Emergency braking system for city buses with cascading braking effect

A new assistance system by ZF Friedrichshafen causes active emergency braking intervention in city buses and similar vehicles to avoid head-on collisions with other road users, such as vehicles, cyclists, or pedestrians. At the same time, the system protects standing bus passengers by cascading braking torque. The solution can thus help reduce the risk of accidents and injuries both inside and outside the bus. With the system, ZF is introducing an industry-wide system that is independent of vehicle manufacturers and suitable for electric buses as well as vehicles with combustion engines. The market launch will take place this year with European bus manufacturers.

“Our new Commercial Vehicle Solutions division bundles know-how and commercial vehicle competencies and makes a significant contribution to ZF’s ‘Next Generation Mobility’ strategy. This is demonstrated by the new assistance system, which was developed completely in-house. Here, we network radar, camera, control unit, and braking system, thus generating a new safety function,” explains Philipp Helmich, responsible for the Vehicle Dynamics product line in ZF’s Commercial Vehicle Solutions division. “The emergency brake assist system addresses the desire of bus manufacturers as well as their customers for increased safety in urban traffic. The design of such a system is complex and requires the use of the most advanced technologies from hardware and software.”

ZF’s emergency brake assist system is based on the OnGuardMAX technology for heavy trucks and has been specially adapted for city buses. For manufacturers as well as fleet customers, it represents an important step towards improving safety for passengers as well as road users. In order to avoid dangerous traffic situations in the complex, urban environment, a detailed and accurate situation analysis is required, including object detection and classification. In this context, the fusion of camera data and radar information, in interaction with the control unit and the brakes, enables front collision warning. If the driver fails to react, the system can automatically apply the brakes to reduce the risk of an accident or avoid a collision altogether. Other vehicle data such as weight or speed are also included in the evaluation. Thanks to the seamless interaction between the assistance and braking systems, the braking torque is built up in cascade by means of software control, so that standing or seated passengers in the bus are also significantly better protected against the risk of injury.

In the CVS division, ZF bundles its competencies in the Commercial Vehicles segment. The division was founded on January 1, 2022 and combines the former Commercial Vehicle Technology and Commercial Vehicle Control Systems divisions, which in turn resulted from the acquisition of the American supplier Wabco in spring 2020.

https://www.zf.com/mobile/en/homepage/homepage.html

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