The conventional and current practice of runway condition monitoring has been focused on identifying the maximum tire-pavement frictional drag ( "mu" value) and often neglected the characteristics of actual aircraft braking systems as well as the comprehensive effects coming from various factors such as deformable contaminants on the winter runway. The braking availability tester (BAT) is designed to take a different approach for the realistic assessment of braking availability of landing airplanes. The main idea of the BAT is to mimic the braking operation of actual aircrafts as closely as possible by incorporating the same brake mechanism and the antiskid braking system (ABS) used in existing aircrafts. In doing so, the BAT also incorporates a suite of sensors for monitoring the status of braking operation in real time.
System overview
Operation of BAT on slush road
Video created for OCE (Ontario Centers of Excellence) student video competition
This research has been conducted in collaboration with Prof. Hyock-Ju Kwon, Prof. Susan Tighe in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Team Eagle Ltd.
Related publication
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Joshi, K. ., Jeon, S. ., Kwon, H.-J. ., & Tighe, S. . (2013). Braking Availability Tester for Realistic Assessment of Aircraft Landing Distance on Winter Runways. Journal of Aerospace Engineering, 28, 04014089.