Advanced Control Design for Anti-Lock Braking Systems

The anti-lock braking system (ABS) is the core of a vehicle’s active safety system. It basically ensures the vehicle’s steering, preventing the wheel lockup in any braking conditions and shortens the breaking distance. The dynamics of the ABS system are highly nonlinear which makes the control problematic. The proposed solution tries to overcome the nonlinear dynamics and characteristic uncertainties by taking them into account in the controller design stage. The effectiveness of the proposed solution is tested at first on a nonlinear mathematical quarter car model in Matlab/Simulink environment and then on a laboratory setup offering good braking results, improving the active safety the vehicle under heavy braking conditions.