Scientists Present Their Concept for a Wireless Bicycle Brake

Reaching 99.999999999997 Percent Safety: Computer Scientists Present Their Concept for a Wireless Bicycle Brake

 

The cruiser bike is more similar to an Easy Rider motorcycle without an engine block than it is to a traditional bike. However, looking at the straight, elongated stem, it is readily apparent what makes the newly developed system so special. The bicycle has neither a protruding brake lever to control the front brake, nor a brake cable snaking down the frame.

But the wireless bicycle brake represents much more than just an academic gadget to the scientists. Professor Holger Hermanns, who holds the chair of Dependable Systems and Software, and who developed the wireless bicycle brake together with his group, explains: "Wireless networks are never a fail-safe method. That's a fact that's based on a technological background." Nonetheless, the trend is to set up wireless systems that, like a simple bicycle brake, have to function all the time.

"In the field of the future European Train Service, for example, concrete plans already exist," Hermanns reports. Furthermore, he says that train and airplane experiments are far too sophisticated, and could even endanger the life of human beings in case of malfunction. Therefore, the Saarland computer scientist's mathematical methods should now verify the correct function and interaction of the components automatically. "The wireless bicycle brake gives us the necessary playground to optimize these methods for operation in much more complex systems," Hermanns adds. Therefore, his research group examines the brake prototype with algorithms that normally are used in control systems for aircraft or chemical factories. As a result, they found out that the brake works with 99.999999999997 percent reliability. "This implies that out of a trillion braking attempts, we have three failures," Hermanns explains and concludes: "That is not perfect, but acceptable."

source: science daily