Ferrari has installed a motion platform named DiM (Driver in Motion) designed by VI-grade and engineered and manufactured by Saginomiya. The new dynamic platform for the driving simulator has been successfully installed at the Ferrari Gestione Industriale site in Maranello, Italy and from now on, will be used for developing, testing and optimizing new vehicle models.
“The installation of DiM has been successfully completed in full respect of our original plans. The system completely meets our specifications and expectations and represents the perfect complement to our existing engineering process”, said Marco Fainello, head of car performance simulation at Ferrari. “Leveraging the experience developed with Formula 1, we will be using from now on the driving simulator for road car development to optimize traditional passive performance with including active system electronics, with the purpose to anticipate driver comments much before the real prototype is built.”
The 9DOF platform has been designed in order to take full advantage of VI-MotionCueing, an innovative motion cueing strategy developed by VI-grade in collaboration with the University of Padua, Italy. It consists of a small-size hexapod mounted on top of a planar frame moving on a very smooth sliding surface by means of an efficient and innovative system based on air pads and magnetic pads. The hexapod has been designed to produce consistent pitch/roll rotations and Z translations, as well as small X/Y translations and Yaw rotation. The consistent X, Y and Yaw movements required to generate the feeling of vehicle accelerations on the driver are instead generated by the base tripod. VI-MotionCueing harmonizes the system motion extending the motion envelope and separating low and high frequency contributions, which makes this type of motion platform suitable for both vehicle dynamics and ride studies.
