Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 24 (2021) 1224–1238

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Engineering Science and Technology,

an International Journal
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jestch

Full Length Article

Experimental study on braking and stability performance during low

speed braking with ABS under critical road conditions
Hakan Koylu ⇑, Ersin Tural
Kocaeli University, Faculty of Technology, Department of Automotive Engineering, 41380, Umuttepe, Kocaeli, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: During braking with ABS (Anti-Lock Brake System), low braking initial speed causes to build-up and
Received 21 July 2020 reduce brake pressure in longer time period due to extending application time of brake pressure and
Revised 29 January 2021 response time of solenoid valve. Also, the decision about speed and acceleration variations of wheel
Accepted 4 February 2021
becomes very difficult due to weak speed signals arising from low speed. This results in lower braking
Available online 3 March 2021
torque than needed on the wheels. Therefore, effects of weak wheel speed signal become more pro-
nounced in critical road conditions due to sudden changes in wheel speed. In this study, the effects of
Keywords:
these problems occurring in low speed were investigated on both control and braking performance of
Anti-lock brake system
Low speed
ABS under critical road conditions. For this, ABS tests were carried out for low and high speeds on four
Braking different road types, which include slippery, wet and m-jump tests (from wet to slippery and from slip-
Stability pery to wet). In this way, the results were compared to both vehicle speed and road type. The test results
Critical road show that the low speed worsens braking stability, control and braking performance of ABS, regardless of
road conditions. For this reason, it is proposed that ABS control algorithm must be divided in two parts as
low and high speed control.
Ó 2021 Karabuk University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC
BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
Emergency braking is typically only way of avoiding an acci-
dent. However, the wheel suddenly locks during emergency brak-
ing, since sudden and severe brake pedal force causes braking
moment to become higher than friction moment between road
and tire. This situation becomes more severe and faster under slip-
pery road conditions having snowy and icy surfaces. For this, the
vehicles have been equipped with ABS. ABS tries to provide safe
braking under all road conditions. For this aim, it prevents the
wheels from locking up by means of the brake pressure modulated
by using slip ratio. Thus, the slip ratio is a control variable of ABS.
The slip ratio is determined by using wheel and vehicle speeds. In
here, the wheel speed is measured by speed sensors and the vehi-
cle speed is estimated by using measured wheel speeds.
Therefore, if a sharp increase in slip ratio is detected, ABS
reduces the brake pressure until the wheel begins to accelerate
again. Nevertheless, if the decrease in slip ratio is detected, the
pressure is again built up until the wheel locking again occurs. In
this way, the brake pressure determined by using slip ratio tunes
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: hkoylu@kocaeli.edu.tr (H. Koylu).
Peer review under responsibility of Karabuk University.
new slip ratio. This process creates a control cycle and it is
repeated until the vehicle completely stops [1]. The performance
of this cycle depends on accurate determination of slip ratio, appli-
cation time and level of brake pressure. For this reason, the unusual
wheel speed and brake pressure variations occurring due to any
reason cause oscillations in slip ratio [2,3]. In addition, the exces-
sive cycling of vehicle speed around the peak slip increases slip
fluctuations due to these wheel speed and brake pressure varia-
tions [4]. Thus, accurate estimation of vehicle speeds is determined
by quality of slip ratio variations through wheel speed signals,
since the variations in vehicle speed determine the voltage level
and power of sensor signals. Also, longitudinal wheel slip control
is highly sensitive to measurement noise, since the vehicle speed
is obtained via estimation [5]. At high vehicle speed, the wheel
speed processing unit sends more readable wheel speed signals
to ABS control unit to calculate slip ratio. However; the AC voltage
level of speed sensor decreases and the processing quality becomes
worse, as the vehicle speed decreases. This reduction in vehicle
speed causes unwanted ABS activation [6]. Also, there are large
deflections between the reference speed and real vehicle speed
because of the wheel speed undulations [7].
For this reason, a number of researchers have studied on effects
of low vehicle speed by considering oscillations in slip ratio. Peter-
sen explored that when the vehicle operates at low speed, it is

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jestch.2021.02.001
2215-0986/Ó 2021 Karabuk University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
H. Koylu and E. Tural Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 24 (2021) 1224–1238

