Ackerman, Toe and a Few Other Random Thoughts The diagram below outlines the important geometry in determining

the motions of the steer wheels in a vehicle that uses Ackerman steering geometry. Ackerman is an interesting problem because it is dynamic. That is to say that we have two components moving together the left and right steering knuckles, but the relationship between their motions changes as we move them. This is a real head scratcher. Its a bit like having a bowling ball in a dark room and throwing other bowling balls in an attempt to locate it by listening for an impact. Every time you find the ball by crashing into it, it moves and again dont know where it is.
( %ing &in 'enter to 'enter (istance

'

Tie #od ength

Ackerman Angle
A !

#AA

$heel !ase

uckily we have some mathematical voodoo that can help us figure it out. ets look at the important distances and angles. The two most fundamental distances are the wheel base of the car and the kingpin center to center distance. If we draw two lines representing the wheelbase and the distance from the cars center line to one of the king pins, we can make a triangle. !y design, the line that goes through the centers of the Ackerman arm forms the hypotenuse of this triangle. "ee below.

)ote that the angle with its verte* at A is +, degrees by design, unless the vehicle has been crashed. If this angle e*periences an ' unplanned ad-ustment due Ackerman to an impact, Angle the car will dog track. This can be checked using a tape measure and $heelbase A comparing distances from side to side. Also note that the line that forms the Ackerman angle with the hypotenuse is parallel with the thrust line, again by definition. !ecause of this, we can say that angle ! and the Ackerman angle are similar, so if we know one, we know the other. !ut angle ! isnt too hard to come up with. #ecall that the tangent function gives the ratio between the opposite side and the ad-acent side of the triangle. "o.
%ing &in 'enter to 'enter (istance 1

TA) Angle ! / king pin center to center distance 0 1 $heelbase The problem is that we know the distances and are trying to find angle !. $e need the inverse function A#'TA). #earranging, we get2 A#'TA) king pin center to center distance 0 1 / Angle ! $heelbase $e can pick distances, turn the crank and find Angle ! and by e*tension, the Ackerman Angle. 3or e*ample, lets choose a wheel base of 415 and a king pin to king pin distance of 675. The formula would look as follows2 A#'TA) 675 0 1 415 / Angle !

&lugging the number into a calculator or E*cel, or looking up in a table,

A#'TA) 8.19: / ;<.,67= "o, the Ackerman Angle is ;<.,67 degrees. $e can use this to find the length of the tie rod.
( %ing &in 'enter to 'enter (istance '

Tie #od ength

;<.,67=
A !

To find the length of the tie rod, we can decompose the trape>oid A!'( into a rectangle and two triangles. #AA $heel !ase
( '

B
;<.,67= @

A
A !

If you think logically about the diagram above, the length of the tie rod 8segment !' in the drawing: is e?ual to the king pin to king pin center distance minus distance @ on each side. "o, what is distance @A To find out, you have to pick an Ackerman Arm #adius. @ou may choose this by purchasing a standard Ackerman arm out of a catalog, or you may design your own. Either way, it is what we might refer to as a Bdrawing board problem5, meaning that basically this is a parameter that the engineer chooses by his gut. ets pick 75 to make life easy. "o, how long is distance @A $ell, recall that the "I) of

an angle is the ratio between the side opposite the angle and the hypotenuse. In shorthand it looks as follows. "I) ;<.,67= / @075 As you know, the name of the game in Algebra is getting the variable by itself, so. 75 C "I) ;<.,67= / @ @ou can look "I) ;<.,67 up in a table, or punch it up on a calculator, giving you2 75 C .1<6 / @ A few (a>>ling Algebraic 'ontortions, And2 ;.<<95 / @ "o, the tie rod is ;.<<95 inches shorter on the bottom and ;.<<95 inches shorter on the top than the kingpin center to center distance. E*pressed mathematically2
T

/ (%' 1C#AAC"I) Ackerman Angle

$here2 is the length of the tie rod (%' is the distance between king pins center to center #AA is the radius of the Ackerman Arm
T

&lugging in our numbers.

T

/ 675 1C75C"I) ;<.,67= ooking up the "I) value.

T

/ 675 1C75C.1<6

Turning the crank.

T

/ 66.,D<5

'

"o, for a car configured as this one is, the tie rod needs to be 66.,D<5 from the center of one rod end to the center of the other. $eve figured out all of the static values. )ow the real fun begins. ets contemplate a turn as diagrammed in red to the right. "uppose that the Ackerman arm labeled A! steers 1, degrees to the left as shown. $hat angle does the other Ackerman arm transectA @ou might think 1, degrees, but this would result in the steering wheels being parallel in a turn, which
!

