Industry : Automotive

Category : Turn-key solution

The Challenge :
To develop a cost-effective, robust and highly flexible series of networked test systems for heavy vehicle braking components such as air distribution systems, brake chambers, hand brakes and foot brakes.

Technology :

Hardware : NI PXI/Compact PCI, DAQ modules
Software   : LabVIEW

The Solution:

Our customer, a leading manufacturer of braking systems worldwide needed automated test rigs to test the components in their braking systems. The tests involved measuring leakage in the components, testing component characteristics and simulating fail conditions and checking the response of the component. The system was designed to effectively integrate the requirements for flexibility and real-time response. The test system acquired the signals from various sensors, processed them and provided real-time control to the solenoid valves and servo drives. In addition, it allowed the operators to configure the test sequences in order to have completely control over the test of the component, perform manual test for trouble shooting the system and perform auto test for better analysis.

Engineering Challenges:

• Flexibility – The customer anticipated the release of new models and hence the test sequences could not be precisely determined. Therefore the customer wanted the systems to be designed such that their test engineers could modify the entire test sequences without any involvement from the programmers.
• Performance – The test system had to be designed with control loops to deterministically execute while at the same time servicing the user interface and the Ethernet communications.
• Safety – The system had to be designed to run safety logic in parallel to ensure system and human safety.

Value Addition :

• Cost-effective – The system helped saved 45% on costs when compared to an alternative system.
• Throughput – The system helped the customer achieve a performance which was 3 times higher than what the alternative system offered.
• Data traceability – The entire set of seven test rigs for the different components was networked through a LAN which enabled centralized data storage in order to ensure data traceability and easy access.

Commendation :

The above application is featured on the National Instruments Website.
http://sine.ni.com/cs/app/doc/p/id/cs-636