the present invention, a smoothing filter is included in a current control system so that the quantization error is smoothed so that the torque ripple is suppressed.

Abstract: A control device for electric power steering apparatus, in which when torque ripples at the time of the rotation of a motor is reduced by simple arithmetic, smooth and safe assist limitation is performed without deteriorating steering feeling, is provided. For this reason, in the control device for electric power steering apparatus adopting a vector control system for applying an assist force of a motor to a steering system, a phase delay according to an angular velocity is obtained, a corrected electric angle is calculated by adding the phase delay to an electric angle, and generation of a current command value in the vector control is compensated based on the corrected electric angle.

Abstract: The present invention provides an electric power steering apparatus for controlling a motor based on a current command value calculated from a steering assist command value calculated based on a steering torque generated in a steering shaft and from a current detection value of the motor which gives a steering mechanism a steering assist force. In order to realize ideal road information sensitivity and steering feeling in frequency region at the same time, the electric power steering apparatus comprises a torque filter for processing a torque signal, an SAT estimating function, and an SAT filter for signal-processing SAT information from the SAT estimating function, and the electric power steering apparatus also comprises a control system with two degree of freedom which is capable of independently designing frequency characteristics of steering feeling and road information sensitivity.

Abstract: An electrically driven power steering apparatus is structured such that a large impact on a rack shaft occurs upon an impingement of a steering stopper, and, even when an axial force acting on a ball bearing of a presser member becomes zero, a rotation of the presser member is hindered by caulking c at a thin plate member. Therefore, the presser member does not slacken, and a predetermined axial force can be given again to the ball bearing when the impact dissipates. The thus structured power steering apparatus exhibiting, though the cost is low, an excellent shockproof characteristic and capable of preventing the bearing from coming off a ball screw nut, can be provided.

Abstract: In a differential operation or a phase lead operation in a control unit for an electric power steering apparatus, by using the differential operation or the phase lead operation utilizing a decimation, noises are exclusively eliminated from information such as the road information detected by a sensor or the like, so that no vibration due to the noises can be caused in a motor output thereby to provide the electric power steering apparatus having neither any handle noise nor any vibration uncomfortable to the driver.

Abstract: In order to solve a problem that a motor generates a noise so as to deteriorate an environment in a vehicle if a field weakening control is executed to the motor of a electric power steering apparatus, in the case that a vehicle speed is high, the same field weakening control as the conventional one is applied to the motor because a noise generated due to a friction between a tire and a road surface and a wind noise of a vehicle body are large, and in the case that the vehicle speed is low, the field weakening control is weakly applied in comparison with the conventional one because the noise generated by the motor is felt relatively largely. Accordingly, the field weakening control can be executed in response to the vehicle speed in such a manner as to make the motor noise smaller.

Abstract: There is provided a controller for an electric power steering apparatus having a motor which applies a steering assist force to a steering mechanism. The controller includes a torque command value calculating portion which calculates a torque command value based on steering torque generated in a steering shaft, and a vehicle speed and a current command value calculating portion which calculates a current command value for the motor based on the torque command value. The controller controls the motor based on the current command value. In the apparatus, the controller has a cogging torque compensation value calculating portion which calculates a cogging torque compensation value for the motor, and corrects the current command value based on the cogging torque compensation value.

Abstract: The invention relates to a control apparatus of an electric power steering apparatus structured such as to apply a steering assist force generated by a n-phase motor to a steering system of a vehicle, the control apparatus is provided with at least (n?1) numbers of current detecting means for detecting a current Im in each of phases of the motor, a current command value calculating means for outputting a current command value Imref in each of the phases, and n numbers of current control means, and the control apparatus executes a current control of each of the phases by the current control means having the current command value Imref in each of the phases and the current Im in each of the phases as an input.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a motor-driven power steering apparatus structured such as to apply a steering assist force generated by a motor to a steering system of a motor vehicle or a vehicle in accordance with a rotation force of an electric motor on the basis of a steering torque detected by a torque sensor. Further, the invention relates to a rotation angle sensor for detecting a rotation angle of a steering shaft, a detected portion of the rotation angle sensor is provided within the speed reduction gear, and a detecting portion of the rotation angle sensor is provided in a radial direction of the steering shaft and in an outer side of a bearing in the speed reduction gear.

Abstract: In an electric power steering apparatus that urges a steering shaft or a rack shaft with an assist load using the drive force of a motor by a transmission mechanism via reduction gears, the reduction gears includes a rotation angle sensor assembled integrally therewith.

Abstract: In a motor driving device where a motor having a winding wire with small inductance value is driven by a digital control means comprised of control means including a current command value calculating means, a current control means and a PWM control means whose sampling periods are different from each other, when discrete signals sampled by the respective control means are zero-order-held, a motor current includes a lot of higher harmonic waves due to a quantization error, thereby increasing a motor noise. When an n-th-order hold means is provided between the respective control means with different sampling periods, the quantization error can be reduced remarkably, and thus the higher harmonic wave components included in the motor current are reduced, thereby greatly reducing the motor noise.

Abstract: A steering angle sensor detects a rotational angle of a steering system whose steering is assisted by driving of an electric motor via a reduction mechanism so as to calculate a steering angle of a steering wheel. The steering angle sensor has: a sensor wheel operating simultaneously with rotation of a steering shaft; and an absolute angle calculating means for calculating an absolute steering angle based on a steering angle signal from the sensor wheel. The sensor wheel has a GMR element and a magnetizing portion which is arranged around the GMR element, and the rotational angle is detected with two turns of the steering shaft being one cycle based on a change in resistance value of the GMR element obtained by changing a magnetic field direction according to rotation of the magnetizing portion.

Abstract: The present invention provides a motor drive apparatus capable of calculating an angular velocity and a rotation angle accurately in the entire rotation velocity range of a motor using a cheap Hall sensor having an inferior accuracy without using an expensive resolver having a high accuracy. The present invention includes a first angular velocity calculating means for calculating the angular velocity based on the back-EMF of the motor when it rotates at low speeds and a second angular velocity calculating means for calculating the angular velocity based on a signal from the Hall sensor when it rotates at high speeds. According to the present invention, the angular velocity and rotation angle can be calculated accurately in the entire rotation speed range using the Hall sensor under hybrid usage.