Mercedes Simulation

 Now we close the door and spaced from the capsule sliding sleeve - you can not get out on their own. For feedback is microphones. And if you feel unwell, click here on this red button!

Fear, admiration, curiosity. These three feelings succeeded one another, when I 15 years ago for the first time hit the cosmonaut training center. But now I'm not in Star City, and in Sindelfingen, a suburb of Stuttgart, at the Center for Advanced Development Company Mercedes-Benz. And check in action I will not pressure chamber, and not even a centrifuge, and resting on six hydraulic cylinders is the newest driving simulator.

The first driving simulator at the company Mercedes-Benz launched 25 years ago at the site near Berlin. And the first production car in the cleanup of which were actively used virtual technology became scandalously famous A-Class. On that grim history of the 13-year-old rollover highbrow mikrovenchika to "moose test" in the journalistic tests in Sindelfingen remember do not like. But the lesson still remembered. Virtual tests are now only "raw" digitized prototypes, and all the final finishing - only on real roads!

A total of mersedesovskom Center of promising developments today assembled five simulators: three "static" and two "dynamic", including this whopper with a 300-ton base length of 12 meters - a linear motor on it with a force of up to 220,000 Newtons pushing the platform on which are mounted six cylinders MOOG, rocking the 22-ton capsule to the car, where the tester can feel all the acceleration in their own skin. This "toy", functioning since June 2010, Mercedes has managed in 16 million euros. A total investment in simulators, climatic chamber, wind tunnel testing center and infrastructure in the five years amounted to 160 million euros!

Screen around the screens in the mirrors.From a more thorough rendering of landscape mersedesovtsy refrain specifically: the driver needs to remember that the reality inside the capsule simulator - virtual	Simulation run at least two operators. In the hands of a "master switch" and a remote control landing sleeve - he watches the scene with six monitors.  A second load of the program and monitors all parameters of motion: from the engine speed to the steering angle

Rate wonder-simulator and the degree of reliability modeling suggested the example of three exercises: slalom speed of 70 km / h, an abrupt change lanes on the 120 km / h and maneuvering at speed 170 km / h within the band (it was necessary to fall into the narrow cross-sections, installed with a slight bias). Speed ​​had to be set by the cruise control, and during the maneuver did not use the gas pedal and brakes. Why? It turns out that even a perfect simulation can reliably simulate the horizontal acceleration only along one axis! When installing the car in the capsule perpendicular to the guide base plausibly played only transverse overloading and slowing down under braking or acceleration during acceleration replaced by the corresponding slope of the capsule forwards or backwards.

I went inside. In the center of a circular "room" with a diameter of about six meters is normal for the type of Mercedes C 200 with a bunch of alien cameras, microphones, speakers and wiring in the cabin. Instead of mirrors - monitorchiki. The walls around - one continuous screen. Sat strapped. And, after the instructor that I could not get out on their own, began frantically search for another and six-point racing belt. Check that the red "emergency" button - right under his right arm.

For the instructor closes the heavy door, drove off the sleeve. "You can start a movement" - was heard from the speakers. As in the real car, you first need to press the brake, turning the key "start" the engine (of course, it does not work, and all the appropriate noises are heard from the speakers), push the selector to "automatic" in Drive. How are the astronauts? Let's go!

Virtual test ride mersedesovtsy spend on this mobile platform. Cylinders reproduce the "irregularities" in strict accordance with the acceleration, fixed on the real road	And this is - a simulator of unexpected situations: in it are thousands of employees and customers, helping engineers to gather statistics about the behavior of people in emergency situations and to verify the effectiveness of preventive safety systems	One example embodiment of the ideas of ordinary customers - multicontour chairs.In the photo - a prototype of their sample of 1996 with a massive remote control

If you do not pay attention to the conditional rendering of landscape - a complete illusion that you are driving on a real car! Even the noise simulated reliably: the growth rate to the motor is mixed buhteniyu rising whistle of the wind and tire roar. It took about ten seconds to load properties car. And here I sit in the C-class, and going on ... first downloaded digital prototype of the newest Mercedes CLS before finishing on the virtual roads. I still have fresh memories of riding on this coupe-sedan on the serpentine of Tuscany, and therefore compare the sensation was doubly interesting.

Knocked down a couple of cones in the slalom. All the time twist the wheel on "perestavke. But already with a hit on target at the speed of 170 km / h and at all a problem. No, guys, this is not CLS, but some lazy weakling with an empty wheel!

In just half an hour of our international group of eight journalists has been put forward and substantiated the idea of ​​a bus that can still fly and swim. A 27-year-old mersedesovsky designer Andreas Wolf, whose parents (Volga Germans) moved from the Soviet Union to Germany 20 years ago, embodied it on paper faster than ever. For the year in Sindelfingen held 60-80 like brainstorming with the usual buyers 

The next "car" - the same CLS-prototype, but after finishing in a virtual reality: the same chassis tuning, if you believe mersedesovtsam had the first running samples. Wow! He does everything like a real, metal CLS. In slalom felt even the characteristic "step" on the effort by passing through the steering wheel "zero". And no one downed cone. Such a degree of reliability of the virtual model, I never expected it!

Of course, even the most sophisticated computer program can not yet simulate all the diversity of situations on the road, all types of surface and weather conditions. But it is obvious that mersedesovtsy stepped into the virtual reality far beyond the rest - or Audi, or BMW, nor the Japanese or American manufacturers have not yet demonstrated to the public nothing like this!

