Study on a Fully Electrified Steering System and Its Control Strategies for Heavy-Duty Wheeled Platforms

To address the limitations of the centralized hydraulic steering system used in the first-generation heavy-duty wheeled platform developed by our team, this study proposes a fully electrified steering system based on a compact direct-drive electro-mechanical actuator (DEMA) architecture. Compared with the original hydraulic system, the proposed solution reduces the steering-system weight from approximately 150 kg to 32 kg in the single-channel configuration and 40 kg in the dual-channel configuration, while significantly improving system integration and maintainability. For the single-channel DEMA steering system, a composite control strategy combining three-loop PID control with feedforward compensation is developed to improve dynamic response and position-tracking accuracy. AMESim simulation results under a steering resistance torque of 6000 ± 500 Nm show that the system achieves an overshoot below 2%, a steady-state error below 0.1°, and a tracking error below 0.4°. To reduce motor power and thermal-management requirements, a dual-channel DEMA steering architecture is further proposed. Considering inter-channel parameter differences, a primary–secondary synchronization control strategy is developed to suppress force-fighting behavior and improve motion consistency. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed strategy effectively reduces synchronization errors and maintains highly consistent force output between channels while preserving excellent steering accuracy and tracking performance. The proposed fully electrified steering system and synchronization control strategy provide an effective solution for improving the dynamic performance, lightweight design, and reliability of heavy-duty wheeled platforms.