NSF/USDOT - ICSST: Development of an Information Technology Based Advanced Monitoring and Inspection System for Air Brakes in Commercial Vehicles Systems for Air Brakes

Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

Darbha Swaroop Texas Engineering Experiment Station NSF/USDOT: Development of an information technology based advanced monitoring and inspection system for air brakes in commercial vehicles systems for air brakes The principal research goal of this project is to design novel fault detection algorithms for air brake systems in commercial vehicles with a view towards applying them in the development of automatic maintenance and enforcement inspections and in the development of real-time, on-board monitoring systems. This proposal is motivated by considerations of preventive and active vehicle safety, since no such diagnostic and monitoring system currently exists for air brakes in trucks. The PIs intend to develop a mathematical model of an air brake system for diagnostic purposes and adopt the analytical redundancy approach for Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI). Using the air brake model, brake pressure will be predicted from the measurements of the pedal position and wheel speed; the difference between the measured and predicted values of brake pressure will be used to assess the degradation in braking performance. The air brake system model will be experimentally validated and the diagnostic algorithms will be implemented on the test bench developed by the PI with the support of Bendix CVS Inc., at Elyria, OH and the SWUTC program of the Texas Transportation Institute. The tools developed in this project will be applicable to a wide variety of industrial machinery. Graduate and undergraduate students will be engaged in the development and implementation of FDI algorithms. Finally, the test bench, models and the diagnostic algorithms will be integrated into relevant undergraduate and graduate courses.