I tried to read a simulator ride. It represents a platform attached to it a couple of seats, swings and tilts on the team four cylinder machine.On the screen in front of fares broadcast video, in order to create the illusion of driving on real roads. Sit down. At first I include a typical German autobahn, speed 130 km / h, the car - allegedly the E-class. I never would have thought that on a flat motorway so shakes: The platform is moved with an amplitude of about half a meter!

- This is a real acceleration, measured by us on the highway A8, which is a few kilometers away - sitting stolidly responsible for the German control.

Then, when I drove a minibus to the airport Viano on this piece of road, I purposely closed his eyes in order to concentrate on shaking.Identical experience!

- And this beloved land of our testers. - An engineer clicks the keyboard, and highway gives way to rural track. - This bundeshtrasse is just twenty miles from Sindelfingen.

Yam! Trampoline! Well, that strapped, but one never knows what hour would have fallen out of the saddle. Again, well! Now cross buffeting - just like in the driveway of Dmitrov landfill. And this is Germany? It turns out, yes. Now I understand why all of a Mercedes outstanding smoothness: near Munich, for example, such a rough road is not there.

Then there was a piece of Los Angeles. And just in the computer memory laid about fifty roads to the characteristic for the German and American irregularities. The Germans tried to digitize and Russian roads, but ...

- Marking of hydraulic cylinders for your bumps is not enough - laughing operator. - And here we have a couple of Chinese roads soon in the computer is booted.

After the "dynamic" simulation "static" noise and light modulators are no longer impressed. But the "ride" on the third simulation, which is a stationary Mercedes S-Class and the screen in front of him, it was helpful. Mersedesovtsy call it a "modulator driving situations." Virtual two-way road passes through a small town, which could happen anything: from the cab, slipped the intersection on red, before children, suddenly ran out into the roadway behind the ball.

"You control the car and not wipe the pan!" - Likes to tell the coach Ernest Tsygankov. But with the passage on the wheel as a "concept» F 800 Style, on the classical technique taxi will have to forget	Benzoelektrichesky hybrid F 800 Style theoretically can go on electric up to 30 km. But in practice, went to recharge the hybrid lithium-ion battery capacity of 10 kilowatt-hours every quarter of an hour

Good thing I was not the first and was able to spy, that the "surprise" in store for mersedesovtsy colleagues: in front of the car due to a parked van on the taxi strip your passenger car. A typical situation: he did not see you, you have not seen it. What should I do? Colleagues instinctively slowed, pulled the wheel to the left ... and crashed into oncoming cars! A correct algorithm consisted in the fact that there is a force to hit the brake and gradually shift to the left within its band. When in front of you someone else's car left side, the last to make damn hard. That's because Germans and work out the algorithms of active and preventive safety, whether it is Brake Assist with laser sensor for the future in-class or assistant hold the strip on the new coupe CL.

Incidentally, in Sindelfingen attract current and future clients, not only for statistical research, but also to develop advanced models. How does this happen? Once or twice a week, gather 30-40 people, divide them into groups of eight participants in each, and give the job. For example, put forward the idea of ​​a device that will build a level of comfort to a new level in 2020. Brad? Do not tell me. I was involved in such a creative game. Each group was given a board with eight sheets of paper. On each sheet - eight rows. One minute it was necessary to write a single line one idea. Then you move to the right. On the worksheet already has a neighbor idea - you must offer something alternative. And so - until it fills all eight rows of eight pages. Then cut the sheets so that each row becomes a card. Cards are laid out in piles according to directions. The group then chooses the direction and the best idea, but mersedesovsky designer once it embodies on paper! And literally right there among the groups hold a contest. Universal suffrage is chosen the best project that has a chance to be enshrined in the serial car: from 80 buying ideas, selected in 2002, four were implemented in the current E-class!

Mersedesovtsy say that now, when in full swing brainstorm new E-Class in 2016, their creators are using the same method sheets and cards.

The machine is beautiful, but still goes bad. And stereokamera on it did not work. Why is it necessary? The first function - a recognition of the irregularities. System PRESCAN, suspension control, was still a concept car F 700, shown three years ago at the Frankfurt Motor Show. A year or two PRESCAN receive serial embodiment of the new S-class and will be called Magic Body Control. It is a pity that the test harness magic in action failed. But I could ride behind the wheel of the S-Class, which is not only the accelerated and braked, but at a speed of 40 km / h turning the wake of the front running machine! And all thanks to stereokamere. In the cruise control the next generation, it is the car for a couple with two radars. And it serves as a benchmark for the number plate car-leader: electronics centers the car is on it.Of course, without electric power steering to turn the machine itself can not. Therefore, the new S-Class will not only stereokamera, but also electrical power.

Feel progress could live the next day - on the ground near the Stuttgart airport drove the concept car F 800 Style. Creaking electric sliding doors, hollow plastic cabin-specific profile of composite seats ... In a word - way layout. Rechargeable hybrid built on the conventional parallel scheme - 109-hp electric motor mounted between the seven-step "machine" and petrol "six" in volume of 3.5 liters. Cruising on a clean electric range - 30 miles, but every 15 minutes, the machine was removed to recharge the lithium-ion battery. Unpleasant jerks and clutch separates motor from the engine.

What if the future S-Class will receive a full autopilot, the Mercedes is finally overtaking and BMW, and Audi. Or is it just a simulation?

Posted in: Mercedes