Simulator interrogates car design

"Our simulator can be used across many different vehicles bringing real benefits of scope," says Frank Kalff, commercial director at Cruden. "Jaguar Land Rover will be using it for vehicle dynamics, NVH and ride assessment as well as HMI, control systems, aerodynamics, off-road capability and Advanced Product Creation programmes. It's a platform which allows excellent cross-functional working within metres of where most of the key engineers are based. "We've been working alongside the Jaguar Land Rover team for some time and have seen that they were able to dive straight in and use the simulator to interrogate the stability and precision of latest generation cars. They set out with small, defined tasks and were surprised how soon, even in its 'off the shelf' state, the simulator started to throw up other, unanticipated characteristics and action items to be investigated. A simulator can help automotive engineers assess the driving experience qualitatively, in terms of 'feel,' just as their customers do. This is far more useful than desktop simulations in isolation." Jaguar Land Rover has been working with Cruden for over a year using a temporary, adapted Hexatech simulator while developing its bespoke simulator, which has recently been installed. Cruden is the world's leading designer and manufacturer of professional, interactive, motion-based racing simulators. The company develops the most high tech, realistic and accurate professional equipment for the top levels of international motorsport, including Formula One, as well as vehicle manufacturers and their suppliers. The same package is then made available to the global attractions market and to private individuals o create a motorsport experience which simply does not compare with 'games' machines on the market. Cruden's heritage is in the development of professional simulators for the aerospace, marine and automotive industries. Specification details include an actual production seat, various Jaguar and Land Rover steering wheels (with reach and rake adjustment) and pedal boxes which are integrated into the driver cockpit area to provide the most realistic driving position, and are interchangeable within around 20 minutes. The simulator integrates with the IPG Carmaker vehicle modelling software used by Jaguar Land Rover for its desktop simulation via Cruden's ePhyse Net external physics interfacing package. The software allows companies to run their vehicle models natively, in co-simulation, with its simulators, saving time on compiling code and saving cost by eliminating the need to purchase the Real Time Workshop conversion package. The simulator runs on Cruden's own Racer Pro operating software. Cruden also produces the LIDAR scanned professional tracks and roads used by Jaguar Land Rover for their virtual testing programme. It can be operated and adjusted by the driver using Cruden's recently-launched Race Manager app via a dashboard-mounted tablet, eliminating the need for a support engineer to be on hand whenever the simulator is in use.