Today there is the “Spider”, from September there will be the “Big Spider”. We will move from the mega Moog structure to the one that Dynisma built exclusively for Ferrari. The Maranello team has signed a collaboration agreement with the English company of Ash Warne, a former Scuderia technician who has decided to go on his own to develop a new driving simulator concept suitable for Formula 1.
The Spider has had its day, because the cell that moves in space thanks to hydraulic actuators has outdated reaction times. The indoor evolution of a Formula 1 car is becoming more and more strategic, given that track activity is extremely limited by the regulations and constraints deriving from the budget cap.
Ferrari, in order not to be caught unprepared for the 2022 project, when the ground-effect single-seater with 18-inch tires that should bring the Prancing Horse back to fight for the world title will make its debut, has decided to make an important leap forward: the staff by Mattia Binotto did not want to limit himself to copying the state of the art reached by his opponents.
Mercedes and Red Bull have sled systems that move on two tracks. The cockpit of the single-seater is not a kind of spaceship that remains suspended in the air thanks to the action of the tripods, because it is at ground level and tilts on a structure that goes back and forth depending on whether the car is accelerating or braking.
Dynisma would have studied something totally different, less complicated than the Spider, but much more sophisticated than the sled to obtain results that should project the Scuderia at the forefront in a field, in which, however, it has always suffered the superiority of the English teams.
The DMG simulator offers maximum bandwidth with minimum latency by integrating the software with the hardware, removing any possible obstacle between the driver and data acquisition.
The high bandwidth facilitates an action that is not possible on conventional movement platforms. The driving session contains information at frequencies far above 30 Hz, so that the noise of the asphalt of the track also emerges, rather than the vibrations of the engine, giving sensations on the dynamics of the vehicle with high fidelity.
The DMG (Dynisma Motion Generator) simulator, which has a latency of just 3-4 ms, consists of two triangular platforms: the first is solidly fixed to the floor, while the second moves on three axes and can provide timely feedback on the vehicle dynamics.
The driver, on the other hand, is inside a carbon body suspended on three small actuators on each side and is able to react very realistically to situations such as oversteer. Not only that, but visual stimuli such as the stresses that come from driving over curbs arrive faster than even 240Hz headlamps are able to refresh.
Sensory perception is incredible because the movement commands reach directly to the driver’s vestibular system to ensure sensations to those in the cockpit that are even closer to those perceived on the track.
By minimizing the friction, play and inertia of the actuators, the delay in receiving feedback from the driver has been practically eliminated, which for some testers can cause the sensation of vomiting or discomfort to the point of preventing him from driving in a run without disturbances. The driver acts in a 360 degree projector which ensures a very realistic perception of the track.
Obviously, the solution that Ash Warne’s engineers will have studied exclusively for Ferrari will be further extreme with even more advanced concepts than the more basic DMG versions, since there are different ones depending on the use they are intended for.
The Spider has the task of accompanying the Scuderia into a new era that will be inaugurated with the introduction of the 2022 Formula 1 rules: the goal is not only to have a competitive ground-effect single-seater, but to adapt the factory with tools ready to hold up a challenge that will not admit missteps …
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