Discussion
The Wookie said:
...lots of interesting stuff...
Thanks very much! Lots of food for thought. Suspension design is something I have always been interested in but I don't get to play with much either, my day job simply being to provide more load for the tyre when cornering - to the point where loads are so high and the suspension travel so small that the kinematics start to become moot (have a look at the trackrod, driveshaft and rear wishbone leg placement on this year's Red Bull for a fine example of aerodynamics being put ahead of vehicle dynamics).Triumph Man said:
roverspeed said:
kambites said:
I suspect the big one in the long run is packaging - no need to find a path through the engine bay for the steering column.
Not to mention, this is of course from a Japanese company, Right hand drive home market.
No longer a headache in design between LHD and RHD cars, under the bonnet would be exactly the same for both. But that would only become evident one they had got the stage of not having the clutched fail safe column.
renrut said:
sjg said:
The Nissan system as linked has three ECUs - it would take all three to fail for the clutch in the steering column to need to be engaged.
If it's like the ones in aircraft, the ECUs monitor each other, and if one doesn't agree with the other two, it flags a warning and gets ignored (and possibly restarted).
So lets say you have 3 ecus. Are they from the same batch? Would they be running the same software? Do you have 3 sets of sensors or just one? What about the software testing? how rigorous would that be? What about faiilure? How much for a new one? what about the drive motors as I assume it would have to have at least 2 of those to guarantee safety and tbh they're more likely to burn out than the ecus? how much for one of them?If it's like the ones in aircraft, the ECUs monitor each other, and if one doesn't agree with the other two, it flags a warning and gets ignored (and possibly restarted).
Massive introduced complexity just so some designer can put the driver on the back seat? So much for Occam's Razor.
You also measure the position of the throttle plate using 2 sensors to make sure it's doing what you tell it to.
Finally the airflow that the MAF is seeing going into the engine should roughly correspond to how much throttle it's getting, again if not then limp mode or shutdown.
So short of some dumbass getting the pedal stuck under the floor mat there is a hell of a lot of safety there and it's probably quite a lot safer than having a little metal cable threaded round the engine bay.
Getting back to the steering thing, ESP with full steering control would be pretty much unbeatable. How many lives will that save? The likes of Volvo's autobrake radar system can now steer around things as well as just brake, more lives saved.
I don't get how people can think that some metal sticks are better than this.
RenesisEvo said:
Thanks very much! Lots of food for thought. Suspension design is something I have always been interested in but I don't get to play with much either, my day job simply being to provide more load for the tyre when cornering - to the point where loads are so high and the suspension travel so small that the kinematics start to become moot (have a look at the trackrod, driveshaft and rear wishbone leg placement on this year's Red Bull for a fine example of aerodynamics being put ahead of vehicle dynamics).
No worries 
It's funny actually as we were having a chat earlier over coffee about race car manufacturers tend to struggle with road cars as they immediately start off with the 'no bump steer, no compliance' mantra and end up with
something that handles well on the track but rides horribly and doesn't handle paricularly well on the road!
Something to think about though, as even with small travel systems it could be useful I suppose. Perhaps you might think about using it and letting the car move a bit more in future rather than locking it all up to minimise the effects it's having!!
In high downforce minimal travel stuff like F1 it's of less benefit, but you've only got to look at how horrid the Mclaren looks at times running visibly rock hard, presumably because they need a very stable platform for the aero!
Kozy said:
Interesting post. Where do you work out of interest? I fancy a job doing what you are doing... 
Norfolk 
It's interesting stuff, and best of all it involves tweaking and going out and trying it!
ETA - There is a massively boring side to it mind you. Try staring at a rig that measures the effects we've just discussed for hours on end and picking through a hundred graph print outs for each interaction of toe, camber, contact patch movement, roll centre migration, etc etc etc!
Edited by The Wookie on Thursday 18th October 16:47
The Wookie said:
In high downforce minimal travel stuff like F1 it's of less benefit, but you've only got to look at how horrid the Mclaren looks at times running visibly rock hard, presumably because they need a very stable platform for the aero!
it is all about the aero platform, plus the current Pirellis require a soft rear for traction to avoid killing them, so the front looks very stiff by comparison - backwards to a BTCC car. F1 is what I do so unfortunately I can't see me being able to put your excellent advice to use anytime soon, but I'll certainly be looking at the problem with a fresh view, thanks.I hate all this stuff and the opportunities for control by the government and reduction of your own control it presents.
