F1 active suspension

[Farnborough]

Oh it was used in lots of things, but it wasn't developed from anything else, it was designed for the 92, which raced in 1983. But then the road car (Lotus Engineering) people took over as it was heavy. It reappeared in 1987 for a year, fairly successfully.

Active Suspension was used in various street cars for 30 years prior. So while Chapman was the first to adopt it to race cars and his design was his, it was not an original idea.

Dernie talks about their system and its origin starting at 18:00:


My ultimate point is though, F1 keeps claiming there needs to be road relevance, when they banned one of the things that came from the road and is road relevant. There is very little on a F1 car that would ever have road relevance except something like that.

Good link, I'd not seen that. Interesting detail around minute 41 too about softened from spring rate on Williams BMW and the internal argument around that.

Then a little view after that about (opinion) of AN being the "youngest" engineer with a complete view of process from one end to the other. Not in here, but notable that he drives these cars too (AN that is), more understanding available there in bringing reality to his engineering approach.

[Zynerji]

I think active suspension would solve a lot of problems for teams. I'm fairly certain the R&D that goes into traditional suspension setups to somehow act like active suspension is far higher and far more complex than some relatively simple fast actuators and software that goes along with keeping the car flat.

Maybe they would induce the rear to change at certain speeds on straights, but beyond that there isn't too much else that they can do.

If they can't design and operate a completely passive system, as it stands in this rule iteration, what makes anyone think that they could with active ?

It seems they don’t know exactly what they want and how to design it, evidenced by the one team that does. And it was like this with notable active or frics type system too .... one team realitively dominant.

It just shifts it to another plane, something like this, predicted as a FIX for supposed anomaly.

In a purely passive system, there are trade-offs on all dimensions. One team has found the better balance in the current formula, and they are unbeatable because of it. An active system would (theoretically) give all teams the ability to have the best of both worlds with no compromises, and that would even the field.

I still like the FRIC-type better, however.

[Hoffman900]

Oh it was used in lots of things, but it wasn't developed from anything else, it was designed for the 92, which raced in 1983. But then the road car (Lotus Engineering) people took over as it was heavy. It reappeared in 1987 for a year, fairly successfully.

Active Suspension was used in various street cars for 30 years prior. So while Chapman was the first to adopt it to race cars and his design was his, it was not an original idea.

Dernie talks about their system and its origin starting at 18:00:


My ultimate point is though, F1 keeps claiming there needs to be road relevance, when they banned one of the things that came from the road and is road relevant. There is very little on a F1 car that would ever have road relevance except something like that.

Good link, I'd not seen that. Interesting detail around minute 41 too about softened from spring rate on Williams BMW and the internal argument around that.

Then a little view after that about (opinion) of AN being the "youngest" engineer with a complete view of process from one end to the other. Not in here, but notable that he drives these cars too (AN that is), more understanding available there in bringing reality to his engineering approach.

Another good Frank Dernie interview. Says some of the same things, but with more o leas detail.

His comments about learning about outwash from Indy Car is interesting, and we know Adrian also came from Indy Car.

[SiLo]

I think active suspension would solve a lot of problems for teams. I'm fairly certain the R&D that goes into traditional suspension setups to somehow act like active suspension is far higher and far more complex than some relatively simple fast actuators and software that goes along with keeping the car flat.

Maybe they would induce the rear to change at certain speeds on straights, but beyond that there isn't too much else that they can do.

If they can't design and operate a completely passive system, as it stands in this rule iteration, what makes anyone think that they could with active ?

It seems they don’t know exactly what they want and how to design it, evidenced by the one team that does. And it was like this with notable active or frics type system too .... one team realitively dominant.

It just shifts it to another plane, something like this, predicted as a FIX for supposed anomaly.

Because its controlled by a computer that makes simple calculations and make adjustments based on them. Active suspension is really not as complex as people seem to think it is. These are the most advanced engineering teams on the planet outside of military or NASA.

[Hoffman900]

I think active suspension would solve a lot of problems for teams. I'm fairly certain the R&D that goes into traditional suspension setups to somehow act like active suspension is far higher and far more complex than some relatively simple fast actuators and software that goes along with keeping the car flat.

Maybe they would induce the rear to change at certain speeds on straights, but beyond that there isn't too much else that they can do.

If they can't design and operate a completely passive system, as it stands in this rule iteration, what makes anyone think that they could with active ?

It seems they don’t know exactly what they want and how to design it, evidenced by the one team that does. And it was like this with notable active or frics type system too .... one team realitively dominant.

It just shifts it to another plane, something like this, predicted as a FIX for supposed anomaly.

Because its controlled by a computer that makes simple calculations and make adjustments based on them. Active suspension is really not as complex as people seem to think it is. These are the most advanced engineering teams on the planet outside of military or NASA.

