Active Safety Concept to Mitigate Slippery Road Conditions

Antilock braking systems (ABS) are inherently limited by the static coefficient of friction (µ) between a vehicle’s tires and the road surface. This paper explores a unique active safety concept, Integrated Coefficient Enhancement (ICE), which works to improve ABS well beyond their present limits. The ICE concept was developed using a basic physics principle: to change µ between two surfaces, at least one of the surfaces must be altered in some way. By quickly deploying a specially designed tractive medium (TM) to aid in directional stability and braking, hazardous situations can be greatly mitigated. This paper describes the features and testing results of this TM and its aerodynamic-mechanical-electronic deployment apparatus. Under all slippery road conditions tested, the developed TM mitigated skidding, with improvements that ranged from 20% to several hundred percent, depending on conditions and deployment rates.