Review of the dual-axis steering system used by Mercedes-AMG in Formula One 2021-36-0027

During the 2020 Formula One season, world championship of high-performance cars from which several automotive technologies are derived for passenger cars, the Mercedes-AMG Formula One Team presented a technology that instigated researches and companies in the field. Entitled as dual-axis steering (DAS), this mechanism is responsible for change the front suspension toe angle when the driver pulls the steering wheel towards him. Due the possibility of become a common mechanism for all Formula One teams in the future as well as being used in other motoring categories, understanding the dualaxis steering system is important since some advantages in the vehicle dynamics are observed. With this motivation, the present paper seeks to do a review of the dual-axis steering system in terms of vehicle dynamics parameters and consequently the gains due the use of this technology, such as the increase in speed due to reduced drag force, possibility of increasing static toe-out for better performances in curves since in straight lines this effect is canceled and the extension of the tire's life due to the easier to keep the temperature in the desired range. This is important because thermal cycles - especially in tire shoulders - should not have large variations between the maximum and the minimum temperature on Formula One car tires, which consequently tends to increase the life of the tires since the irregular wear that generates effects such as graining is softened. Seeking to corroborate these observations about the use of the DAS system, the present work also performs a simulation with a vehicle virtual model with fourteen degrees of freedom in MATLAB/Simulink, obtaining results consistent with the ideas exposed during the review.