extremely difficult to obtain suitable signals from the sensors. This low speed, since the strong force is applied to brake pedal due to
is particularly difficult to obtain signals for evaluating slippage and low inertia of vehicle body. Also, the speed at which ABS is acti-
deceleration of the wheel. Also, a reliable wheel speed processing is vated is lower on slippery, snowy road or transitions between dif-
not obtained, since the sampling time is much shorter than that ferent road conditions.
needed to read wheel speed signals [8,9]. Therefore, small changes This study has two aims. One of them is to investigate the
in wheel speed are more significant as the vehicle speed decreases. effects of low speed on ABS braking performance and stability.
Jaiswal, M. et al. explored that rapid oscillations in slip ratio can be The other is to determine the basics of low speed control method
seen, once the vehicle speed reduces. Also, the vehicle speed esti- of ABS. For these aims, ABS tests are conducted with 30 km/h
mation is very difficult, since the last wheel speed value is held and 60 km/h braking initial speeds to compare the results of low
until the next value becomes available at the end of braking [10]. speed with those of high speed. Also, these tests are also repeated
Hence, this wheel speed processing is completed in a long sam- for wet road, slippery road and m-jump roads to compare the per-
pling time period and it causes wrong wheel speed information formances with respect to road conditions.
for next braking maneuver [11]. For this reason, the controller gen-
erates temporary wheel locking during the tests at especially slip-
2. Experimental material and method
pery road due to low speed values [12].
The other effects of low speed are considered for valve time
In the light of the information obtained above, it is seen that
delay. It includes the times which are required to react the solenoid
wheel speed, wheel slip and brake pressure variations can reveal
valves and to travel the brake pressure from the ABS hydraulic
the effects of low speed on ABS braking performance through slip
modulator to the brake chamber [13]. The time delay must be
dynamics and actuator dynamics.
shorter and actuator speed must be much faster at low speed
due to short braking time. Nevertheless, the duration may not V_ x The quarter car braking model is used to obtain the equations
enough short to build up or reduce the brake pressure, when the related to wheel slip dynamic and actuator dynamic as shown in
vehicle is braked at low speed. The reason is the response time Fig. 1. In the model, M is the mass of vehicle body, Tbr is braking
of solenoid valves. Watany, M., concluded that the long response moment, Tx is friction moment, Re is effective rolling radius, x is
time of the valves causes to increase the level of the oscillations wheel speed, Jw is tire inertial moment, Vx is vehicle speed, Fz is
in slip ratio [14]. The long time also causes oscillations to increase the vertical force acting from road to the wheel, Pbr is the wheel
about a reference slip ratio, which leads sharp rise in slip ratio with cylinder pressure, PM is master cylinder pressure and is braking
an abrupt change in friction coefficient of road. Also, elongated acceleration.
time delays cause the brake distance to increase [15,16]. In addi- In the model, the friction coefficient between the brake disc and
tion, increased actuator speed or decreased time delay makes the lining is constant and the braking torque changes with only the
worse the low speed control of ABS because of increasing pumping brake pressure applied to the wheel. For this, brake pressure of
frequency of hydraulic actuator [17]. Rosenberg, M et al. explored master cylinder is modulated by hydraulic actuator. In addition,
that time delays have a great influence on the control quality and the load acting on the wheel and the resulting effective rolling
they lead to unstable system behavior during braking with ABS at radius are fixed, and thus, the friction between the tire and the
low velocities [18]. For this reason, the brake torque applied to road varies according to the only slip ratio. In here, the slip angle
each wheel is kept constant to prevent any unwanted under- was not considered, since the straight line braking tests were con-
braking in low speed [6]. ducted. In this way, the friction moment variation and braking
These effects of the low speed on ABS braking performance are acceleration are determined only by the friction coefficient
also very important for regenerative braking of hybrid electric through the slip rate. Wheel acceleration is determined by the dif-
vehicles (HEV’s) and electric vehicles (EV’s), since the fault of the ference between the friction moment and braking torque. With
wheel speed sensor signals certainly leads to errors in the system these assumptions, actuator and slip dynamics can be examined
as a whole and it makes the plant become malfunction in regener- through brake pressure variations and friction-slip model, respec-
ative ABS [19]. For this reason, the coordination between regener- tively. Thus, the brake dynamics is defined for vehicle body and
ative and ABS braking systems is provided to increase energy wheel as follows:
storage capacity of generator at low speed. This shows that the
low speed has a great importance on ABS with regenerative brak-
ing system [20,21,22,23].
The other safety system which operates at low speed is Auto-
matic Emergency Braking Systems (AEBS’s) [24]. This system can
prevent common low speed crashes with sudden braking between
15 and 30 km/h [25,26].
Therefore, the literature survey clearly shows that as vehicle
speed reduces, the wheel processing quality, delay time of brake
pressure and the actuation speed determine braking performance
of ABS. Because, weak wheel speed signal causes poor slip estima-
tion, long response time of solenoid valves leads insufficient time
to build up or reduce the brake pressure and the great increase
in actuation speed induces the oscillations during pumping of
brake pressure. Also, these have great effect on the storage capacity
of regenerative braking and the performance of automatic emer-
gency braking.
For this, a number of researchers have studied on effects of
these phenomena’s on only operation of ABS. However, there is
no other study related to the effects of low speed on ABS braking
performance and stability under especially critical road conditions.
Whereas the emergency braking to activate ABS mostly realizes at Fig. 1. Quarter car braking model.

