Abstract: Eddy current brake equipment includes a stator assembly and a rotor assembly adapted to be mounted on a transmission shaft of a vehicle. One of those assemblies includes inductor windings and the other assembly includes an armature facing the inductor windings. The inductor windings are selectively excited from an electricity source of the vehicle in response to a power feed setting. A processor is provided to estimate the braking torque that the equipment can provide as a function of the speed of rotation of the rotor assembly, of the temperature armature, and of the temperature of the inductor windings, and of at least one value for the power feed setting.

Abstract: The equipment comprises control device that establish a power feed setting for selectively exciting the stator windings as a function of the position of a control lever while also taking the temperature of the rotor armature into account. This temperature is evaluated in real time by a processor included in the control device. At each evaluation instant, the computation variables comprise the speed of rotation of the rotor, the power feed setting, the temperature of the armature as obtained for the preceding evaluation instant, and optionally the temperature of the stator. The invention can be used to make better use of the electrical power delivered to the stator while avoiding the need to measure armature temperature directly.

Abstract: A vehicle brake system incorporating an anti-locking device for the wheels and a retarder (4) with monitored actuation of the type wherein actuation of the retarder is prohibited at least from the moment a request for regulation is sent to the anti-locking device (5) for the wheels. The system also includes an arrangement for re-enabling the restarting of the retarder adapted to provide re-enabling of this restarting only from the moment a new request for braking is made.