No they’re not.

The cars and teams are impressive for sure, but some of are you swallowing the “pinnacle of motorsports” kool-aide hard.

[Richard C]

Dernie talks about their system and its origin starting at 18:00:

Thanks for that link. Nice video.

If they can't design and operate a completely passive system, as it stands in this rule iteration, what makes anyone think that they could with active ?

It seems they don’t know exactly what they want and how to design it, evidenced by the one team that does. And it was like this with notable active or frics type system too .... one team realitively dominant.

It just shifts it to another plane, something like this, predicted as a FIX for supposed anomaly.

I would think we can all agree that all things being equal, an active system should be easier to implement a high performance solution than a purely passive mechanical system. So by definition, given equal performance, a passive mechanical solution should always be harder to create and conversely an active solution should be easier to create. This is especially true as prior solutions within the passive mechanical realm (Inerters, FRIC, etc.) have been banned making it even harder to achieve prior performance levels.

Given it should be easier to implement a high performance active solution, a team that might struggles with a passive solution is not guaranteed to NOT be able to fix it in an active one. In the mechanical realm they may know what the problem is, but not how to solve it within that realm. However, the solutions in the active realm is likely to be much more straight forward to implement. Now, you can still have someone who is lost in the dark and no set of tools or capabilities will help them. But that applies to any technology or part of the car.

[Richard C]

Speaking of complexity... There exists something that didn't exist decades ago and that is the level of simulation that exists today. So I am broadly assuming that teams are having to create highly accurate digital models of their current passive mechanical suspension systems. I suspect that the effort put into modeling that, ensuring the models are accurate, and lastly implementing those models into their larger simulation of a fully drivable car may be as complex or more complex than implementing an actual active suspension control system! They basically are creating "digital suspension control systems" for the simulators. These likely have feedback paths like any other control system, but the feedback are physical properties of the larger simulation (environment, tires, dynamics of the rest of the car, etc.).

Now, I am talking to the digital side of the system. People may laugh, but the mechanical side should be a straight forward engineering problem. The software side is where the complexity and secret sauce should exist.

[Greg Locock]

Yup, a modern simulator runs a full vehicle model. ADAMS isn't fast enough so we run CARSIM. 25 high end PCs drive the rig. Here it is https://www.deakin.edu.au/research/rese ... -simulator

Active is 'easy' if you know what the road profile looks like. If you don't you have to use the front wheels simultaneously as a measuring device while also acting as a suspension. That's why bandwidth is important. That's a contrast with active noise control in the cabin, where due to the slow time of propagation compared with the frequencies that need to be controlled we have to have a precursor signal.

[Hoffman900]

Yup, a modern simulator runs a full vehicle model. ADAMS isn't fast enough so we run CARSIM. 25 high end PCs drive the rig. Here it is https://www.deakin.edu.au/research/rese ... -simulator

Active is 'easy' if you know what the road profile looks like. If you don't you have to use the front wheels simultaneously as a measuring device while also acting as a suspension. That's why bandwidth is important. That's a contrast with active noise control in the cabin, where due to the slow time of propagation compared with the frequencies that need to be controlled we have to have a precursor signal.

The PU’s have in-situ cylinder pressure sensors recording pressure data at a degree of revolution at some interval <1* rotation (within xx amount if degrees before and after TDC on the compression / power stroke), which they use to control ignition and injection strategies and for knock protection.

My point is, this should be relatively easy in terms of data management compared to that.

[SiLo]

If they can't design and operate a completely passive system, as it stands in this rule iteration, what makes anyone think that they could with active ?

It seems they don’t know exactly what they want and how to design it, evidenced by the one team that does. And it was like this with notable active or frics type system too .... one team realitively dominant.

It just shifts it to another plane, something like this, predicted as a FIX for supposed anomaly.

Because its controlled by a computer that makes simple calculations and make adjustments based on them. Active suspension is really not as complex as people seem to think it is. These are the most advanced engineering teams on the planet outside of military or NASA.

No they’re not.

The cars and teams are impressive for sure, but some of are you swallowing the “pinnacle of motorsports” kool-aide hard.

Feel free to enlighten me, I'm always open to learning.

[Hoffman900]

Building a skyscraper or a miles long suspension bridge is arguably more complex. You’re talking projects that are $3.5bil US plus in scale.

An PhD aerodynamicist friend likes to joke that F1 cars top out at approach speeds of most jet aircraft and those speeds are the simplest part. He sees F1 cars as a mess aero wise, and a lot of it has to do with managing the open wheels which just make a mess of everything, then tie that to the very constrained by rules they have. Porpoising? They deal with that designing aircraft and were before it was even in F1 and Indy Car the first time.

Designing and building something like a semi-conductor plant is way more complex.

Lots of things are.