Completely OT, but maybe not

[Yostumpy]

It occoured to the other day whilst watching people try and park their cars in Asda, they all were wrestling with the steering wheel, spinningleft then right. BUT WHY do we still use steering wheels!!!!!!!!! surely a robust joy stick, linked to the ps pump via relays, with an indicator on the dash as to xactly where the wheels are pointing, intodays modern age would be a much better solution, especially for plant machinery, fork lifts, even challenge trucks. i wonder wat the repercussions would be if, say LR produced a RR sport with 'fly by wire 'joy stick steering, how would you teach people to drive it,would a current license be ok! Surely it wont be long before this appers on road going vehicles, would free up so much room inside as well. But just thinkaout it, most of us have used joy sticks, and its second nature, video games etc, whilst parking you could spin the wheels left to right in an instant. Has any one here xperimanted! be interesting!

[GBMUD]

It occoured to the other day whilst watching people try and park their cars in Asda, they all were wrestling with the steering wheel, spinningleft then right. BUT WHY do we still use steering wheels!!!!!!!!! surely a robust joy stick, linked to the ps pump via relays, with an indicator on the dash as to xactly where the wheels are pointing, intodays modern age would be a much better solution, especially for plant machinery, fork lifts, even challenge trucks. i wonder wat the repercussions would be if, say LR produced a RR sport with 'fly by wire 'joy stick steering, how would you teach people to drive it,would a current license be ok! Surely it wont be long before this appers on road going vehicles, would free up so much room inside as well. But just thinkaout it, most of us have used joy sticks, and its second nature, video games etc, whilst parking you could spin the wheels left to right in an instant. Has any one here xperimanted! be interesting!

If you believe what you read, there would appear to be question marks over whether such a system would meet the C+U regulations for a passenger car.

Just for fun, type "Hydro steer" into the search box.

Chris

[Rich_P]

I've driven the odd vehicle that's got hydraulic steering rather than mechanical steering that's power assisted. You get absolutely zilch feedback, and so you're reliant entirely on what you can see the wheels doing. (fortunately not a problem in a tractor, but could be in a car!)

[paintman]

Yostumpy, you're joking?

With the mayhem that many create with a big wheel to turn I shudder to think what would happen with a joystick!

[Yostumpy]

Yostumpy, you're joking?

With the mayhem that many create with a big wheel to turn I shudder to think what would happen with a joystick!

Hmm! that was prob the same reaction to the first train or automobile!! now look at us!

[Night Train]

Early cars had a tiller.

Like boat rudders you pushed it left to turn right and right to turn left.

Now a return to that would be more interesting.

[Guest noggy]

how would self centring steering work then?

[Turbocharger]

You'd need very chunky hydraulics to throw the wheels from side to side at that kind of speed too, or else you'd start to develop issues with the lag between the joystick speed and the steering position. Then there's the issue with the lack of feedback, as suggested above. It's surprising how much interaction comes back through the resistance in the steering, hence why it feels weird when you steer on ice or gravel, or particularly if you jack one wheel in the air.

[TD5 power]

hi

i think it is very much possible with some valves combined with some electronics to get a self centering system with feedback, it would make a good project but probably prohibitively expensive.

You could always put a camera in the wheel arch and link it to the lcd dash in the new range rovers to keep an eye on the wheels or just a simple sensor.

As Chris pointed out the construction and use regs won't allow it on most road going vehicles, agricultural and construction get past as they should not exceed 20mph. In Germany the limit is 60kph, the new Fendt 900 tractor's steering has a system to give the operator feedback but i don't know how the system works.

Currently joystick steering is used on some construction and forestry equipment one joystick is used for direction and steering and the other for the machines hydraulics, it allows much more space in the cab things like monitors can be in front of the operator rather than to the side.

Matt

[Yostumpy]

you could prob get over the self centering bit, by having a tapered cam on the shaft preesing against a sprung roler each side, the more it turns, the more pressure on the cam. I wasn,t so much thinking of hydrosteer, but as nighttrain says, more of a joystick /tiller method. But the 'lack of feedback' has been mentioned, well some power steering systems are like this any way, all I suggested was to replace the round wheel with a joystick!, the rest could remain. How do they flyplains then! if theres no feedback! same principle.

[Aragorn]

i think one of the biggest issues is you lose a lot of precision?

You need to turn the steering wheel quite a distance to move the wheel from streight ahead to full lock, by the time you've translated that down into the small arc of a joystick, could you imagine trying to keep it in a streight line on a motorway or watch your gran with her shaky hands try to drive it anywhere? Its much easier to hold a wheel in a specific position to hold a steady state turn, than to have to try to hold a joystick in just the right place?

A lot of plant uses joysticks but it works differently. With a steering wheel, you move it to a position and hold it there to maintain that angle of turn. With a joystick, moving it left controls how quickly the arm/boom/whatever moves, but if you hold it in a position, it continues to move in that direction at the speed dictated by the position of the stick. Ie the centre position is simply "no movement" rather than "back to centre".