Behind the Wheel in Ford’s New Multi-Million Dollar Simulator

Using the digital entire world to create, test, and great new cars is not new. But Ford’s new multimillion-dollar highly developed driving dynamic simulator in Dearborn is the automaker’s hottest instrument to get cars on the street more rapidly. Ford has by now pressed its developing household of simulators into service to enable create the Ford Mustang Mach-E electrical SUV, the Ford Maverick midsize pickup, and the Ford F-150 Lightning whole-size electric pickup truck.

Because Ford’s new DiM250 Dynamic Driving Simulator was commissioned in February, it has been in operation complete time with eight or 10 people today in it most months. The primary end users are the car or truck dynamics and driver-guidance tech teams, but those functioning on all-wheel push, steadiness command, and electrical techniques will increasingly reserve time in the new simulator.

So considerably there is only one buck—essentially an inside with no grille, wheels or back fifty percent of the vehicle—that was extracted from a Ford Explorer prototype, supplying a relaxed and spacious cabin to go for a travel. It sits on a device that is like an air hockey table upside down the buck moves alongside a metal table and the 9 actuators give it 9 levels of flexibility to idea and dip like a genuine motor vehicle would. A 15-foot-tall round screen wraps 270 degrees all over the contraption and its belted-in occupant. Guidelines are piped in from the control home as the simulator moves aspect to aspect, up and down around cracks and uneven pavement, and vibrates more than washboard surfaces.

MotorTrend was invited to give it a test. The initially demo mimicked remaining in a Maverick midsize pickup on a a few-lane highway that was concocted by the state-of-the-art driver aid programs staff. It had sleek lanes as perfectly as some Michigan-exclusive tough roadways wherever the simulator bounced up and down, sideways, all the feels you get on the real potholed roads the point out is known for. Then we have been in an F-150 Lightning on a experience road, a virtual duplication of Ford’s test observe in Dearborn. The future outing was in a generic SUV on a highway entire with traffic, such as a Transit van, a bus, and a law enforcement cruiser that was not programmed to pull me over, no issue what I did.

There are about 20 unique streets and surfaces programmed so far and a menu of electronic replicas of tracks close to the world that can be referred to as up. That incorporates European classes and streets so those people operating on vehicles for the European market experience at home while working stateside. The application engineers make new drives as essential. They can just take 100 miles of freeway and edit the digital edition so that it is made up of only the worst parts. Programs are to build a wider variety of surfaces these types of as desert terrain that an F-150 Raptor racer would tear up.

Driving the home with the simulator and big display is a control room with banks of personal computers and screens manned by engineers who keep track of everything the driver is performing and can alter the setting. They are rainmakers, literally. Or they can produce fog. Or bathe you in the glare of the headlights of the bus bearing down on you from powering as the sky grows darkish. Snow can make a soaked and slippery area. If there is an incident, the superior information is the exam car or truck drives proper via the simulated object—no physical problems to repair past shame and colleague ribbing. We kept our car unscathed.

The regulate area can add powertrain sounds. In the electric powered Lightning, street noise is the notable sound. Motor vehicles can be loaded down and tested. They can also include traffic or have anyone in the regulate home drive yet another auto that interacts with the driver in the simulator it enables the staff to test with traffic with out having four other engineers on the street driving.

The simulated drives could possibly appear like a video clip game, but anything is engineer-stage, suggests Robert Rieveley, technical pro in simulation who does a ton of the ADAS do the job. It does not just take prolonged to get applied to the digital environment, specifically when the cockpit is taken from an real vehicle producing adaptive cruise management and lane support controls straightforward to find. Steering inputs truly feel a bit additional hair-induce than authentic life, but lane modifications and evading buses that start off to lower you off are navigated with the identical reflexes and motions as the authentic world. The one particular place exactly where fact is lacking is that there is no feeling of speed it is uncomplicated to come across you unwittingly exceeding 90 mph. Engineers say they will use software package to include graininess in the future to build a higher feeling of how quick you are going. And plans are to insert headphones to filter out the whirr of the device so the driver can greater listen to road sound.

Simulators allow for engineers to take a look at the hundreds of thousands of what-if scenarios that occur during motor vehicle progress and there is not the bandwidth to physically exam them all in a brief period of time. A thirty day period of true-globe tests can be completed in fewer than a 7 days in the simulator, claims Louis Jamail, supervisor of the simulator and core techniques team.
It is a charge-productive option to building 10 variations of a car to learn nine you should not get the job done, Jamail states. And engineers will not have to cobble issues with each other, there are fewer Frankencars when engineers can generate reliable virtual prototypes in a simulator. “We save revenue with each individual one particular-off prototype we do not have to develop.”

It helps Ford respond to customers quicker and pivot more quickly to match traits or reply to buyer clinic feedback. Engineers can begin tests and bettering acquiring automobiles with program and laptop or computer keystrokes, as opposed to developing a prototype, having it to a take a look at web page, bringing supplemental cars and motorists to create traffic, and then accomplishing repeatable checks. The financial savings in both of those time and money much outweighs the hundreds of thousands invested on the simulator, he suggests.

The other elegance is the capability to create and evaluate various create variations of a auto practically. For example, the Maverick workforce was ready to acquire a improved torsion beam suspension for the AWD product virtually—there were no models in the true environment with that rear suspension to get the job done with for the duration of growth. The simulator tested the virtual variant which enabled engineers to make variations. The simulator also tends to make it a lot easier to detect and produce updates for midcycle refreshes.

What distinguishes the VI-Quality simulator from the Ansible Motion simulators installed in 2016 at the Ford Performance Technical Middle in Charlotte, North Carolina, is the latency time, the time lag amongst what you do and what you see. It is this gap in time that messes with the eyes, mind, and tummy. The more recent Dearborn simulator is rapid to respond and less likely to make you nauseous. The Dearborn simulator will aid acquire mainstream items, as opposed to the types in Charlotte that are extra focused on singular race cars and engineers sit in a large-general performance buck.

But Charlotte has been made use of for some mainstream automobiles. One of the very first massive programs was the Maverick—the initial half of the software was produced in the Charlotte simulator, Jamail claims. The exact devices assisted acquire the character of the Mach-E, to make is significantly less of a compliance car or truck and additional of a sporty providing deserving of Mustang badging. It was in particular precious in acquiring senior administration aligned on the vision for the vehicle. And the Functionality Heart simulators were utilised to test the trailing arm of the new impartial rear suspension in the F-150 Lightning, as effectively as work on the trailering system for the electric powered truck.

Ford however has its older VIRTTEX cockpit simulator in Dearborn which is the size of a setting up. It is slower to respond and can only deliver a smooth experience. It still works nicely to deal with sound, vibration and harshness troubles, driver distraction, and work on driver-support technological innovation, but does not have the designed-in motion of the new simulator to function on driving dynamics over a broader assortment of bumps, cracks in the road and other true-world challenges.

Ford strategies to build a lot more bucks for the Dearborn simulator which is scalable to be in a position to cope with the automaker’s wide portfolio that ranges from big pickups to lesser SUVs and the Mustang coupe. Engineers say they will be ready to swap bucks in a couple several hours. The freshly commissioned simulator is even now powering up and escalating its capability day by day. Ford and Lincoln have a bevy of EVs on the horizon which will keep the new Dearborn simulator chaotic.