Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing of a Hybrid Brake-by-Wire System for Electric Vehicles

Recent trends in automotive engineering, such as electrification and automatization, are opening chances as well as challenges due to the increased demand on new chassis components (e.g., drivetrain, brakes, steering, suspension, etc.) and control methods. This fast-growing market requires new methods to frontload as much efforts as possible to early design stages. The present article deals with a relevant case study on anti-lock braking system (ABS) design and tuning via hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) tests and rapid control prototyping (RCP) techniques on a hybrid brake-by-wire (BBW) system. Three types of wheel slip control algorithms are tested and benchmarked against each other. It was demonstrated that HIL simulations are suitable to develop vehicle subsystems and control strategies in a quite realistic manner even if the target vehicle or prototype is not available yet. Moreover, the benefits of continuous control approaches against classical rule-based wheel slip control were shown. In the article, aspects such as brake system architecture, control design, HIL testing environment, validation studies, and their analysis are further being discussed.