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M V_ x ¼ lðkÞF z ð1Þ moment. Thus, long time delay can slow down formation of both
brake pressure and braking moment due to low speed.
_ ¼ lðkÞF z Re  T br
Jw x ð2Þ As a result, the needed brake pressure may be not applied in
desired time to the wheel brake cylinder due to low speed of actu-
where m(k) is the friction coefficient as a function of slip ratio. As ator, the prolonged time delay, the fast slip dynamics and weak
shown in Eqs. (1) and (2), the slip ratio determines both vehicle wheel speed signal occurring at low vehicle speed. This requires
and wheel dynamics through friction coefficient. Hence, the slip to be investigated the braking and stability performance of ABS
dynamics have great importance on control and braking perfor- at low speed.
mance of ABS. The slip ratio is defined to obtain slip dynamic as
follows:
3. Experimental material
V x  xR e xR e
k¼ ¼1 ð3Þ
Vx Vx 3.1. Test vehicle
which represents the slip degree of a wheel motion in a vehicle
braking maneuver: k = 0 indicates that there is no slip, and the In this study, Toyota Auris is used as a test vehicle as shown in
wheel is at a pure rotation state; k = 1 indicates there is no rotation, Fig. 2. The vehicle’s braking system has a cross brake circuit. Also, It
and the wheel is at a pure slip state, namely locked [28]. Thus, the has a version 7 of ABS and ABS has four wheel sensors mounted
dynamics of slip is described as follows [29,30]: onto wheel hubs of front and rear axles. Hydraulic modulator var-
ies brake pressure with four solenoid valves. Therefore, the braking
d xRe x_ Re
k_ ¼ ð1  Þ¼ ð4Þ of all wheels is independently controlled by ABS control unit.
dt Vx V_ x
The wheel slip dynamics is obtained by substituting Eqs. (1) and 3.2. Experiment instrumentation
(2) into Eq. (4) as follows:
In order to analyze the effects of low vehicle speed on braking
1k R2 Re
k_ ¼ ð þ e ÞF z lðkÞ þ T br ð5Þ and stability performance of ABS, the wheel speed, vehicle speed,
MV x V x J w V x Jw brake pressure, yaw rate, vertical acceleration, braking distance
Since the vehicle speed dynamics is much slower than the are measured as shown in Fig. 3. Specifications of test vehicle are
wheel slip dynamics, only the first term of Eq. (5) is taken into con- shown in Table 1.
sideration. When it is considered that M is much greater than Jw, As shown in Fig. 2, the pressure of hydraulic fluid is measured
the first term 1/M is much lower than second term Re/Jw. Therefore, by using pressure transducers. These transducers are mounted to
the wheel slip dynamics is simplified as follows [28]: the hydraulic modulator output related to the front left and right
wheels by means of T apparatus. Therefore, brake pressures of
Re
k_ ¼ ðT br  Re F z lðkÞÞ ð6Þ front left and right wheels are simultaneously measured. Rota-
V x Jw tional speed and vertical acceleration of the front wheels are mea-
As shown in Eq. (6), the lower the speed at which braking sured by using encoder and accelerometer. The encoder is
begins, the faster the wheel slip will increase [31,32]. Thus, estima- mounted to the wheel lug nuts via adjustable mounting collets
tion of wheel slip becomes more difficult for next brake pressure as shown in Fig. 3.
modulation. This causes more control cycles for the variation of Thus, the encoder is located to the wheel center to rotate with
brake pressure and resulting in shorter time period. For this reason, respect to the wheel’s y-axis. Also, the encoder is fixed to the vehi-
the time delay of hydraulic actuator remains longer than the time cle body with a rod to restrict this rotation in the vertical direction
required to change slip by modulating brake pressure due to the of vehicle body as shown in Fig. 3.
faster wheel slip dynamics at low vehicle speed. Thus, prolonged Yaw rate is measured by using gyro sensor which is mounted on
time delay may cause insufficient level of brake pressure to be CG (Center of Gravity) of vehicle body. The location of CG is deter-
applied to the braked wheel. For this reason, it should be deter- mined by using front and rear axle weights as shown in Table 2.
mined how much the time delay affects the brake pressure at The axle weights are measured with suspension test bench.
low speed through actuator dynamics. For this, the following trans- The determined distances of CG to front and rear axles are
fer function is considered [12]. shown in Table 3. These results are compatible to front-engine

1
Pbr ¼ PM ess ð7Þ
1 þ ss s
where s is time delay and ss is response time of solenoid valve. As
shown in Eq. (7), actuator dynamics incorporating time delay and
first order time delay have been used [33]. According to Eq. (7),
the increases in time delay cause to exponentially reduce brake
pressure and the stability of changes in brake pressure becomes
worse due to low speed. For this reason, the response time of valve
should be decreased to compensate for this problem as shown in Eq.
(7). However, it is not possible to shorten the response time, since
the applied current is not changed to move solenoid valve in shorter
time by ABS. Time delay also has effect on the change speed of brake
moment as shown in Eq. (8) [27,28].
1
T_ br ¼ ðT br þ K br Pbr Þ ð8Þ
s
where Kbr is brake gain and Pbr is the brake pressure. As shown in
Eq. (8), the extended time delay drops the change speed of brake Fig. 2. Test Vehicle.

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Fig. 3. Experimental design of all transducers.

Table 1 Table 2
Technical specification of test vehicle. Vehicle weights and wheelbase dimensions.