I really dread the kind of future this sort of thing is pointing to. In a world where cars are so autonomous you don't even need a licence to drive them and everyone is encouraged to faff about with mobiles instead of driving, you try and get an insurance quote on anything you have to drive yourself, even if you've managed to get through decades of driving life without so much as a parking knock.
Speed matters, the joy of motoring etc - all rendered irrelevant by a deadly combination of boffins, legislation and drone-like convenience-junkies.
I really dread the kind of future this sort of thing is pointing to. In a world where cars are so autonomous you don't even need a licence to drive them and everyone is encouraged to faff about with mobiles instead of driving, you try and get an insurance quote on anything you have to drive yourself, even if you've managed to get through decades of driving life without so much as a parking knock.
Speed matters, the joy of motoring etc - all rendered irrelevant by a deadly combination of boffins, legislation and drone-like convenience-junkies.
Twincam16 said:
I hate all this stuff and the opportunities for control by the government and reduction of your own control it presents.
I really dread the kind of future this sort of thing is pointing to. In a world where cars are so autonomous you don't even need a licence to drive them and everyone is encouraged to faff about with mobiles instead of driving, you try and get an insurance quote on anything you have to drive yourself, even if you've managed to get through decades of driving life without so much as a parking knock.
Speed matters, the joy of motoring etc - all rendered irrelevant by a deadly combination of boffins, legislation and drone-like convenience-junkies.
As ever Twincam16, very well said. I could copy-and-paste those very words into a thread about insurance blackboxes. The future doesn't look good for the enthusiast, does it?I really dread the kind of future this sort of thing is pointing to. In a world where cars are so autonomous you don't even need a licence to drive them and everyone is encouraged to faff about with mobiles instead of driving, you try and get an insurance quote on anything you have to drive yourself, even if you've managed to get through decades of driving life without so much as a parking knock.
Speed matters, the joy of motoring etc - all rendered irrelevant by a deadly combination of boffins, legislation and drone-like convenience-junkies.
buggalugs said:
renrut said:
sjg said:
The Nissan system as linked has three ECUs - it would take all three to fail for the clutch in the steering column to need to be engaged.
If it's like the ones in aircraft, the ECUs monitor each other, and if one doesn't agree with the other two, it flags a warning and gets ignored (and possibly restarted).
So lets say you have 3 ecus. Are they from the same batch? Would they be running the same software? Do you have 3 sets of sensors or just one? What about the software testing? how rigorous would that be? What about faiilure? How much for a new one? what about the drive motors as I assume it would have to have at least 2 of those to guarantee safety and tbh they're more likely to burn out than the ecus? how much for one of them?If it's like the ones in aircraft, the ECUs monitor each other, and if one doesn't agree with the other two, it flags a warning and gets ignored (and possibly restarted).
Massive introduced complexity just so some designer can put the driver on the back seat? So much for Occam's Razor.
You also measure the position of the throttle plate using 2 sensors to make sure it's doing what you tell it to.
Finally the airflow that the MAF is seeing going into the engine should roughly correspond to how much throttle it's getting, again if not then limp mode or shutdown.
So short of some dumbass getting the pedal stuck under the floor mat there is a hell of a lot of safety there and it's probably quite a lot safer than having a little metal cable threaded round the engine bay.
Getting back to the steering thing, ESP with full steering control would be pretty much unbeatable. How many lives will that save? The likes of Volvo's autobrake radar system can now steer around things as well as just brake, more lives saved.
I don't get how people can think that some metal sticks are better than this.
Once this stuff gets everywhere, the EU will decide you 'can't argue' against it, and will make it mandatory in every single car.
Then you won't be allowed to drive your car on the assumption that it's far too dangerous for you to be trusted to do something you've done faultlessly for decades.
It's started already - black boxes that supposedly reduce your premiums but actually monitor to see how hard you're accelerating, braking and cornering and how fast you're going. Motorists who have never made a claim in their lives were reporting on You & Yours on R4 yesterday that these things had actually caused their premiums to increase unless they drove like a 1920s chauffeur.
Against a backdrop of all this technology, all this legislation and all the legal hell of telematics insurance, imagine trying to insure a car that's designed and built with simple driving pleasure in mind.
They'll be legislated off the road simply because of what they might do if you drove them like a berk.
