Modeling and control of an electro-***mechanical brake-by-wire actuator for a sport motorbike

In this paper the control of the pressure inside the rear brake hydraulic circuit of a sport motorbike is considered. A newly-designed electro-***mechanical actuator, controlled by a dedicated ECU, is capable of properly moving the piston inside the brake master cylinder and is used to achieve the control purpose. In particular, this paper proposes a third-order linear model for the hydraulic braking system and formalizes its theoretical derivation. Furthermore, the work points out the relevance of friction inside the master cylinder chamber and discusses a technique to compensate its negative effects. The pressure control system is designed referring to the braking system linear model properly identified. The performances of such a controller are assessed on the instrumented motorbike.