Patent ID: 8224528

Claim:
A vehicle steering apparatus in which a mechanical coupling between a steering member and steered wheels is uncoupled, the apparatus comprising: a steering actuator for driving a steered mechanism; and a control unit for drive-controlling the steering actuator, wherein the control unit includes steering-stiffness reducing means for reducing steering-stiffness, wherein the steering-stiffness reducing means includes a lowpass filter configured to filter a steered angle of the steered wheels detected by a steered angle sensor, and the control unit drive-controls the steering actuator according to a deviation between a target steered angle and the detected steered-angle that is filtered by the lowpass filter, and wherein the control unit includes a proportional integral differential control portion for drive-controlling the steering actuator according to a deviation between the target steered angle and the steered angle which is detected by the steered angle sensor and is filtered by the lowpass filter, and the steering-stiffness reducing means includes a gain setting portion for setting gains of the proportional integral differential control portion to be relatively low when a predetermined running condition of the vehicle is satisfied.