Fusion of Redundant Information in Brake-By-Wire Systems Using a Fuzzy Voter

Brake-by-wire is a frontier technology that will allow many braking functions to switch to electronic actuation. Its deployment will lead to more effective and safe braking systems, elimination of hydraulic technology, release of space and reduction of maintenance. Design and implementation of brake-by-wire systems has recently attracted interest from researchers in automotive and control engineering [9—12, 17]. The general architecture of a brake-by-wire system is shown (in schematic form) in Fig. 1. The figure shows that a large variety of sensors are utilised in a brake-by-wire system and therefore their consistent operation is vital for the functionality of such a system. To achieve a high level of coherency amongst such a large collection of sensors (mandated by the safety requirement of a brake system), the use of sophisticated data fusion techniques is unavoidable.