Steering supplier JTEKT begins reinventing the wheel

NAGOYA, Japan -- What will the world's biggest steering supplier do in the coming era of autonomous driving, when cars will steer themselves and need no human hand to hold a wheel?

It's a question that Tetsuo Agata, president of Japan's JTEKT Corp., has been asking his company and himself. The mammoth Toyota Group supplier makes around a quarter of the world's steering systems and ranks No. 15 on the Automotive News list of the top 100 global suppliers.

Agata is driving JTEKT toward next-generation technologies better suited for automated driving and advanced safety systems. Key to that push are redundancy systems and steer-by-wire technologies, he told Automotive News.

JTEKT expects to begin rolling out new products in the next few years as automakers move to semiautonomous vehicles. Redundancy will improve the safety of autonomous cars, while steer-by-wire makes them more fun and easier to use, according to Agata.

Redundancy systems are the essential fail-safe backups that kick in to steer an autonomous car if the main system malfunctions. They are critical because they enable the car to ensure it can drive safely on its own, while the driver zones out, reads a book or even takes a nap.

"That is the reason for autonomous driving," Agata said last month in an interview at JTEKT's global headquarters here. "If you are grabbing the steering wheel, you are the redundancy system."

Steering needs software and hardware backups, Agata said.

In software, autonomous steering systems need a backup circuit to fill in when the first breaks. On the hardware side, a second steering motor is needed to back up the first.

"We have to complete such a steering system with these kinds of redundancies," Agata said.

JTEKT is working to develop such a system as early as next year to meet automakers' goals of deploying autonomous vehicles in the 2020 time frame, Agata said. 

"We have to finish some kind of units around 2018 or so. Then we can approach customers," Agata said. "We have to be a bit ahead of the OEMs. It's the way for us to survive." 

The other prong of JTEKT's attack: steer-by-wire systems that break the mechanical link between the driver and the wheels. Instead, the systems convert steering wheel movements into electronic signals that control electric motors to move the wheels. 

Autonomous cars don't need steer-by-wire to function, but they benefit from it. 

The biggest payoff, Agata said, comes through design. A bulky steering wheel and cluster of meters are pointless in a self-driving car. Instead, designers envision the driver's seat of tomorrow as more of a mobile lounge. It would be a space where the owner can plow through computer work on a morning commute or lean back to watch a video. 

That paints a picture of future vehicles with no steering wheels, or with steering wheels that fold out of the way. 

"When autonomous driving comes, maybe the shape of the vehicle will change," Agata said. 

"Manufacturers don't like a mechanical steering linkage because it takes away freedom of design. It occupies a very important portion of the car. It occupies prime real estate."