Penske Autosport, a US-based auto racing team involved in many areas of motorsport, has expanded its partnership with Ansible Motion, a manufacturer of Driver-in-the-Loop (DIL) simulators, with the delivery of four Theta Seat Sport simulators.
The Theta Seat Sport simulator is the first model in the company’s new motorsport product series, designed specifically for motorsport applications, with an engineering-grade computational architecture that powers highly detailed vehicle and environment models, plus interconnection capacity for multiple networked DIL simulators.
The four new simulators complement DS Penske’s existing Ansible Motion Delta S3 DIL simulator which was deployed in 2024, meaning the racing team now has a multi-sim testing and development centre. The multi-sim setup is already operational as the team competes in Formula E’s eleventh season.
The setup enables the driver of the Delta S3 simulator to interact virtually in real-time on-track with four drivers in separate Theta Seat Sport simulators. Phil Charles, deputy team principal and team president at DS Penske said that having had success with the Delta S3 dynamic simulator, “we were keen to expand our simulator programme to include multiple, simultaneous drivers in order to explore inter-vehicle and inter-driver situations. Ansible Motion’s new Theta Seat Sport simulator suite is now enabling us to do this.”
Another key element of the multi-simulator setup is enabled by vehicle modelling network software from AVL Racetech – a technical partner of Ansible Motion – which provides unified multi-simulator connectivity for vehicle dynamics simulation.
Guillermo Pezzetto, global sales & business development manager racing at AVL Racetech, commented: “DS Penske’s multi-simulator solution enables the customer to simulate highly realistic race scenarios, including traffic, thus creating a unique testing environment for the development of race car setups and energy management strategies. To maximise the benefits of this setup, the vehicle dynamics simulation used must be capable of realistically modelling the physical effects of running in traffic, which is exactly what our AVL VSM RACE software is doing.”
The Theta Seat Sport simulator has a modular, plinth-based physical structure, and can be integrated with engineering-grade driving simulation software supplied by Ansible Motion’s sister company, rFpro, to deliver real-world physics, and high-fidelity track simulations for Formula E, enhancing driver immersion alongside the vision, motion, and audio systems.
“Our multi-sim technology opens up new avenues for development that weren’t possible before, and we are looking forward to introducing several new Sport products in the near term,” added Dan Clark, managing director of Ansible Motion.
