[Rumours] Active Suspension ....

[Oldtony]

Originally Posted by Pingguest

But as soon as Formula 1 refines technology that is already widespread among road cars, knowledge will be transferred back towards the automotive industry and the series will gain relevance.

True. That already appears to be happening with hybrid and turbo technology.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Martin Brundle's take on Active Suspension.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/113629

[P38 in workshop]

He's not wrong.Most of the cost would be attributable to the vastly different requirements that would accompany a switch to 18 inch wheels.Adopting active with the current wheels and tires means that the teams could use their existing knowledge base.Has anybody got a realistic estimate for the money the teams have tied up in their stocks of springs,dampers,bump rubbers,anti-roll bars,inerters and FRIC systems?Paddy Lowe's opinion presumably takes this investment into account.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Martin Brundle's take on Active Suspension.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/113629

"But I can't see it being anything other than hugely expensive."


You and me both Martin!

[Oldtony]

Interesting that you are taking the off the cuff view of a driver and commentator above that of a development engineer and team principal.
Who would have the greater expertise regarding the cost implications?
Now Martin might be right about the "scalectric effect" but I would tend to agree with Mr Lowe on the cost side. The other point is that cost of development of active suspension for 18" wheels could probably also be defrayed over flow on benefits to high performance, and eventually road cars, which the 13" marshmallow donuts to not provide.

[miatanut]

Originally Posted by Autosport

...among the raft of recent proposals from F1's Strategy Group to reduce expenditure in the sport without resorting to a cost cap.

That's been the problem for years! Let's treat every symptom we can think of, without actually treating the illness.

Originally Posted by Paddy Lowe

I think a spec system would be a very bad idea," he added. "The whole point should be to develop the technology and push it forward.

Amen to that!

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Oldtony

Interesting that you are taking the off the cuff view of a driver and commentator above that of a development engineer and team principal.
Who would have the greater expertise regarding the cost implications?
Now Martin might be right about the "scalectric effect" but I would tend to agree with Mr Lowe on the cost side. The other point is that cost of development of active suspension for 18" wheels could probably also be defrayed over flow on benefits to high performance, and eventually road cars, which the 13" marshmallow donuts to not provide.

Paddy Lowe is currently the Executive Technical Director of Mercedes F1, he has I think the largest technical staff and biggest budget in F1.
All expenses at some stage he will have to justify to the Mercedes Board.

Why would he have an interest in undertaking an R&D arms race in a new area?

Anything that is "active" has to be more complicated and expensive than a "passive" system.

[P38 in workshop]

Originally Posted by wnut

Anything that is "active" has to be more complicated and expensive than a "passive" system.

Would you be good enough to explain how you know this to be the case?

[miatanut]

Originally Posted by wnut

Paddy Lowe is currently the Executive Technical Director of Mercedes F1, he has I think the largest technical staff and biggest budget in F1.
All expenses at some stage he will have to justify to the Mercedes Board.

Why would he have an interest in undertaking an R&D arms race in a new area?

Anything that is "active" has to be more complicated and expensive than a "passive" system.

And under the current system, they spend what they have.

Which would be better? Them spending what they have on arcane aero stuff, or on a system to keep the tires more or less square to the ground and in contact with it under any circumstance?

The second one can trickle down to road cars at some point. The first one never would.

Then we get to the point where I think road technology benefits from stuff learned in racing and you feel there is no connection between the two spheres. Mercedes says they are learning stuff they can use on the road. I remember back in the '80's, Honda said they put their young engineers on the F1 stuff. They gave two reasons. One was that the young engineers didn't have any preconceived notions, which allowed them to dream up more innovative stuff. Not necessarily any connection to road cars there. The second was that they felt it was a fabulous classroom for training their engineers, who later went onto designing their road cars. Definitely some transfer there.

Whether there is or is not a connection is fundamental to the question of whether F1 should go off exploring new technology because, while expensive, there is a benefit outside of F1, or if it just creates a new avenue for spending.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Oldtony

The other point is that cost of development of active suspension for 18" wheels could probably also be defrayed over flow on benefits to high performance, and eventually road cars, which the 13" marshmallow donuts to not provide.

Something is nagging me at the back of my mind that the tyre companies have all voiced their feelings that they do not wish to manufacture and supply 18" tyres as they have no relevance to road cars.

Did they not, only in the last few of years, reduce the diameter to 13" for this very reason?

[321Go]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Something is nagging me at the back of my mind that the tyre companies have all voiced their feelings that they do not wish to manufacture and supply 18" tyres as they have no relevance to road cars.

Did they not, only in the last few of years, reduce the diameter to 13" for this very reason?

So 18" tyres have no relevance to road tyres, but 13" tyres do??

They never reduced the diameter to 13". It has been 13" for over two decades if my memory is correct. Pirelli wants to move away from 13" tyres. And last year there were rumours of Michelin wanting to come back but it never eventuated because Michelin only wanted to supply tyres if F1 went to 18" tyres. Because 13" tyres have no relevance to their road tyre programme.

