MULTI-ANGLE BALL RAMP BRAKE ACTUATOR WITH AUTO-GAP ADJUSTER

A brake actuator is configured to perform either a braking operation, or an auto-adjustment operation of an air gap between an actuator output shaft and a brake stack. The brake actuator includes a conjugate ramp track containing a bearing ball, the conjugate ramp track being formed by matching ball ramp tracks of an input ball ramp and an output ball ramp. The output ball ramp is connected to the output shaft by a threaded interface to move the output shaft by rotation of the input ball ramp. The conjugate ramp track is a multi-angle ball ramp track thereby including areas of different gain. The input ball ramp is rotated in a first direction to perform the braking operation, and the input ball ramp is rotated in a second, opposite direction to perform the auto-adjustment operation. During the auto-adjustment operation, a position of the output shaft is automatically adjusted when the air gap has a dimension that is larger than an operable dimension to adjust the air gap to be within the operable dimension.