Development of ABS ECU for a Bus using Hardware In-the-Loop Simulation

Antilock Brake System (ABS) is indispensable safety equipment for vehicles today. In order to develop new ABS ECU suitable for pneumatic brake system of a bus, a Hardware In-the-Loop Simulation (HILS) System was developed. In this HILS, the pneumatic brake system of a bus and antilock brake component were used as hardware. For the computer simulation, the 14-Degree of Freedom (DOF) bus dynamic model was constructed using the Matlab/Simulink software package. This model was compiled and downloaded in the simulation board, where the Power PC processor was used for real-time simulation. Additional commercial package, the ControlDesk was used to monitor the dynamic simulation results and physical signal values. This paper will focus on the procedure and results of evaluating the ECU in the HILS simulation. Two representative cases, wet basalt road and $split-{\mu}$ road, were used to simulate real road conditions. At each simulated road, the vehicle was driven and stopped under the help of the developed ECU. In each simulation, the dynamical behavior of the vehicle was monitored. After enough tests in the laboratory using HILS, the parameter-tuned ECU was equipped in a real bus, which was driven and stopped in the real test field in Korea. And finally, the experiment results of ABS equipped vehicle's dynamic behavior both in HILS test and in test fields were compared.