Patent ID: 7523806

Claim:
A method for generating an active damping torque signal for a vehicle steering system, the method comprising: receiving a vehicle speed input; receiving a handwheel velocity input; receiving a handwheel torque input; and generating an active damping torque output from each of said inputs, wherein said active damping torque output is non-linear with respect to said handwheel velocity input, and wherein said generating an active damping torque output further comprises: generating a vehicle speed dependent damping value from said vehicle speed input; generating a scaled handwheel velocity value using said handwheel velocity input and a nonlinear handwheel velocity dependent scale factor; multiplying said vehicle speed dependent damping value with said scaled handwheel velocity value to produce an intermediate damping torque signal; generating a handwheel dependent scaling factor from said handwheel torque input; and multiplying said intermediate damping torque signal with said handwheel dependent scaling factor to result in said active damping torque output.