[Oldtony]

Originally Posted by wnut

Anything that is "active" has to be more complicated and expensive than a "passive" system.

That is a very debateable statement.
While beginning of season costs may be marginally higher in replacing the already expensive and complex suspension set ups, the whole of season costs could, and probably would, be cheaper. The advantage of electronic control and active suspension being that the set up changes from track to track, and session to session, would be by changing software parameters rather than wholesale component changes.
Add to that the possible cost sharing with other vehicle types, and the ability to go to the tyre companies preferred option of bigger diameter rims and the whole exercise looks to be a win-win situation.
Don't know about the development of G-force limitation for drivers though. Perhaps the compensating feature would be further limitation of aero downforce.

[wnut]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTURKAhFBJA

Not exactly a simple system!

Question:

Why exactly did the FIA ban active suspension the first time round?
The R&D for the systems was too expensive

I think it is fascinating technology, but not cheap!

The better the sensors the better the response, the faster the sampling rates the better the system, the better the actuators in speed and precision the better the response, the higher the sampling rates the better the response. The better controlled the suspension the more you can do with it under braking (ABS), traction control, chassis attitude control and adjustment, and on and on we go.

In an active system you have to sense the inputs and calculate the response in a passive system you are stuck with reacting to the inputs which is inherently a much more limited system.

P.S. How about four wheel steering?

[wnut]

Next question:

How many of these technicians has Paddy Lowe got available to co-opt into the F1 program?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liDSuDyCm74

Some good stuff here:

http://beautifullyengineered.tumblr....n-in-formula-1

[P38 in workshop]

Originally Posted by wnut

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTURKAhFBJA

Not exactly a simple system!

Question:

Why exactly did the FIA ban active suspension the first time round?
The R&D for the systems was too expensive

I think it is fascinating technology, but not cheap!

The better the sensors the better the response, the faster the sampling rates the better the system, the better the actuators in speed and precision the better the response, the higher the sampling rates the better the response. The better controlled the suspension the more you can do with it under braking (ABS), traction control, chassis attitude control and adjustment, and on and on we go.

In an active system you have to sense the inputs and calculate the response in a passive system you are stuck with reacting to the inputs which is inherently a much more limited system.

P.S. How about four wheel steering?

When active suspension was last raced a 386 was a fairly common computer.The cars now have all the sensors as part of the telemetry package so that lots of rig time and simulator time can be devoted to selecting and tuning the right combination of hardware.So that in addition to a sizeable stock of hardware on the transporter,there is a duplicate set back at the factory for the R&D teams to spend their weekends tweaking.I did pose a question about the cost of all the hardware and so far have not seen a clear answer.
I would also point out that with the exception of a set of Moog valves and actuators,the hardware for active is already present.The computing power would be very modest by modern standards,I suspect a smartphone in the driver's overalls could run it via bluetooth.

[wolfhound]

I wonder how much time will the software engineers spend on it working out all the ideal situations an F1 car can get itself into. Active will open up a whole new world to the aero guys who will want the car to have certain ride heights/rake at certain points on the track. This will then open up a whole new set of aero possibilites to spend weeks in the wind tunnel perfecting.

Mind you who will be the first to use a special heigh ride height for getting out of gravel traps?

[Adam43]

Isn't wind tunnel time limited? Besides I think it is more about keeping the optimum.

I doubt the gravel trap idea would help much, the overall travel of the suspension isn't going to increase.

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by wnut

Anything that is "active" has to be more complicated and expensive than a "passive" system.

Certainly not true.

An analogy. 20 years ago, we have pretty good SLR cameras. They opened a shutter, exposed a film. Pretty simple, passive, stuff.

Nowadays, film SLR's are DEAD. Completely overtaken by much more complicated (at first) digital devices, that are now hugely CHEAPER for much higher specifications. Once the initial development was done, it's almost all software. Note I said almost, there are always improvements in the HW but these are evolutionary not revolutionary.

So, a prime example where active has turned out to be much cheaper and better than passive.

Back to he point in hand. You simply cannot compare the active suspension of the past with anything that could be developed today. Not only has computer power got hugely more powerful, but sensor technology and manufacturing accuracy has also greatly improved. And all at cheaper prices.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by JamesH

Certainly not true.

An analogy. 20 years ago, we have pretty good SLR cameras. They opened a shutter, exposed a film. Pretty simple, passive, stuff.

Nowadays, film SLR's are DEAD. Completely overtaken by much more complicated (at first) digital devices, that are now hugely CHEAPER for much higher specifications. Once the initial development was done, it's almost all software. Note I said almost, there are always improvements in the HW but these are evolutionary not revolutionary.

So, a prime example where active has turned out to be much cheaper and better than passive.

Back to he point in hand. You simply cannot compare the active suspension of the past with anything that could be developed today. Not only has computer power got hugely more powerful, but sensor technology and manufacturing accuracy has also greatly improved. And all at cheaper prices.

So you are proposing spec active suspension with a couple of knobs to twirl depending on the circuit?