On the same lines, surely all knives should be made out of brittle, wafer-thin plastic, and only professional chefs should be allowed metal ones, because if you had one and you didn't have the health and safety training, you could stab yourself or someone else with one. By the same token, let's get rid of glass bottles, after all they're heavy to transport and therefore use more fuel, and if they break the shards could hurt someone. They're indefensible so let's ban them - now your Chateau Lafitte will come in the same kind of plastic bottle as family-size Pepsi. Cricket bats should be made of lightweight hollow airflow plastic as well, as should golf clubs and baseball bats. And while we're at it, what about the perils of cycling. Very, very dangerous, so dangerous you're more likely to get killed doing that than anything else, so rather than a little plastic thing covering the top of your head, you need full body armour and a disclaimer to waiver any life insurance you may have. Crossing the road - gadzooks that's lethal! Wouldn't do that unless you're wearing a motorbike helmet. And as for motorbikes? Terrifying! Ban ban ban ban ban.
It's overkill that wouldn't be tolerated in any other walk of life, so why is it legislated in cars? It's stupid.
I haven't read the whole topic yet; but there will be problems at the other end ie the steering wheel itself. The wheel in a wired system will be a simple electronic input device similar to that of an arcade machine. Those either rotate continuously or have a 180 degree arc with stops at either end. A car needs to have some means of fine input control thus most run 3 or 4 turns lock to lock.
In order to replicate this a system would need to have a gear mechanism under the wheel to translate rotation into a linear input a computer can understand. A rack and slider mechanism would be necessary.
Conversely car steering requires some resistance to movement. Overly light steering, or no feel at all, would be lethal. In order to generat this; steer by wire would have to have an inbuilt resistance generator. This would presumably be variable. If it worked like an arcade game there would have to be an electric motor to apply opposing torque to driver inputs. Alternatively they could use springs or a friction mechanism. Either way it would probably wear out quite rapidly.
Finally steering by joystick doesn't work on the road. Again it's because fine inputs are impossible.
In order to replicate this a system would need to have a gear mechanism under the wheel to translate rotation into a linear input a computer can understand. A rack and slider mechanism would be necessary.
Conversely car steering requires some resistance to movement. Overly light steering, or no feel at all, would be lethal. In order to generat this; steer by wire would have to have an inbuilt resistance generator. This would presumably be variable. If it worked like an arcade game there would have to be an electric motor to apply opposing torque to driver inputs. Alternatively they could use springs or a friction mechanism. Either way it would probably wear out quite rapidly.
Finally steering by joystick doesn't work on the road. Again it's because fine inputs are impossible.
Futuramic said:
I haven't read the whole topic yet; but there will be problems at the other end ie the steering wheel itself. The wheel in a wired system will be a simple electronic input device similar to that of an arcade machine. Those either rotate continuously or have a 180 degree arc with stops at either end. A car needs to have some means of fine input control thus most run 3 or 4 turns lock to lock.
In order to replicate this a system would need to have a gear mechanism under the wheel to translate rotation into a linear input a computer can understand. A rack and slider mechanism would be necessary.
Conversely car steering requires some resistance to movement. Overly light steering, or no feel at all, would be lethal. In order to generat this; steer by wire would have to have an inbuilt resistance generator. This would presumably be variable. If it worked like an arcade game there would have to be an electric motor to apply opposing torque to driver inputs. Alternatively they could use springs or a friction mechanism. Either way it would probably wear out quite rapidly.
Finally steering by joystick doesn't work on the road. Again it's because fine inputs are impossible.
A small motor could provide feedback for the driver, slight resistance would suffice in most situations, electronics can simulate feedback without the negative side, I wouldnt advocate it for a sports car but for a supermini I suspect it will be fine, I would bet the electronics can simulate a 911, Muira or whatever so most of us cant tell.In order to replicate this a system would need to have a gear mechanism under the wheel to translate rotation into a linear input a computer can understand. A rack and slider mechanism would be necessary.
Conversely car steering requires some resistance to movement. Overly light steering, or no feel at all, would be lethal. In order to generat this; steer by wire would have to have an inbuilt resistance generator. This would presumably be variable. If it worked like an arcade game there would have to be an electric motor to apply opposing torque to driver inputs. Alternatively they could use springs or a friction mechanism. Either way it would probably wear out quite rapidly.
Finally steering by joystick doesn't work on the road. Again it's because fine inputs are impossible.
Futuramic said:
In order to replicate this a system would need to have a gear mechanism under the wheel to translate rotation into a linear input a computer can understand. A rack and slider mechanism would be necessary.
