Automotive Engineering - February 2025 - 8

TECHNOLOGY
REPORT
CES 2025
Bosch goes right with wrong-way alerts, racing hand control
Paul Thomas,
president of Bosch
in North America,
speaks at CES 2025 in
Las Vegas.
SAE INTERNATIONAL
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Robert Ireland
President
Jenny Bush
2026 President
Carla Bailo
2024 President
Christopher Payne
Vice President - Aerospace
Alba Colon
Vice President - Automotive
Audley Brown
Vice President -
Commercial Vehicle
David Andrea
Treasurer
Bosch North America took to CES 2025 with
positive messages about its safety, accessibility
and AI technologies, which it said will impact
both the people who drive vehicles with its
hardware and software inside and those might
be watching such a vehicle from the bleachers.
A racecar that would fit Into that latter category
might use the new hand brake controls
that Bosch developed along with motorsport
race driver Robert Wickens. Wickens was badly
hurt in a crash in 2018 but has since returned to
racing using vehicles with hand controls. Wickens
uses the new hand brakes in the Hyundai Elantra
N TCR he drives for Bryan Herta Autosport, but
they are an updated version of the electric brake
system Bosch supplies for the LMDh class. Based
on brake-by-wire technology, the hand brakes
have software that balances the braking torque
from the motor and the traditional hydraulic
brakes. Bespoke software also allows Wickens to
use the brakes with his pre-existing hand controls,
translating pressure signals into actual
breaking events. Jacob Bergenske, Bosch's director
of motorsport for NorthAmerica, told SAE
Media that the engineering team is still improving
the feel in the controls.
" It's amazing the perception that a human
has through touch, " he said. " The more that
[Wickens] can perceive that threshold of
breaking in his hands, and we can give the
proper kind of feedback, the faster he's gonna
be. Where we're at right now is a massive step
forward from what he had with his previous
system. In certain events, we have literally 10x
8 February 2025
improved in responsiveness. "
In 2025, Wickens will make his debut in
IMSA's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship
with a Corvette Z06 GT3.R that will use a newer
iteration of the hand brake system.
Bergenske said the software learnings that the
team made on this project could be used to
make better hand brake controls for others.
" This is not just about Robert, " he said. " It's
about providing people opportunities who never
thought that they would have had those opportunities
before, people who never thought
they would be able to drive a high-performance
race car because they have a disability.
The right move on wrong-way driving
At the same press event at CES, Paul Thomas,
president of Bosch North America, announced
that the company's wrong-way driver warning
system will likely be coming to the new SiriusXM
Connect mobile safety app in the near future. The
reasons this technology would be beneficial are
obvious, Thomas said, since there were over 700
wrong-way driving fatalities recorded in 2022,
according to data from the U.S. Federal Highway
Administration (FHA). The FHA has been concerned
about wrong-way driving since at least
2012, when it published the results of a study conducted
with the Michigan Department of
Transportation (MDOT) that found that darkness
and driver impairment resulted in higher wrongway
drivers and that wrong-way crashes were
" highly severe. " The study found that 32% of
wrong-way crashes resulted in at least one fatality
Dr. Jacqueline El-Sayed
Chief Executive Officer
Gregory L. Bradley, Esq.
Secretary
Judy Curran
Mary Lee Gambone
Daniel Nicholson
Michele Kaiser
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AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
STEVE FECHT
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Automotive Engineering - February 2025

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