ABS ( Anti-Lock Brake System)

Early ABS

Anti-lock braking systems were first developed for aircraft in 1929, by the French automobile and aircraft pioneer, Gabriel Voisin, as threshold braking an airplane is nearly impossible. An early system was Dunlop's Maxaret system, introduced in the 1950s and still in use on some aircraft models.

In 1958 a Royal Enfield Super Meteor motorcycle was used by the Road Research Laboratory to test the Maxaret anti-lock brake.^[2] The Maxaret works by detecting rapid decelerations of the wheel that may cause it to lock and releases and re-appllies hydraulic pressure to the brake several times a second, keeping the average braking effort at the maximum that can be used by the road surface and tyre combination. The experiments demonstrated that anti-lock brakes could be of great value on motorcycles, where skidding is involved in a high proportion of accidents. Stopping distances were reduced in almost all the tests, compared with locked wheel braking, but particularly on slippery surfaces, where the improvement could be as much as 30 percent. Enfield's Technical Director at the time, Tony Wilson-Jones saw little future in the system, however, and it was not put into production by the company.^[2]

A fully mechanical system saw limited automobile use in the 1960s in the Ferguson P99 racing car, the Jensen FF and the experimental all wheel drive Ford Zodiac, but saw no further use; the system proved expensive and, in automobile use, somewhat unreliable.

[edit] Modern ABS

Chrysler, together with the Bendix Corporation, introduced a true computerized three-channel all-wheel antilock brake system called "Sure Brake" on the 1971 Imperial.^[3] It was available for several years thereafter, functioned as intended, and proved reliable. General Motors introduced the "Trackmaster" rear-wheel (only) ABS as an option on their Rear-wheel drive Cadillac models in 1971.^[4][5]

In 1975, Robert Bosch took over a European company called Teldix (contraction of Telefunken and Bendix) and all the patents registered by this joint-venture and took advantage out of this acquisition to build the base of the system introduced on the market some years later. The German firms Bosch and Mercedes-Benz had been co-developing anti-lock braking technology since the 1970s, and introduced the first completely electronic 4-wheel multi-channel ABS system in trucks and the Mercedes-Benz S-Class in 1978. The Honda NSX was the first to mass produced automobile with the modern 4-channel ABS system sold in the United States and Japan, it applies individual brake pressure to each of the four wheels.

In addition, ABS is now gaining popularity on Heavy-duty trucks.