FCA Comes Up with a New Driving Simulator

The FCA’s development center has recently opened an advanced Vehicle Dynamics Simulator (VDS) testing platform. Thanks to the availability of 9 running directions and specific driver calibration, this sophisticated simulator emulates the natural driving behavior.

According to development specialists of FCA Canada, this impressive tech solution simulates a car’s operating dynamics in virtual environment and on a real time basis. The majority of similar simulation technologies make use of 6 starting switches of movement to ensure close-to-reality operation. But, to correctly regenerate car operation, its responsiveness and speed-up parameters, the VDS solution has 9 actuators at its disposal to mould extra ranges of movement, thereby ensuring extremely realistic simulation. One of the main peculiarities of the FCA’s product is a 3-micron cushion of air that ensures a noiseless and smooth motion with the help of electric actuators.

Check out the VDS simulator in action

This innovative product also gives the operator a chance to add necessary systems implemented in modern cars, such as brake and steering, ABS unit as well as ESC technology, as it makes significant contribution to achieving functional goals of the testing process. According to the company’s representatives, this innovative concept will help to optimize the product creation process. It is expected that the new product will become a real asset for FCA engineers, who will be able to notice necessary design changes at early stages of the development process thanks to new simulation capacities.

The simulator can be adopted to any vehicle body, road and environment. To ensure a visual experience on the 5 projector screens, the relevant info is gathered by scanning the environments and various road surfaces, such as FCA’s testing sites in the US. The data is then combined to set up a real-time operation conditions that can include elevation differences, off-camber roads and road ruts. Currently, it is planned to use the new simulation platform during the development of Chassis Vehicle Dynamics, but in the future it will be also applied for ADAS and HMI solutions.