Vehicle Combination Braking Compatibility Behavior

Active safety of vehicle combinations during braking highly depends on braking compatibility behavior. There are different influencing factors disabling partial deceleration of individual elements of a vehicle combination to be “compatible”, or balanced. The paper deals with an advanced Friction Monitoring and Control System (FMCS), which may be used in braking systems of vehicle combinations. This system is intended to improve vehicle combination braking compatibility behavior, but also braking force distribution performance of combination components by means of monitoring and controlling of braking force variations. Digital brake models are developed for this purpose. They relate analytically and/or numerically braking forces developed in individual brakes of a vehicle combination with the most dominant influencing factors, and in particular with the control pressure. That is how this advanced FMCS anticipates frictional behavior of brakes in the next brake application based on the history of precedent brake applications.