We all have quite a bit of experience with driving simulators, right? Or rather, we all have many, many hours invested in Gran Turismo (other driving games are available). Motorsport teams and drivers use the games to learn circuits before a wheel has even turned on them. A car show isn't complete without some kind of sim and a dramatically voiced narration.
But beyond all that simulators are becoming increasingly important for manufacturers, both for OEMs and their suppliers. As the reality the sims are able to create becomes better and better, so testing time can be reduced as those environments are replicated virtually. The real world can be used for sign-off rather than the whole of development, saving cost, time and effort
One of those sim manufacturers is Ansible Motion and when the invite came to try its 'Delta' system it was too intriguing to pass up. Its aim, according to technical director Kia Cammaerts, is to "design, manufacture and deploy vehicle dynamics capable simulators for engineering use." The Ansible sim is different to most - namely the kind of things you see being thrown up and down at a show or in huge test centres - because it isn't a hexapod. Those are the simulators on the huge struts, taking up loads of space and violently throwing you around without feeling especially realistic.
Where the Ansible system differs from those, and from most other sims in fact, is that it's a Driver-in-the-Loop (DIL) sim, which places a great deal more emphasis on the driver's perception of what's going on rather than just recreating a driving situation. As simulators become used more for engineering purposes it's vital that what the driver feels is a priority.
Key to this is the human vestibular system, the part of our brain that perceives motion and helps us detect the way a car is behaving underneath us. The aim of the Ansible sim is to replicate the sensory cues from the real world as closely as possible on a motion platform. It's a human response done numerically, so there will always be an error but naturally the aim is to minimise that for maximum realism. Despite how good a lot of driving sims are, the reality of driving is that it we rely a lot on the subtleties of movement and not just visuals. The hexapod-style simulators are not good enough at replicating the tiny movements a car makes on the road because they're simply too heavy.
So how does the Ansible Delta simulator feel? It's pretty damn good to an observer very far removed from engineer standard. The simulation begins on a steering pad where it accurately replicates under- and oversteer, then it's onto Spa... I'm not told exactly what the car is, other than it's rear-wheel drive, mid-engined and has around 400hp. Again the simulation of car behaviour is very good, but it was hard to gauge the effect of vertical movements on the car as the reaction came slightly later than your brain suggested it should. See Eau Rouge, where the car goes light over the exit and it's corrected far too late. Though that could of course be driver error...
A blog like this will sadly never provide enough detail on just what an engineering achievement the Ansible sim is. The chat with Kia is nearly an hour long and covers areas of physics I hadn't heard of. As a layman though I can tell you that the engineering endeavour most certainly works, even if it's tricky for such a simple mind to understand. As simulation becomes ever more important to vehicle testing, expect Ansible to become an even bigger name in the industry. For the meantime I best get practicing Eau Rouge in any way possible!
Sources: Ansible Motion (and it's really worth a look too!)