Virtually every car on the market has a steering angle sensor already these days. It doesn't need to be linear.
J4CKO said:
A small motor could provide feedback for the driver, slight resistance would suffice in most situations, electronics can simulate feedback without the negative side, I wouldnt advocate it for a sports car but for a supermini I suspect it will be fine, I would bet the electronics can simulate a 911, Muira or whatever so most of us cant tell.
Or - here's a thought - we could make things a whole lot easier all round and just have a steering rack and column 
The Wookie said:
Futuramic said:
In order to replicate this a system would need to have a gear mechanism under the wheel to translate rotation into a linear input a computer can understand. A rack and slider mechanism would be necessary.
Virtually every car on the market has a steering angle sensor already these days. It doesn't need to be linear.buggalugs said:
Getting back to the steering thing, ESP with full steering control would be pretty much unbeatable. How many lives will that save? The likes of Volvo's autobrake radar system can now steer around things as well as just brake, more lives saved.
I don't get how people can think that some metal sticks are better than this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNi17YLnZpgI don't get how people can think that some metal sticks are better than this.
i can't wait
Twincam16 said:
buggalugs said:
renrut said:
sjg said:
The Nissan system as linked has three ECUs - it would take all three to fail for the clutch in the steering column to need to be engaged.
If it's like the ones in aircraft, the ECUs monitor each other, and if one doesn't agree with the other two, it flags a warning and gets ignored (and possibly restarted).
So lets say you have 3 ecus. Are they from the same batch? Would they be running the same software? Do you have 3 sets of sensors or just one? What about the software testing? how rigorous would that be? What about faiilure? How much for a new one? what about the drive motors as I assume it would have to have at least 2 of those to guarantee safety and tbh they're more likely to burn out than the ecus? how much for one of them?If it's like the ones in aircraft, the ECUs monitor each other, and if one doesn't agree with the other two, it flags a warning and gets ignored (and possibly restarted).
Massive introduced complexity just so some designer can put the driver on the back seat? So much for Occam's Razor.
You also measure the position of the throttle plate using 2 sensors to make sure it's doing what you tell it to.
Finally the airflow that the MAF is seeing going into the engine should roughly correspond to how much throttle it's getting, again if not then limp mode or shutdown.
So short of some dumbass getting the pedal stuck under the floor mat there is a hell of a lot of safety there and it's probably quite a lot safer than having a little metal cable threaded round the engine bay.
Getting back to the steering thing, ESP with full steering control would be pretty much unbeatable. How many lives will that save? The likes of Volvo's autobrake radar system can now steer around things as well as just brake, more lives saved.
I don't get how people can think that some metal sticks are better than this.
Once this stuff gets everywhere, the EU will decide you 'can't argue' against it, and will make it mandatory in every single car.
Then you won't be allowed to drive your car on the assumption that it's far too dangerous for you to be trusted to do something you've done faultlessly for decades.
It's started already - black boxes that supposedly reduce your premiums but actually monitor to see how hard you're accelerating, braking and cornering and how fast you're going. Motorists who have never made a claim in their lives were reporting on You & Yours on R4 yesterday that these things had actually caused their premiums to increase unless they drove like a 1920s chauffeur.
Against a backdrop of all this technology, all this legislation and all the legal hell of telematics insurance, imagine trying to insure a car that's designed and built with simple driving pleasure in mind.
They'll be legislated off the road simply because of what they might do if you drove them like a berk.
On the same lines, surely all knives should be made out of brittle, wafer-thin plastic, and only professional chefs should be allowed metal ones, because if you had one and you didn't have the health and safety training, you could stab yourself or someone else with one. By the same token, let's get rid of glass bottles, after all they're heavy to transport and therefore use more fuel, and if they break the shards could hurt someone. They're indefensible so let's ban them - now your Chateau Lafitte will come in the same kind of plastic bottle as family-size Pepsi. Cricket bats should be made of lightweight hollow airflow plastic as well, as should golf clubs and baseball bats. And while we're at it, what about the perils of cycling. Very, very dangerous, so dangerous you're more likely to get killed doing that than anything else, so rather than a little plastic thing covering the top of your head, you need full body armour and a disclaimer to waiver any life insurance you may have. Crossing the road - gadzooks that's lethal! Wouldn't do that unless you're wearing a motorbike helmet. And as for motorbikes? Terrifying! Ban ban ban ban ban.
It's overkill that wouldn't be tolerated in any other walk of life, so why is it legislated in cars? It's stupid.
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