USE OF AN ASSIST MOTOR OF A POWER STEERING SYSTEM TO GENERATE TEST CYCLES ACCORDING TO A POSITION ASCERTAINING CYCLE

The invention relates to a method for characterizing a power steering system (1) for empirically determining at least one property of said system (1), said power steering system comprising at least one steering wheel (2), a steering mechanism (3) provided with a rack (4), and at least one assist motor (7), said method comprising, outside a steering phase during which the power steering system (1)is assigned to the driving of a vehicle in order to cause said vehicle to follow a trajectory which is determined as a function of the situation of said vehicle with respect to its environment, a step(a) of automatically activating the assist motor (7), during which step a computer (13) is used to automatically generate and apply to the assistance motor (7), without requiring any external actionon the steering wheel (2), an activation instruction that follows one or more cycles referred to as pre-established exploration cycles (CY) for measuring, during the at least one exploration cycle orat the end of said at least