Automotive testing is a crucial and time-demanding step that every automotive OEM must undergo to deploy reliable and safe new products on the global market. Meccanica42, an Italian automotive test company, has developed a prototype electric vehicle that can be used to test OEM’s new components directly on a vehicle so that a remarkable amount of time can be saved by cutting down the time spent on static, off-vehicle tests. Meccanica42 is now working on a novel control algorithm that can simulate the feeling of an ordinary brake system to be deployed in the electric prototype vehicle’s brake-by-wire system.

This Thesis work focuses on the development of a Simscape plant model that has been used to test the novel control algorithm before it is deployed in the prototype. The plant model has been only partially validated against experimental tests on a custom test bench since the global shortage of electronic components did not allow to build the complete test bench.

Finally, different tests have been done on the control algorithm once it has been hooked up to the partially validated plant model. The tests mainly underlined that the algorithm could be improved by including in itself the brushless DC motor driver instead of relying on third-party drivers to control the DC motor. The tests showed a possible instability at high frequency above 2 Hz that needs to be investigated.