US Patent 12116051 Degradation concept for a steer-by-wire steering system

A steer-by-wire steering system for a motor vehicle or a steering system for an autonomous driving motor vehicle includes a controller configured or programmed to control steering of steerable road wheels depending on a driver's input or an input of an autonomous driving unit and to include a normal mode of operation with full steering functionality and no quality problems, and at least two degraded modes with degraded operation of the steering system. The steering system includes an evaluator to evaluate a state of performance degradation of the steering system and to set the operation mode of the controller based on an evaluation result from the evaluator.