"I wonder how much time will the software engineers spend on it working out all the ideal situations an F1 car can get itself into. Active will open up a whole new world to the aero guys who will want the car to have certain ride heights/rake at certain points on the track. This will then open up a whole new set of aero possibilites to spend weeks in the wind tunnel perfecting." (wolfhound)

Running an R&D program for an active system; far from a widely implemented and developed technology like consumer digital cameras; would be extremely expensive, the teams are even forced to run a standard ECU on grounds of cost and the ECU is a much simpler system with far fewer parameters than an active suspension system.

I truly believe that Mercedes have already sunk many millions into developing active suspension, Paddy Lowe knows their capability and the advantage it will give Mercedes in competing with the rest.
How would Marussia, Caterham, Lotus, Williams or Force India either pay for or develop an active system?

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by wnut

Running an R&D program for an active system; far from a widely implemented and developed technology like consumer digital cameras; would be extremely expensive, the teams are even forced to run a standard ECU on grounds of cost and the ECU is a much simpler system with far fewer parameters than an active suspension system.

Coming from a software background, I don't agree with you on the expense part. I think the analog/digital camera analogy is quite a good one.

I posted somewhere (maybe this thread?) that I think there will be an expensive hump to get over initially, but after that it might be much cheaper. I also really expect the rules to not allow it to be completely open to save money on hardware. I wouldn't be shocked to see a standard ecu proposed. That could effectively limit compute power, sampling rates, number and types of inputs, etc. I am not saying I agree with that approach, but I think that is what will happen (short of a wider cost cap showing up).

I do think we will see things implemented that few might expect. I believe the old active suspensions were mostly reactive. I would expect a modern solution to include predictive and machine learning aspects. Imagine a suspension that not just measures what is happening, but learns the track (including dynamic surface conditions), and maybe is even aware of the cars around it and adjusts accordingly.

Richard

[Oldtony]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Coming from a software background, I don't agree with you on the expense part. I think the analog/digital camera analogy is quite a good one.

I also really expect the rules to not allow it to be completely open to save money on hardware. I wouldn't be shocked to see a standard ecu proposed. That could effectively limit compute power, sampling rates, number and types of inputs, etc. I am not saying I agree with that approach, but I think that is what will happen (short of a wider cost cap showing up).

I do think we will see things implemented that few might expect. I believe the old active suspensions were mostly reactive. I would expect a modern solution to include predictive and machine learning aspects. Imagine a suspension that not just measures what is happening, but learns the track (including dynamic surface conditions), and maybe is even aware of the cars around it and adjusts accordingly.
Richard

Agree with just about everything you say Richard except that I don't think Standard ECUs are used as a cost saver. They were introduced as a means of preventing the use of traction control and other goodies by being able to be "interrogated" by the scrutineers and stewards.
There would certainly be an introductory hump in cost but from then on the potential for cost savings would be very useful. Perhaps mounting point positioning and suspension component dimension could be the standardised components.
From wnut's post certainly Paddy Lowes crew would have plenty of in house know how but as the variable would be intelligent software development that advantage should not last long.
As to the aero people dictating ride height, pitch control etc. surely the compensation for allowing active suspension and bigger tyre rim diameter should be a diminution of effective aero to keep cornering speeds in the same ball park.
As I mentioned earlier that would probably need to happen to keep G-force on driver to acceptable levels.
Like your ideas about predictive, rather than reactive control Richard.

[wolfhound]

Originally Posted by wnut

I truly believe that Mercedes have already sunk many millions into developing active suspension, Paddy Lowe knows their capability and the advantage it will give Mercedes in competing with the rest.
How would Marussia, Caterham, Lotus, Williams or Force India either pay for or develop an active system?

The person who designed the Williams FW14 that dominated the last active era is still responsible for designing championship winning cars today. I doubt he would come up with a dud if active suspension was to come back (p.s. he's not at Mercedes).

[miatanut]

Originally Posted by wnut

How would Marussia, Caterham, Lotus, Williams or Force India either pay for or develop an active system?

F1 has always had "haves" and "have nots". It's part of the sport.

How do they compete? They work with Koni. Or Bilstein. Or Penske. Or somebody else. One of those vendors gets two or three teams to work for, and suddenly they have an R&D budget comparable to one of the big teams working only for themselves in-house.

Can't happen? For years we had Cosworth customer V-8's competing with whatever Ferrari had.

But it's a matter of perspective. I would rather see technology pushed forward than a spec everything version of F1. There are many single make series out there for people to compete in.

F1 should be something better.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

The person who designed the Williams FW14 that dominated the last active era is still responsible for designing championship winning cars today. I doubt he would come up with a dud if active suspension was to come back (p.s. he's not at Mercedes).

The Williams system was more a ride height control system than an active suspension.
Lotus had the only truly active suspension.

[wnut]

Joint Strike Fighter Achilles heel in $392 billion dollar project:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A0M1L920140123

The Software!

"The current software generated too many nuisance warnings and resulted in poor sensor performance. Further work on software had been slowed by testing required to validate earlier fixes, the report said."