At JTEKT Corporation (Head Office: Kariya City, Aichi Prefecture, President: Kazuo Sato, hereafter referred to as "JTEKT"), a research paper "Haptics based multi-level collaborative steering control for automated driving" by Tomohiro Nakade et al. belonging to the Research and Development Headquarter has been published in the international journal "Communications Engineering". This paper, written jointly with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, introduces a collaborative control technology for electric power steering (EPS), an area in which JTEKT has strengths. The results of this research will be used in the automated steering control system "Pairdriver™", which JTEKT developed and announced last October. This is the first time that a JTEKT employee's paper has been published in a journal of Nature Portfolio.

Communications Engineering

Communications Engineering is an open access journal from the British scientific journal Nature publishing high-quality research, reviews, and momentary. The journal is open to research in all engineering disciplines and the research papers published by the journal represent significant advances for a specialized area of research.

Paper abstract and application to Pairdriver^TM

Since February 2019, JTEKT, in collaboration with a group led by Professor Jürg Schiffmann and Professor. Hannes Bleuler at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), has conducted a series of studies on collaborative steering control technology between driver and automated driving system. Ideally, robots should be able to adapt to humans in order to reduce human effort and provide smooth support during a join task. The aim of this research was to apply such adaptive control knowledge available in robotics to the control of EPS. In this paper, a control framework that can reflect the driver steering intention to the movement of the automated driving vehicle was constructed, and furthermore, the possibility of achieving smooth collaborative steering with less effort was demonstrated with an actual test vehicle and through evaluations of five drivers. This research sets the foundation of Pairdriver™, a steering control that harmonizes the automated driving system with the driver resulting in more intuitive and safe operation of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving. JTEKT will continue to further contribute to road safety, reliability, and added value in steering products for the next generation of automated driving.

Corresponding journal: Communications Engineering (Online version: 23^rd, January)
Paper title: Haptics based multi-level collaborative steering control for automated driving
Author: Tomohiro Nakade (EPFL, JTEKT), Robert Fuchs (JTEKT), Hannes Bleuler (EPFL), and Jürg Schiffmann (EPFL)
DOI: 10.1038/s44172-022-00051-2

Related links:
Communications Engineering: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44172-022-00051-2
Pairdriver^TM: https://www.jtekt.co.jp/e/news/2022/000476.html

Main Author Biography

Tomohiro Nakade

Born in Sakurai City, Nara, Japan in 1990, he joined JTEKT Corporation in 2015. After conducting research on steering control technology for automated driving in the Systems Innovation R&D Department, he entered the doctoral program of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology by using JTEKT university dispatch program in 2019. He is engaged in a joint research on collaborative control technology between driver and automated driving system with the Laboratory of Applied Mechanical Design (LAMD).

Targets of SDGs that can contribute through this research

3.6　By 2030, halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents
11.2 By 2030, provide access to safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport, with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women, children, persons with disabilities, and older persons

Prospect

JTEKT will continue to actively invest in human resource development and develop proprietary technologies with the aim of creating the No.1 and only one products that contribute to the earth, the world, and our customers.

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