The development of an innovative car brake actuator is the purpose of this project. The motivation lies in improving the performance provided by current hydraulic and electro-hydraulic brake systems, as well as providing an electro-mechanical solution which is also more environmentally friendly. A study of existing braking solutions is presented, as well as the testing of a conventional disk brake system in the laboratory. A survey of automotive brake systems currently under development is also provided. Our search for a new brake is initiated by analysing various types of actuators, which consequently led to the selection of an eddy current system. When a rotating nonf-erromagnetic disc is exposed to a magnetic flux, eddy currents are induced in the surface of the conductive disc. A braking torque is generated by the interaction between the eddy currents and the magnetic flux. In principle, such a braking system is simple, consisting of a conductive rotating disk and an electromagnet to provide the braking field. Then, the braking torque can be expressed as a function of the angular speed of the disk and the applied current to the eAClectromagnet. A detailed description of the working principle as well as its mathematical modelling are provided. Finite element modelling of the system provided computational results that allowed an ensuing parametric study of the behaviour of the system. Analysis of the system for a low velocity regime as well as high velocity was required since the system has different responses according to the velocity at which it operates. However, there was a much heavier emphasis placed in the behaviour of the system for the high velocity region. The ensuing development was consequently focused towards the high velocity regime. After a parametric optimization process of the various design variables, an experimental setup was built and laboratory results were obtained for comparison with the ones originated from computational simulations. The results from the experimental tests were quite close to the ones predicted by the computational model, thus validating the concept presented