Ford Patents Method To Reduce Turning Radius In Upcoming Models

Ford has filed an official patent application for an alternate method of reducing its vehicles turning radius instead of going down the all-wheel steering route. The patent which was filed at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) titled “System and method for vehicle turning radius reduction”. 

FORD Patent Application

Going through the patent application, we can roughly understand that Ford is looking at individual wheel torque manipulation to achieve this. In order to make this happen, an onboard controller would constantly monitor data such as steering angle and wheel speed to determine when turning-radius reduction would be appropriate. This is termed as "turn-assist mode" in the patent application.

When it is in use this system basically reduces inner wheel torque which in-turn generates yaw or sideways movement. After Which the system doubles up and channels more torque to the front wheels to balance the sideways movement to pull the vehicle out of the turn. 

To some of you, this concept might sound familiar. You wouldn't be wrong as Mitsubshi Evo’s had used similar principles but to improve handling while Ford only plans for it to reduce the turning radius. 

FORD Turn Assist Patent

Furthermore, torque reduction for the inner rear wheel would be achieved thru braking, hence making the system easily adapted to any vehicles in their range including the FWD models. In the patent Ford noted that when the turn-assist system is active on all-wheel-drive models the rear axle will be temporarily disconnected.

However, it is important to take note that when and how Ford plans to implement this system is still unclear and as history shows, Ford is notorious in filing patent applications whenever they see fit. A case in point a patent application for the ability of a four-wheel-steering system to turn the front and rear wheels in opposite directions for an off-roading crawling feature. This very logic is clearly riding off the four-wheel-steering patent application published in 2019.