Patent ID: 7640088

Claim:
A steering controller for a vehicle, comprising: a guidance mechanism for determining a course correction for said vehicle based upon position data received from a position determining system; a steering controller coupled with said guidance mechanism and for generating a first steering command based upon said course correction, and wherein said first steering command is conveyed to one or more of an electric steering component and a hydraulic steering component coupled with a steering mechanism to actuate said steering mechanism to automatically steer said vehicle according to said course correction; a dead band value input mechanism coupled to said steering controller and configured to receive at least one dead band value which describes a measured discrepancy between positions of the actuation of said steering mechanism and a corresponding response of the ground wheels of said vehicle; a dead band setting storage coupled to said steering controller and configured to store said at least one dead band value; and a compensator mechanism coupled to said steering controller and providing thereto said at least one stored dead band value and wherein said steering controller modifies said first steering command to compensate for said measured discrepancy based on said at least one stored dead band value and wherein said modified first steering command is conveyed to one or more of an electric steering component and a hydraulic steering component coupled with a steering mechanism to actuate said steering mechanism to automatically steer said vehicle according to said dead band value.