A Sensor Fusion Approach to Estimate Clamp Force in Brake-by-Wire Systems

Elimination of a clamp force sensor from brake-by-wire system designs is strongly demanded due to implementation difficulties and cost issues. In this paper a new method is presented to estimate clamp force based on other sensory information. The proposed estimator fuses the outputs of two models to optimise the root mean square error (RMSE) of estimation. Experimental results show that the estimator can accurately track the true clamp force for high speed cases as demanded by anti-lock braking system (ABS) controls. A training strategy has been used to ensure that the estimator can successfully adapt to frictional variations within the reduction gearing. This paper is concluded with a discussion on the reliability of the developed clamp force estimator