Diagnostic end to end monitoring & fault detection for braking systems

The reliable and effective performance of a braking system is fundamental to the operation of most vehicles. Any failure in the braking system that impacts the ability to retard a vehicles motion will have an immediate and frequently catastrophic effect on a vehicles safety. There are very few diagnostic systems that monitor the health of multiple individual components in a braking system and even fewer that can automatically detect early stage failures and component wear with the reliability required for such an important vehicle subsystem. The systems that can accomplish these tasks are restricted in application due to size, weight and there own unique maintenance loads. Current diagnostic techniques call for careful maintenance of braking system components. These techniques tend to be backward thinking in that they are based on previous experience which is not always a good indicator for future systems. In addition the need to perform constant maintenance on the braking system puts restrictions on its design and heavy loads on maintenance personnel. This paper describes a technique developed at the Penn State Applied Research Laboratories Systems Operations and Automation Department for low physical impact fault detection and monitoring of hydraulic vehicular braking systems without compromising reliability. This technique is being applied to severe duty tactical vehicles with brake systems that have maintenance accessibility issues. The Brake Monitoring System (BMS) directly monitors the linings of the friction surfaces for wear using environment tolerant sensors. Additionally using pressure sensors, level sensors and high band width data gathering the hydraulic system is monitored for transients that are consistent with early stage failures.