Vehicle system Specification Vehicle parameters Symbol Value

Front suspension Independent Macpherson suspension system Front axle weight Fz,f 898 kg
Rear suspension Semi-independent twist-beam suspension Rear axle weight Fz,r 514 kg
Transmission 5 gear – Automated manual transmission – Front wheel Total vehicle weight Mv 1412 kg
driven Wheelbase l 2.57 m
Front braking Hydraulic disc brake Distance of CG to front axle lf 0.93 m
system Distance of CG to rear axle lr 1.63 m
Rear braking Hydraulic disc brake
system
Hand brake Mechanic
system It is considerable point that the water balancer of the speed sen-
Engine Spark ignition - Four cylinders – In front of vehicle sor must be in balance, otherwise, the vehicle speed cannot be
Steering system Electric power steering accurately measured. All transducers are connected to same data
acquisition system to simultaneously measure the variables. The
data acquisition system acquires all data from 16 channels in
vehicle, because it is well known that CG of front-engine vehicles is 10 V - +10 V ranges. Four channels are used for counter input
closer to front axle. and the others are used for analog inputs.
The vehicle speed is measured with optical speed sensor. It is The encoder is connected to counter input of the system as
mounted to left side of vehicle body by means of vacuum connec- shown in Fig. 3. The others are connected to analog inputs. The fre-
tor as shown in Fig. 3. quencies of counter and analog inputs are 4000 Hz and 500 Hz,

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Table 3 m-jump road conditions are obtained as seen in Fig. 5a and b.

Measured varıables and specifications of transducers. Two cases are considered for m-jump road condition tests. These
Measured Variable Transducer Electric Measurement conditions are established in two different cases. At the first one,
Specification range the measured front wheels firstly are on wetted asphalt surface
Rotational speeds of front Encoder 1000 pulses 0–6000 rpm and then the wheels are on epoxy surface during braking with acti-
left and right wheels per rpm vated ABS as shown in Fig. 5a.
Vehicle speed Optical 10 V - +10 V 0–250 km/h At the second one, the measured wheels are firstly on epoxy
sensor
Brake pressures of front left Pressure 0.43 V – 4.5 V / 0 – 350 Bar
surface and then the wheels are on wetted asphalt surface during
and right wheels sensor 1000 Hz braking with activated ABS as shown in Fig. 5b.
Yaw rate Gyro 0.5 V – 4.5 V 0 – 150 The position of vehicle at the beginning of braking is seen in
sensor degree/s Fig. 5a and 5b for m-jump road conditions. It is considerable that
the friction coefficient of front left tire is same as that of front right
tire on wet, slippery and m-jump roads.
respectively. Therefore, the wheel speed is measured with 4000 Hz
sampling rate and the brake pressure, vehicle speed, yaw rate and
axle acceleration are measured with 500 Hz sampling rate. 4. Experimental procedure
Technical specifications of all transducers with data acquisition
system are given in Table 3. ABS tests are conducted under the established road conditions.
Before the ABS tests are initiated, the vehicle is driven to the begin-
ning of the acceleration section of test track and the vehicle is
3.3. Test road accelerated to higher vehicle speed than 30 km/h or 60 km/h. Then,
ABS tests are conducted with 30 km/h or 60 km/h under wet, slip-
The test road having a epoxy surface is used to conduct ABS test pery and m-jump road conditions. The tests are repeated for every
under wet, slippery and m-jump road conditions, as shown in Fig. 4. road conditions seven times. The test matrix related to these ABS
Also, the asphalt surface is used to conduct wet road tests. The tests is shown in Table 4.
length and width of test road are 80 m and 6 m. The test roads In case 1, the vehicle is braked with activated ABS, as soon as
are described according to measured front wheels. Therefore, the the all wheels of accelerated vehicle come onto wetted asphalt sur-
measured wheels are on wet road throughout braking with acti- face. The epoxy surface is not used for case 1. In case 2, the vehicle
vated ABS. The wet road is obtained by watering asphalt surface is braked with activated ABS, as soon as all wheel comes onto the
as shown in Fig. 4a. In slippery road test, the vehicle is braked on watered epoxy surface. These tests are performed to compare with
wetted epoxy surface by activating ABS. Slippery road condition m-jump tests. Cases 3 and 4 describe m-jump road tests. In the case
is obtained by watering epoxy surface.
The position of vehicle is shown in Fig. 4a and b during wet and
slippery road tests of ABS.

Fig. 4. a) Test road b) The vehicle position on slippery road during braking with
ABS. Fig. 5. m-jump road conditions during braking with ABS.

