Current research into reducing actuator delays in pneumatic brake systems is opening the door for advanced anti-lock braking algorithms to be used on heavy goods vehicles. However, these algorithms require the knowledge of variables that are impractical to measure directly. This paper introduces a sliding mode braking force observer to support a sliding mode controller for air-braked heavy vehicles. The performance of the observer is examined through simulations and field testing of an articulated heavy vehicle. The observer operated robustly during single-wheel vehicle simulations, and provided reasonable estimates of surface friction from test data. The effect of brake gain errors on the controller and observer are illustrated, and a recursive least squares estimator is derived for the brake gain. The estimator converged within 0.3 s in simulations and vehicle trials.
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Miller et al. (2010) studied this question.