Development of a novel electronically controlled wedge braking system

• Main Author: Abd Rahman, Muhammad Luqman Hakim
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: T Technology (General); TL Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics
• Online Access: http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/16878/1/Development%20Of%20A%20Novel%20Electronically%20Controlled%20Wedge%20Braking%20System.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/16878/2/Development%20of%20a%20novel%20electronically%20controlled%20wedge%20braking%20system.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/16878/; https://plh.utem.edu.my/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=96145

Most automotive vehicles in use today utilize hydraulic system for actuating braking mechanism and producing brake torque to the wheels. Besides being disadvantageous in terms of weight, space and system complexity, hydraulic brakes require relatively high energy to operate the brake piston. Leakage in the hydraulic line and vaporization of hydraulic fluid at high temperature are the main problems that degrade the overall braking performance of the hydraulic brake system. This thesis presents a new design of the Electronic Wedge Brake (EWB) caliper prototype and is part of the effort to replace and to overcome the shortcomings of the conventional hydraulic brake system. The proposed EWB caliper consists of piston, wedge mechanism, worm gear and an electric motor. The rotational motion of the worm gear is driven by the electric motor which will activate the wedge mechanism causing the piston to displace linearly. Linear displacement of the piston will generate clamping force between brake pads and the disk and also produce brake torque if the wheel is rotating. In this study, the electronic wedge brake system is developed and its behavior is investigated using a brake test rig. The mathematical model of the proposed EWB system was constructed. The parameters for the model were obtained experimentally. The model was validated by comparing the response time against experimental rig. The controller was implemented to control the behavior of electronic wedge brake in term of gaping mode and brake torque. A hardware-in-the-loop system was developed to test the controllability of the control structure. As a result, the prototype of EWB caliper can be modeled mathematically to follow its behavior and the implementation shows that the EWB prototype can be adequately controlled in an active safety system.