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Table 4 described above. Slip ratio is obtained as shown in Eq. (3). Also,
Test Matrix for ABS Tests. the following equation is considered to evaluate yaw rate. The
Tests Road Type Movement of Brake Pedal The number of vehicle yaw rate is evaluated by considering angular speeds of
and Steering Wheel test cycles the wheels as follows [32] (Fig. 6):
Case Wet Constant during braking 7
ðxfr  xfl ÞRe
1 with ABS r¼ ð9Þ
Case Slippery Constant during braking 7 lf cosd
2 with ABS
Case m-jump (from wet road Constant during braking 7 where lf, d, xfr, xfl are the track width, steering angle, measured
3 to slippery road) with ABS angular speeds of the front left and right wheel, respectively.
Case m-jump (from slippery Constant during braking 7
4 road to wet road) with ABS
According to Eq.9, the yaw rate depends on difference between
front left and right wheel speeds, when the steering wheel is con-
stant throughout braking with ABS. Thus, the vehicle body rotates
at clockwise direction, when the front left wheel rotates faster than
3, the braking maneuver is firstly initiated with activated ABS on
the front right wheel during braking with ABS as shown in Fig. 7a.
wet asphalt surface then the maneuver is ended, when the front
Also, if the front right wheel rotates faster than the front left wheel,
wheel passes on slippery road surface as shown in Fig. 5a. In case
the vehicle body rotates at counter-clockwise direction during brak-
4, the vehicle is braked on epoxy surface with activated ABS. Then
ing with ABS as shown in Fig. 7b. In this study, yaw rate variations
the braking is ended, when the front wheels pass onto wetted
occurring due to braking are considered. Therefore, in negative yaw
asphalt road as shown in Fig. 5b. In ABS tests given in Table 5,
rate, the braking effect of front right wheel is higher than that of
the driver presses suddenly and hard onto brake pedal to activate
front left wheel. Also, the braking effect of front left wheel is higher
ABS at higher speeds than 30 or 60 km/h according to the desired
than that of front right wheel in positive yaw rate. In here, it is con-
test conditions. Therefore, whole tests are began and ended with
sidered that the wheel which has low braking effect causes the
activated ABS. In these cases, the brake pedal force must be high
vehicle body to spin around the wheel which has high braking
enough to suddenly activate ABS, so that desired test condition is
effect.
catched. Also, the brake pedal and steering must be kept constant
Thus, the yaw rate results determine the effects of accordance
until the end of the braking maneuver. In this way, ABS is enforced
and discordance between front right and left brake pressures on
to keep the wheel at the locking limit and the braking and control
the vehicle braking stability.
performance of ABS is completely occurred. Therefore, all ABS tests
On the other hand, braking distance is analyzed by comparing
were conducted at low and high speeds for all cases. In this way,
the measured braking distance with nominal braking distance.
test results of low speed are compared with those of high speed
Nominal braking distance means that the vehicle is braked with
for each road condition.
non-locking wheel throughout braking maneuver with effective
braking acceleration. It also represents the distance which the
5. Experimental results and discussions wheel would pass for the optimum brake slip in the same braking
time. In this study, nominal braking distance is calculated accord-
ing to braking initial speed and effective braking acceleration as
The brake pressure applied by the ABS is completely dependent
follows:
on the brake pedal force. Thus, changes in the brake pedal force to
keep the ABS active directly affect the pressure modulation. For
ðV x Þ2
this reason, such differences in brake pedal force can cause greater dn ¼ ð10Þ
2ae;x
differences in the data collected during ABS braking under same
road condition. where Vx and ae,x are measured vehicle speed and effective braking
For this reason, data reflecting these changes enables the effects acceleration, respectively. As shown in Eq. (10), the changes in brak-
of pedal force changes on the measured result data to be elimi- ing distance directly depend on effective braking acceleration.
nated. For this, all tests were repeated seven times as shown in Therefore, the effective braking acceleration is achieved by taking
Table 4. In order to determine the most suitable data under the RMS (Root Mean Square) of measured braking acceleration signals.
same test conditions, the data were firstly averaged as shown in vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Fig. 6. Then, correlation values between all measurement data u X
u1 w
and their mean value were determined and the brake pressure, ae;x ¼ tð ðam;xj Þ2 ð11Þ
n j¼1
wheel speed and vehicle speed results obtained with brake pedal
force which has the highest correlation were evaluated.
Therefore, using these measurement results, the effects of low where am,x, n and w are respectively measured braking acceleration,
and high braking initial speeds on the performance of ABS control the braking time and the window with samples of am,x. Therefore, a
unit are analyzed by means of the brake pressure, wheel speed and single average RMS envelope value of braking acceleration signals is
slip ratio. The wheel speed and brake pressure are measured as obtained by using Eq.6 as shown in Table 5.
Also, the relative difference between measured and nominal
braking distances is evaluated as follows:
Table 5
Root Mean Square results of braking acceleration dm  dn
Dd ¼ ð15Þ
Tests Braking time [s] 2
RMS of braking acceleration [m/s ]
dm
30 km/h Case 1 1.4760 6.2144 where dm and dn are respectively measured and nominal braking
Case 2 2.4750 3.4782 distances. Therefore, the changes in braking distance are deter-
Case 3 1.7490 5.0381
Case 4 2.1120 3.9395
mined according to braking distance which is obtained with non-
60 km/h Case 1 2.6290 6.4399 locking wheel without ABS. Maximum values of measured and
Case 2 4.9600 3.2506 nominal braking distances are shown in Table 6. Here, nominal
Case 3 3.7470 3.550 braking distances are obtained by using Eq. (5) with RMS value of
Case 4 3.8060 4.1629
braking acceleration given in Table 5.
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Fig. 6. Brake pedal force results for Case 1.

