“Able to produce the most accurate simulation possible” – Ferrari is betting big on simulator performance to emerge as a strong contender next season.
Ferrari is working with Dynisma, set up by former Formula 1 sim engineer Ash Warne. He is primarily focusing on two areas: decreasing latency and widening the bandwidth for stronger feedback between simulator, driver, and engineer.
Ferrari x Dynisma
Ferrari have already made considerable improvements this season, rising from 6th last season to fourth now. And with new regulations in place next season, Warne is expecting the simulator to be a game-changer for Ferrari.
“Driving simulators are otherwise known as driver-in-the-loop simulators.
“You’ve got the driver providing inputs via steering and pedals to the vehicle model which calculates the physics of the car. The car movements are then fed back to the driver by the Motion Generator, to which they can then respond by correcting their inputs and the loop starts again, up to four thousand times per second.
“If you have any delay at all in the loop then the driver will not drive the car in a realistic manner and your simulator test is invalid. Consider simulating oversteer; if the Motion Generator delays for 20 or 30 milliseconds before telling the driver that the back end is stepping out, then the driver cannot react in time and may spin.
“It’s critical that you’re able to produce the most accurate simulation possible of what’s actually happening. The driver and the car need to work as one whether on the road or in the sim. If you add delay, you end up with an unrealistic scenario.”