"omething less than 1,=

1,=

would be unsatisfactory as we discussed in the previous packet. In reality, because the car pictured is turning to the left, the right Ackerman arm 8'(: needs to steer something less than 1, degrees. !ut how much lessA This becomes a moving target. I tried a lot of high flutin mathematical tricks until I discovered a rather straightforward way to attack this. et us consider a line drawn diagonally from point ( to !. This creates three angles that add together to give the angle of ( the wheel that pivots at point (. ' AA $ell call the first angle %, the second angle E 8pronounced E gamma:, and the third angle is of k course, the Ackerman angle. )ow we can set to work on determining each. If you think about angle k, we can determine it because for any steer angle, we know the positions of the ends of the diagonal line. If we assigned ! point A the coordinate of ,,, then A point ( would have the coordinates %ingpin 'enter to 'enter (istance,,. In the our case specifically point (s coordinates would be 67,,. &oint !s coordinates take a little bit more elbow grease to find. $e can calculate its locations with the following formulae2 &oint !s F coordinate / #AA C 'G"8AA H "A : &oint !s @ coordinate / #AA C "I)8AA H "A : $here2 #AA is the Ackerman Arm #adius AA is the Ackerman Angle "A is the steering angle of the left wheel. Iero degrees is straight ahead. &ositive values are a left turn, negative values are a right turn.
(

&lugging in our numbers for a 1,= left turn. &oint !s F coordinate / 75 C 'G"8;<.,67= H 1,=: &oint !s @ coordinate / 75 C "I)8;<.,67= H 1,=: Jumping through a few hoops. &oint !s F coordinate / <.+41

&oint !s @ coordinate / 6.69D "o, the coordinates of &oint ! at a 1,= left turn are <.+41,6.69D. $e can pro-ect straight to the left of point ! and straight up from point A to create a new point called point E. !ecause we pro-ected straight left and straight up, the angle at E is by AA definition +,=. Also, because point ( E falls on segment A(, we can ' calculate distance (E with the formula2 E
k

(E / A( AE &lugging in our numbers (E / 675 6.69D5

<.+41

6.69D

'runching the numbers.

!

(E / 61.7<15

)ow that we know E! and E(, we can find the length of !( because it is a hypotenuse of the triangle formed. Ksing &ythagorean Theorem2 !( / 8E!1 H 8(E:1

&lugging our numbers in. !( / 861.7<15:1 H 8<.+415:1 !( / 66.,;+5 3urthermore, because we know the sides of the triangle we can determine angle k in the following manner2 TA) k / E!0E( Gf course, were trying to find k, so lets get that by itself by taking the A#'TA) A#'TA) 8E!0E(: / k &lugging in our numbers.

A#'TA) 8<.+415061.7<15: / k "ome mathematical acrobatics and. D.77;= / k "o now that we know angle k and the Ackerman angle, the problem is two thirds licked. All we have left is to find angle E 8pronounced gamma:. )ote that E is included in triangle !('. ets think about what we know about this triangle. $e know that side (' is the length of the Ackerman arm, which we chose to be 75. $e know that side '! is the length of the tie rod, which we calculated ( earlier to be 66.,D<5. 3inally, we know the distance !(, which we determined using &athagorean Theorem to be 66.,;+5. "o we have a triangle and we know the lengths of each of the three sides. uckily, there is a somewhat abstract relationship between the sides k of nonLright triangles called law of cosines. It can be e*pressed a number of ways, but we will use the permutation shown below. 'G" E / A1 H !1 '1 1A! &er usual, we are trying to get the thing we dont know by itself, so well need to beat this up a little bit to make it useful. #earranging gives2 A#''G" A1 H !1 '1 / E 1A! &lugging in our numbers. A#''G" 866.,;+:1 H 87:1 866.,D<:1 / E 1866.,;+:87: 'runching the numbers. D9.<;;M / E )ow if we add up angle k, E and the Ackerman angle, well have the tires steer angle from the line that connects the two kingpins. To get the steer angle, we have to subtract +,M. The formula is2 "teer Angle / k H E H Ackerman Angle L +,M &lugging our numbers in. "teer Angle / D.77;= H D9.<;;M H ;<.,67M L +,M
6.69D

'

AA

<.+41

Turning the crank2 "teer Angle / ;D.;,DM As with any engineering math, we must ask if this is a reasonable number. ets think about it. The car is e*ecuting a left turn. The left front wheel is steered 1,M to the left. The right wheel is tracing a larger arc, and therefore should have a lesser steer angle. In short the left side steering angle is 1,M and the right side should be something less than 1,M. $eve passed that test. Additionally, e*perience on real cars on the alignment rack indicates that these numbers are reasonable. Attached you will find an E*cel file that will do the heavy lifting for you. Nood luckO