pressure causes the wheels to lock once at the beginning of braking

Fig. 7. The signs of yaw rate.
The braking distances given in Table 6 are employed for two dif-
ferent analyses. The first of them provides to occur how the vehicle
speed changes according to measured braking distance. Also, it
determines decrease rate of vehicle speed with respect to the brak-
ing distance. The second one enables to compare measured braking
distance with nominal braking distance.
5.1. The performance of ABS controller for Case 1
The brake pressure, wheel speed and slip ratio results of case 1
are shown in Fig. 8.
According to Fig. 8a, the brake pressure applied at low speed
reaches to the highest level at longer time period than that of high
speed. This indicates that the low speed causes brake pressure to
reach more slowly to the highest level. The slow build-up in brake
and the wheel to suddenly approach the locking limit two times at
the end of braking with low speed as shown in Fig. 8b and c.
Nevertheless, the wheel locking does not occur at the beginning
of braking with ABS at high speed and the wheel approaches the
locking limit only once in short time period at the end of braking.
The vehicle speed remains almost constant at speed range 9–
6 m/s or 32–22 km/h under effect of these variations, Then, low
speed leads to sudden reductions in the vehicle speed with respect
to braking distance at speed range 5–0 m/s or 18–0 km/h as shown
in Fig. 9 with circle. When Fig. 9 is compared with Fig. 8b and c, it is
clearly seen that this discordance results from the wheel locking or
sudden reductions in wheel speed due to high slip ratio.
On the other hand, high speed provides softer changes in vehi-
cle speed, as braking distance increases during ABS braking. This
provides the vehicle speed to come more stable to the zero with
high speed as shown in Fig. 9.
As shown in Fig. 10, the interaction between vehicle speed and
braking distance causes to increase the braking distance by
41.80% at low speed, however; the braking distance increases
only 22.66% with high speed on wet road. This result clearly
shows that a bad accordance of low braking initial speed to brak-
ing distance causes the braking distance to be longer 19.14% than
that of high speed.
At low speed, the yaw rate mostly takes negative value. This
shows that according to Eq. (4), the braking pressure of front right
wheel remains higher than that of front left wheel due to low
speed. This continues throughout braking with activated ABS on
wet road. Thus, it is clearly seen that the wheel locking leads to
the yaw oscillations due to the discordance, when the Fig. 11 is
compared with Fig. 8b.
In addition, low speed causes more yaw motion per unit time
and yaw effect continues in longer time as shown in Fig. 10 with
circle. However, if the vehicle is braked with ABS at high speed
on wet road, the difference between front and rear brake pressures

Table 6
Measured and nominal braking distances for all cases

Tests Measured braking distance [m] Nominal braking distance [m] Difference of Braking Distances [%]
30 km/h Case 1 9.5546 5.5600 41.80
Case 2 12.1600 9.9270 18.36
Case 3 10.2200 6.8534 32.94
Case 4 10.3600 8.7800 15.25
60 km/h Case 1 27.7300 21.4463 22.66
Case 2 44.9600 42.4882 5.49
Case 3 43.5700 38.9040 10.70
Case 4 33.1900 30.9655 6.70

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Fig. 8. Test results of Case 1.

Fig. 9. Vehicle speed vs. braking distance for case 1. Fig. 10. Comparison of braking distances for case 1.

decreases and thus the level of yaw rate oscillations reduces as

shown in Fig. 11. This is provided, since the wheels are not locked 5.2. The performance of ABS controller for Case 2
during braking with ABS at high speed as shown in Fig. 8b. This
shows that the steering control of vehicle is more difficult due to The results of case 2 are shown in Fig. 12. As shown in Fig. 12a,
low speed during braking with activated ABS. the brake pressure varies in more cycles than that of wet road, irre-

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it provides the wheel to be braked two times at the locking limit

as shown in Fig. 12b and c.
Therefore, the vehicle slightly accelerates at speed range 7.5–
7 m/s or 27–25 km/h under effects of low braking initial speed.
This causes the traveled distance to increase with respect to vehi-
cle speed during ABS-braking as shown in Fig. 12 with circle.
Then, vehicle rapidly slows at speed range 3-0 m/s or 11-0 km/h
with low speed as shown in Fig. 13. This discordance between
vehicle speed and braking distance results from the sudden reduc-
tions in wheel speed or wheel locking as shown in Fig. 12b and 13
with circle.
Fig. 11. Yaw rate results for case 1. Nevertheless, high speed provides the vehicle to slow with
braking distance at same rate during ABS braking. This is provided
spective of braking initial speed. Under effects of these brake pres-
by unlocked wheel thanks to low slip ratio as shown in Fig. 12b and
sure variations, low speed leads the wheel to lock three times as
13.
shown in Fig. 12b and c with circle. Moreover, the wheel locking
These discordances at low speed lead to increase the braking
continues in longer time period at end of braking. Nevertheless,
distance by 18.36%, however; the braking distance increases only
the high speed locks wheel only once in short time period. Also,

Fig. 12. Test results of Case 2.

