Meritor has seen the future of braking systems and it doesn’t include S-cam brakes controlled by a supply of air. The stopping power of tomorrow is lightweight, electronic and fully integrated into the vehicle’s operating system.

Within a decade, that could mean more automated braking, and by 2015 Meritor plans to have a “super-efficient” stopping system that reaches far beyond what most truckers think of when they refer to brakes.

“It is safe to say that the accelerated pace of change in stopping systems will result in some exciting innovations in the next few years,” said Walter Frankiewicz, vice-president and general manager, worldwide braking systems, during a recent presentation to the trade press. “Ten years from now the system is going to be a lot different from what it is today. Brakes aren’t going to come on, necessarily, when the driver puts his foot on the brake pedal.”

Although much of this new braking technology already exists, Frankiewicz was quick to add that the industry has a long way to go in terms of acceptance before the “super-efficient” stopping system is a reality. In the meantime, an element that should have no problem gaining acceptance is lightweight components. Frankiewicz said that lightweight drums currently account for 20 per cent of the North American market, but Meritor expects that level of penetration to “increase significantly” over the next several years.

In addition, Frankiewicz announced that Meritor plans to put a new lightweight hub, called the DaytonLite Hub, into production later this year. Made of ductile iron, the DaytonLite design incorporates improved casting and machining to achieve a hub that is 20 per cent lighter than a standard ductile iron hub and 50 per cent stronger than aluminum hubs.

Given the increasing pressure on carriers to lower operating costs, Frankiewicz believes lightweight brake and wheel components will soon overcome the cost/benefit barrier.

“These lightweight components together add up to more than 300 lb. of weight savings on the typical tractor-trailer combination,” he said. “The cost savings for a typical tractor-trailer combination in a year amounts to over $2,000, easily justifying the expense of the lightweight components.”

Air-disc brakes are another braking technology facing hurdles to acceptance in North America. Ultimately, however, Frankiewicz believes that the inherent performance advantages of air-disc brakes will lead to their adoption for many heavy truck applications here. And their use will likely be driven by more stringent federal brake performance standards that will bring stopping distances for trucks more in line with stopping distances for passenger vehicles, he said.

Another problem dogging air-disc brake technology is the “non-compatibility” issue that exists between tractors with disc brakes that are matched with trailers with drum brakes. When you couple a disc-braked tractor that has new tires, with a drum-braked trailer with worn tires, there is a greater potential for jackknifes. At the very least, the disc brakes in such a situation tend to wear out more quickly than they should, because they’re handling more than their share of the stopping power. The key to solving this problem, according to Paul Johnston, Meritor’s director of engineering, will come with the advent of more advanced electronic braking systems, or EBS.

In addition to enabling the adoption of air-disc brakes, EBS will also usher in a new era of maintenance “prognostics”, Johnston said. Rather than conducting visual inspections to detect worn or faulty brake mechanisms, EBS will use electronic sensors to predict when brakes need servicing. In fact, he said, future systems will have the ability to notify a fleet service centre in advance, via satellite, that the brakes on a certain truck need attention.

Indeed, the next generation of electronic technologies for trucks will enable braking systems to achieve something Meritor calls “orchestrated slowing and stopping”. At the core of this approach is something called “multiplexed electronics vehicle architecture”, which is essentially a local area network, or LAN, that links all of the various control systems on the vehicle. A central on-board computer constantly monitors the information coming from the bus, and then instantly chooses the most efficient and stable means of slowing or stopping the vehicle given the outside conditions, whether or not the brake pedal is applied by the driver, said Denny Sandberg, president of Meritor Wabco Vehicle Control Systems, describing the braking system of the future.

“It might mean shifting to a lower gear. It might mean modulating an engine or driveline retarder. It might mean reducing the engine RPM, or it might mean applying the foundation brakes,” he said. “You can imagine what kind of dramatic effect this can have on the overall wear and tear and performance of the brakes.”