Motor racing is one of the world’s most fast-moving businesses – and its engineers have to be equally dynamic. Race car designers often change vehicle details minute by minute, so how do engineers keep up? The answer is state-of-the-art simulation.
rFactor Pro is a high fidelity vehicle simulator with game-quality graphics and sound engines for human in the loop simulation. The architecture of the simulator allows the physics engine to be replaced with models developed using Dymola. This enables the same vehicle models to be used in the design office and on the simulator.
The rFactor Pro product is the outcome of a major development partnership with a high budget racing team. The team demanded a simulator that is not only physically accurate, but which is also visually and aurally realistic. rFactor Pro creates detailed 3D models of tracks and vehicles and accurately models their vehicle dynamics. That means engineers and designers have a complete solution: virtualized engineering development, setup evaluation, driver training, race engineer training and strategy evaluation.
The component orientated physical modelling capability offered by Dymola enables the vehicle dynamics models to keep pace with even the fastest pace of racing development. The real-time simulation capabilities of Dymola then allow these multibody models to be compiled for simulation in real-time speeds – and with a full motion simulator. Any changes can be easily updated for use on the simulator, so the team can always work with the latest design iteration of the race car. For the engineers, the experience is better than actually driving the car, as they have continuous access to all the data they need.
Innovation like this wins championships.