Large Steer Angle System for MacPherson Front Axles

Authors

Dr.-Ing. Christian Förster, fka Forschungsgesellschaft Kraftfahrwesen mbH Aachen, Aachen;
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Lutz Eckstein, Institute for Automotive Engineering (ika), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen

Summary

In 2015, the authors presented a novel steering lever system enabling large steer angles with minimal technical effort. Thanks to that design, the ZF Advanced Urban Vehicle reaches an inner wheel steer angle of 75°, thus receiving high praise from the engineering community as well as the press. While the system itself only requires minimal technical effort, it was implemented using a double wishbone suspension, which made it comparatively expensive, especially for smaller vehicles.

Using a novel design method introduced in, we present an exemplary implementation based on a conventional MacPherson front suspension. In addition to introducing this method, the paper provides details on package requirements and outlines the most significant design conflicts to be addressed during the development process.

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