The Electronic Stability Program (ESP®) was premiered in an S-Class in 1995.
Professor Fritz Nallinger, chief engineer and member of the board of management of Daimler-Benz AG, filed a patent back in 1959 for a "control system" designed to prevent drive wheels from spinning through intervention in the engine, transmission or brakes.
The engineers at Mercedes-Benz then decided to take things further: their next objective was to improve driving safety in all situations - that is, in bends, during evasive manoeuvres or in connection with other vehicle movements involving levels of lateral dynamics which harbour a high risk of skidding. An ambitious development project was duly launched: under the working title "transversal slip control", the engineers sounded out technical means of detecting a passenger car's skidding motions and reducing such motions through specific intervention in the suspension, engine and transmission. Following comprehensive computer simulations and preliminary investigations, the first trial cars fitted with such a system began road testing in 1987, clocking up thousands of test miles in the following years. At the same time, the invention's suitability for practical application was demonstrated on the driving simulator in Berlin. Here, the Mercedes-Benz engineers sent out 80 male and female drivers at a speed of 100 km/h on an imaginary country road on which they were confronted with four bends covered in treacherous black ice which reduced road adhesion by more than 70%. Without ESP® 78% of the test drives had no chance of keeping the car steady and went into skids which resulted in them being involved in up to three accidents in succession. With the aid of the active driving safety system all of the test drives went off without any skidding and free of any accidents. Understandably, the developers were then keen to test ESP® in practice. Series production development began in 1992. More than 40 engineers from Mercedes-Benz and Bosch cooperated on the pioneering project, which culminated in the launch of production in 1995.
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29 сен 2024