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H. Koylu and E. Tural
Fig. 13. Vehicle speed vs. braking distance for case 2.
5.49% at high braking initial speed during braking with ABS on slip-
pery road as shown in Fig. 14.
As shown in Fig. 15, the differences between the braking pres-
sures of front left and right cause to gradually increase yaw rate
and resulted in severe yaw oscillations at low braking initial speed.
However, there is a little difference between the right and left
brake pressures at high braking initial speed, although the wheel
approaches to the locking limit. Therefore, it was seen that the
yaw rate oscillations are caused by sudden reductions in wheel
speed with low speed, when the Fig. 15 is compared with
Fig. 11b. Nevertheless, high braking initial speed provides
smoother yaw rate variations than low speed during ABS braking
on slippery road as shown in Fig. 15.
5.3. The performance of ABS controller for Case 3
The results of case 3 are given in Fig. 16.
The brake pressure rising time is longer than that of slippery
road due to low speed as shown in Fig. 16a with circle. This clearly
shows that low speed obtains accordance of brake pressure to road
transition (m-jump) in longer time.
As shown in Fig. 16a, the brake pressure of low speed causes the
wheels to come too close to the locking limit and it sometimes
causes the wheels to lock for a very long time in spite of low level
brake pressure as shown in Fig. 16b and c. Also, the brake pressure
which is applied at high speed causes the wheels to lock very long
time during the first pass from wet road part to the slippery road
part. However, the brake pressure of high speed holds the wheel
speeds at lower level without locking when the wheels instantly
pass onto slippery road part as shown in Fig. 16b and c. Thus, the
brake pressure of high speed provides the wheels to be more effec-
tively braked by decreasing sudden drops in wheel speed.
Fig. 14. Comparison of braking distances for case 2.
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Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 24 (2021) 1224–1238
As shown in Fig. 17, the vehicle accelerates at speed range 7,5–
6 m/s or 27–22 km/h instead of deceleration during ABS-braking
with low speed. This causes the traveled distance to greatly
increase in same speed range. Then, vehicle rapidly slows with
respect to braking distance at speed range 3–0 m/s or 11–0 km/h
with low speed as shown in Fig. 17 with circle. This shows that
there is no accordance of low speed to braking distance.
Nevertheless, high speed provides vehicle speed to reduce at
beginning of ABS-braking. Also, the decreasing tendency of vehicle
speed is continued until the end of braking maneuver. This is pro-
vided by unlocked wheel as shown in Fig. 16b and c. However, it is
considerable point that the increases in vehicle speed can occur
due to sudden reductions in wheel speed during braking with ABS.
These discordances at low speed lead to increase the braking
distance by 32.94%, however; the braking distance increases only
10.70% at high speed during braking with ABS as shown in Fig. 18.
As shown in Figs. 19, 1 and 2 indicates a moment of transition
from wet road to slippery road at low and high speeds,
respectively.
Therefore, the low speed causes unstable yaw rate oscillations
during transition from wet road to slippery road as shown in
Fig. 19 with circle 1. These oscillations are caused by the increasing
wheel locking as shown in Fig. 16b. Also, the long-time wheel lock-
ing occurring at the end of braking increases the oscillations as
shown in Fig. 19 with circle 3. However, high speed decreases these
oscillations during transition from wet road to slippery road as
shown in Fig. 19 with circle 2. This shows that low speed causes
to more discordance than that of other roads. Thus, low speed
makes the steering control much more difficult during transition
from wet road to slippery road.
5.4. The performance of ABS controller for Case 4
The results of case 4 are given in Fig. 20. Therefore, when the
wheels are on slippery road part with both low and high speeds,
the brake pressure is kept at low level as shown in Fig. 20a.
The brake pressures of low speed cause the wheels to lock due
to sudden increases in brake pressure, soon after the wheels pass
onto wet road part as shown in Fig. 20b. However, the low speed
provides the wheels to be effectively braked at locking limit at
the end of ABS-braking maneuver as shown in Fig. 20b and c. As
shown in Fig. 20a, high speed keeps the brake pressure at low level
at beginning of ABS-braking on slippery road part. Nevertheless,
when the front wheels pass onto wet road part, the brake pressure
is increased in much longer time than that of low speed. Therefore,
the brake pressure of high speed enables the wheels to be braked
without locking by keeping the slip ratio at low level during all
H. Koylu and E. Tural Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 24 (2021) 1224–1238

Fig. 15. Yaw rate results for case 2.

Fig. 16. Test results of Case 3.

