The overview of the main engineering events of 2022 is somewhat heterogeneous. The Best of Tech by FormulaPassion includes experiments in the field of hydrogen combustion such as the one conducted by Porsche, the optimization of pre-chamber combustion by Italtecnica, Hyundai’s vision of a hydrogen fuel-cell coupled with a battery system and Ferrari’s advances in the field of active suspensions with Purosangue. Above all, however, stands out the progress of the Brembo Sensify projectannounced for the first time to the general public in October 2021 and which immediately positioned itself as the greatest novelty capable of revolutionizing the architecture of the automobile as it is currently known.
During 2022 FormulaPassion he had the opportunity to speak directly with the project’s technical managers, learning new interesting details on Brembo’s greatest innovation in recent years. Sensify looks like the extremes of a brake-by-wire system, distinguished by the presence of an electric motor integrated in each wheel unit, ensuring the independent actuation of each caliper by means of a mechanical transmission or a small local hydraulic circuit. Traditional brake-by-wire systems, on the contrary, are characterized by a centralized architecture, i.e. in which the actuation point is still located on the edge of the body, putting a hydraulic circuit under pressure which subsequently divides into ramifications, which is why the control of two or more brakes is concentrated in a single component upstream of the system. Sensify comes up with instead a distributed logicboth in terms of implementation, with four actuators each dedicated to a single wheel group, and of control strategies.
The great novelty proposed by Brembo is in fact the independent control of each braking unitwith the possibility of full-fledged implementation torque-vectoring logics, i.e. continuous distribution of the braking torque between the four wheels. The control can take into account countless parameters, including grip, yaw, steering angle, weight distribution, brake temperatures and more. The absence of solenoid valves is what differentiates Sensify from traditional systems, where instead the action is taken by pressure jumps, i.e. in which the distribution of the braking torque is not continuous and unlimited, but rather bound to discrete intervals. Furthermore, by directly controlling the single caliper, Brembo is able to reduce the residual braking torque down to values around 0.5 Nm, to the advantage of energy consumption and wear of the friction material, taking into account in the latter case also of the local temperature. All this, combined with the absence of hydraulic fluid or its presence in minimal quantities, reduces vehicle maintenance costs for the consumer, as well as production costs. However, the main advantage of Sensify is in response times, with a time to lock between 100 and 120 ms, half compared to traditional systems, all for the benefit of safety. The development of a similar system inevitably also required various precautions to guarantee its reliability. Inside each of the four control units dedicated to the actuation of the grippers there is a switch which allows the system to juggle between a dual power supply in the event of a failure of one of the two, a solution which obviously also implies a redundancy of the batteries.
The technological relevance of Sensify is demonstrated by thevery high interest from manufacturers, placing itself as a turning point in the evolution of braking systems and the automobile. In fact, Brembo anticipates the road that will lead to an increasingly decentralized vehicle architecture, in which the wheels will always act as independent modules, each including engine, brake, steering, suspension and transmission, also with a view to the diffusion of autonomous driving in the long-term future. The project is currently being taken in hand from an application point of view, with the arrival on the market expected between the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025. Although the first presentation to the public dates back to October 2021, the new details leaked during the last calendar year and the progress of the project rightfully place Sensify among the most interesting engineering events of 2022.
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