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New Car Can Lean Into Curves, Literally
cartechboy (2660665) writes "You know how motorcycle riders lean into the corners, sometimes even touching their knee to the ground? Mercedes-Benz has developed new technology that replicates that sensation by leaning the car into bends. It's called Dynamic Curve and it's part of the Active Body control suspension system on the new 2015 Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe. In turns, special plunger cylinders raise the suspension struts and lower the opposite side, depending on the direction of the bend. This has the result of tilting the car body slightly towards the inside of the corner, countering centrifugal cornering forces. Mercedes says it's not design for increasing cornering speeds, but increasing pleasure for the driver and passengers."
There is no such thing as centrifugal force... when you talk like that you basically show why dumbasses shouldn't be involved in car design.
Stock XKCD counterpoint: Centrifugal Force
Less sensation of control loss is not a good thing. If the road was built badly (ie. opposite banking) then the driver should be aware of that, instead of thinking that he has control while in fact he doesn't.
This technology is a gimmick not unlike the pneumatics famous from the 80s (?) cars.
Just found this academic paper called "Influence of Vehicle Tilting On Its Performance" (PDF, 4 pages) regarding test results from what seems like a forerunner of the Mercedes design:
http://www3.fs.cvut.cz/web/fil...
Interesting results.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
A couple of others have mentioned the ~2007 work that Bose did in active suspension, but nothing really clarifies the idea like pictures or video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSi6J-QK1lw
Leaning into a curve is one thing, but At 1:40 the car jumps a curb-size obstable. Nice.
I'm not sure it's worth the engineering complexity versus standard sway bars (for a typical diver),
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_liGnV3PTiQ
but Bose's system (and Mercedes') sure as hell is cool.
And while we're on the topic of making unreasonably large cars more agile than they ought to be, I'm still pretty happy with Volvo's 4C system and oversized sway bars on a 7yo S80 V8 -- switching to "advanced" it behaves like a fat WRX or that pudgy football player you didn't think could move that fast, and in "comfort" mode it hunches down *evenly* about 6-8cm in hard curves... all with just plain old leverage, a few poly bushings, and electromagnets around the ferro-oil filled shocks. Simple is good.
I think not...(*poof*)
Some drivers did not like it. Others loved it for roadholding in curves that exceeded any other street-legal car. The Citroen Xantia Activa still holds the speed record in the Teknikens Värld Moose test. (The one that cause Mercedes to halt the launch of the A-class) A 2000 Citroen Xantia faster than the latest Porsche. The link to the table seems to be down right now, but it should be on http://teknikensvarld.se/algte...