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H. Koylu and E. Tural
Fig. 17. Vehicle speed vs. braking distance for case 3.
Fig. 18. Comparison of braking distances for case 3.
braking maneuver as shown in Fig. 19b and c. Also, the brake pres-
sure with long time ensures the vehicle and wheel speeds to
decrease at same rate, just when the wet road is passed with high
speed.
The vehicle properly slows with respect to braking distance at
the beginning of ABS-braking on slippery road with low speed.
However, the wheel locking occurring with low speed causes
the vehicle speed to rapidly decrease with respect to braking dis-
tance due to the transition to wet road. High speed provides the
vehicle speed to decrease with braking distance in same rate
throughout braking with ABS as shown in Fig. 21. Therefore, the
braking distance increases by 15.25% with low speed, however;
high speed increases braking distance only 6.70% during braking
with ABS as shown in Fig. 22.
As shown in Figs. 23, 1 and 2 represent a moment of transition
from slippery road to wet road at low and high speeds, respec-
tively. Therefore, the low speed causes unstable yaw rate oscilla-
tions in short time period during transition.
However, the yaw rate oscillations considerably decrease after
the wet road is passed during ABS-braking. In here, it remarkable
Fig. 19. Yaw rate results for case 3.
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Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 24 (2021) 1224–1238
point that the wheel locking causes yaw rate to remain at high
level as shown in Fig. 23 and 20b with circle 2. The yaw rate oscil-
lations of high speed are considerably lower than that of low speed
as shown in Fig. 22. Also, the yaw rate results are greatly decreased
with high speed at the moment of transition to wet road and later.
6. Conclusions
In this study, effects of low braking initial speed on control,
braking and stability performances of ABS are experimentally
investigated. The experimental results were examined for four dif-
ferent road types at two different vehicle speeds.
Therefore, the control performance results show that the wheel
locks, which arose from the brake pressure level which is not suit-
able to rotational speed of the wheel, decrease the control perfor-
mance due to brake pressure response time which is not suitable to
the drops in wheel speed during braking with low speed. However,
high speed provides the better control performance than that of
low speed by means of short wheel locks or unlocked wheels with
the brake pressure applied in shorter time at higher level.
As for the braking performance, the results show that the
decreases in vehicle speed were insufficient to obtain necessary
shortening of braking distance at low speed. This causes the vehicle
to stop at much longer distance than that required by measured
braking acceleration. Nevertheless, high speed provided the vehicle
to stop at shorter distance than that of low speed by obtaining the
accordance between vehicle speed and braking distance.
Also, the test results of braking stability performance show that
the low speed worsens the stability due to short and long wheel
locks which make steering control difficult and increase steering
effort, whereas one of the most important functions of ABS is to
prevent the wheels from locking and to provide steering control
during braking. Thus, this clearly shows that ABS does not perform
function properly. These deteriorations in the braking stability
demonstrated themselves in form of sudden changes in yaw rate
and a long-time yaw rate effect.
As a result, the discordancy between the level and response
time of brake pressure is main source for bad performances of
low braking initial speed. This clearly shows that weak wheel
speed signals, fast slip dynamics, prolonged delays in brake pres-
sure due to pumping losses and insufficient response time of valve
greatly deteriorate braking stability and braking performance
through bad control performance of ABS, irrespective of road
conditions.
For this reason, it is proposed that ABS control algorithm must
be divided in two parts as low and high speed control. In here, high
speed control should depend on slip ratio as classical algorithm of
ABS. However, low speed control should not depend on wheel
speed signals and slip ratio. The braking must be controlled with
the vehicle speed which is determined through braking accelera-
H. Koylu and E. Tural Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 24 (2021) 1224–1238

Fig. 20. Test results of Case 4.

Fig. 21. Vehicle speed vs. braking distance for case 4.

Fig. 22. Comparison of braking distances for case 4.

tion. The braking acceleration is already available in control unit of
ABS to compute dynamic axle loads. Therefore, no additional sen-
sors will be needed to obtain vehicle speed from braking
acceleration.
For this, firstly the vehicle speed threshold which readable
wheel speed signals are obtained should be determined. After that,
the brake pressure variations should be designed for lower vehicle
speeds than the threshold. Therefore, the brake pressure is modu-
lated according to the first vehicle speed, when the measured vehi-
cle speed is lower than the threshold. Then, the vehicle speed

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H. Koylu and E. Tural
Fig. 23. Yaw rate results for case 4.
reduces in linear rate at low speed, soon after the first brake pres-
sure modulation. Thus, the brake pressure is modulated according
to the reduction in vehicle speed.
In the low speed control, it is considerable point that the vehicle
speed should be tracked to change the brake pressure until the
vehicle speed which high speed control is activated.
Therefore, further study will be realized for developing the low
speed control algorithm according to vehicle speed.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This study was funded by the Grants from The Scientific and
Technological Research Council of Turkey (Project No.
113 M421). Also, these projects were supported by Hurmoglu Egi-
tim Danısßmanlık (HED) Academy company. The authors are
pleased to thank the individuals who contributed to this study.
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Hakan Koylu was born in Adana in 1973. He is Associate Professor at the depart-
ment of Automotive Engineering of Faculty of Technology in Kocaeli University. His
research areas of interest include the performance of the suspension, brake, steering
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Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 24 (2021) 1224–1238
and powertrain systems. Also, he worked in TUBITAK (The Scientific and Techno-
logical Research Council of Turkey) projects related to vehicle dynamics as a
assistant researcher.
Ersin Tural was born in Istanbul in 1990. He completed his primary and secondary
education in Kocaeli. He graduated in 2012 from Department of Mechanical Engi-
neering of Kocaeli University Engineering Faculty entered in 2008. At the beginning
of 2013–2014 academic year, he started his graduate education Department of
Automotive Engineering and completed master’s degree in fall semester of 2016. In
the spring semester of 2016, he started his Ph.D. Since February 2014, he has been
working as a research assistant in the Department of Automotive Engineering at
Kocaeli University, Faculty of Technology.