Throttle control design presents engineers with a host of technical challenges. Throttles on drive and auxiliary engines of off-highway vehicles have traditionally been controlled by mechanical cables connected to the driver’s cab. Problems with this approach include the need to place controls in non-ergonomic positions in the cab, difficulty in running cables to engines, and the possibility of inefficient or even unsafe operation due to reliance on the operator to control engine speed.
A new generation of electric linear actuators eliminates the need for cabling by making it possible to control the throttle through an electrical wire or communications bus and optimize the position of the throttle with a control algorithm.
