Wireless Braking System For Bicycles Offers 99.999% Safety. W00t!

University Of Saarland hosts computer science engineers who do not like to wait, especially after applying the brakes to bicycles. They want the bicycles to stop within milliseconds and have developed a wireless braking system that lets them do it in around 250 milliseconds. The scientists recently demonstrated the reliability of this new cable free braking system through mathematical calculations (no we aren't posting them here) which are also used in control systems for aircrafts and in chemical factories. Prof. Holger Hermanns, chairman of Dependable Systems and Software developed the system. He believes that the trend is to study, design and setup a wireless systems that must work all the time. The system that he developed is 99.999999999997 % reliable meaning, out of a trillion braking attempts, the system would fail only three times; which he thinks, is acceptable.

 


Computer scientist Holger Hermanns presents the wireless bicycle brake at Saarland University.

To brake your bike with this system, all you have to do is clench your grip on the bike's rubber handles. The tighter your grip is, the harder the disk brakes the front wheel. Prof. Hermanns has mounted a sensor under the rubber grip that sends the signal to a receiver mounted on the bike's fork. The receiver then activates the actuator which operates the disk brake. In order to make the system more reliable, the signal is sent multiple times. Prof. Hermanns says that if the senders are not configured properly, the failure rate could be as high as 3 out of 5 times. With the current system, the bike rider riding at 30 kmph would have to initiate the braking action at least 2 meters away from the obstacle or the deadline. However Prof. Hermanns and his team of engineers is now looking to integrate an anti-lock braking system and traction control.

We are impressed!

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