Setup allowed drivers to experience changes in “driving†conditions to help develop chassis setups for Hyundai.
Looking for a way to do some fast chassis development work? Consider what happened in a project for Hyundai conducted by Applus IDIADA (applusidiada.com). “In the space of 10 days we were able to evaluate around 25 different vehicle configurations using three professional drivers,†said Guido Tosolin, product manager at the Spanish vehicle testing and developing organization.
Heretofore the issue with simulating chassis performance was that the response time to driver input was too slow.
In this case, they worked with software from rFpro (rfpro.com), which develops software for driver-in-the-loop applications. Explained Chris Hoyle, rFpro technical director, “Our software is based on closing the loop as quickly as possible by providing very high bandwidth video and audio feeds to the driver and high-bandwidth road surface detail to the vehicle model. This provides the realism necessary to achieve good correlation between driver perceptions and objective vehicle changes.â€
Once IDIADA developed the setup integrating Hyundai’s CarSim model with realistic graphics and a human driver, they transferred the application to the eight degrees-of-freedom Sim IV platform at the Swedish National Road and Transport Institute.
There, the drivers were able to “drive†on the rFpro virtual Vehicle Dynamics Proving Ground and experience the changes to the kinematics, springs, dampers, and anti-roll bars.Â
