New frontiers for brake technology

Installation space is a case in point. In mobile and autonomous systems, brakes must fit into ever smaller spaces while meeting growing demands for higher power density, lower weight and greater energy efficiency. They must combine a low-profile, lightweight design with large inner diameters while still reliably delivering the required braking torque. Meeting these competing requirements calls for new approaches to magnetic circuits, materials and the overall system.

Where space is tight and demands are high

The challenge intensifies in battery-powered platforms. Weight and energy consumption are becoming key design criteria, while drive concepts, installation spaces and assembly processes vary considerably. The brake therefore increasingly needs to fit the overall system, rather than the other way around. In automated guided vehicles and mobile robots, static and dynamic braking torques must also remain within clearly defined minimum and maximum limits. Kendrion meets these requirements through application-oriented testing, drawing on its own laboratory facilities and many years of application expertise.

New extremes call for new technical solutions

Extreme environments place further demands on brake technology. In aerospace applications, brakes face vacuum, radiation, material outgassing, significant temperature fluctuations, and limited heat dissipation. Under these conditions, established materials and organic friction linings can reach their limits. This calls for alternative materials, adapted insulation systems and new approaches to thermal design, or even fundamentally new brake solutions.

"Requirements for spring-applied brakes are becoming more diverse. It is therefore essential not only to develop technologies for today's applications, but also to incorporate the requirements of future markets into development and testing at an early stage," says Waldemar Schaermann, Product Manager at Kendrion.

Kendrion systematically aligns its development projects, testing procedures and laboratory expansion with requirements from new application areas. Its technology roadmap also accounts for requirements expected to become relevant to the market in two to five years. The aim is to prepare brake technologies for these future markets at an early stage.