76 replies to this topic

[Ben1445]

As for injuries all drivers know to let go of the steering before a crash

I'm sure they all do. Though the rate of driver wrist injuries in the real world suggests they either don't always do that or aren't able to do so fast enough. 

[MikeTekRacing]

How often is it an issue in f1?

[JeePee]

An avarage Direct Drive steering wheel for sim racing weighs much more than actual steering arms. Above 10 kgs at least. I understand endless possibilities with setup, but weight-saving is not a positive if you still want to give feedback to the driver.

[Beri]

A per the story on the main page of autosport. Will we ever see steer by wire in F1? we already have the brake by wire and a few years ago that would have been unthinkable.
 
Everyones thoughts, positive or negative, what do you think?

Well, no.. since fly by wire was introduced in commercial airplanes back in the late 80s, it was clear that such technology could be used for a large variety of things. And that such system found its way to Formula One in 2014, is very late in my opinion. Steer by wire is just around the corner, I'd say.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Do we have brake by wire or do we have regenerative braking which is run through the brake pedal? If you turn your regen to zero, don't you still have calipers running off hydraulics via the pedal?

[prty]

You should at least still have working brakes as long as those are still hydraulic. I would rather that than the new FE gen3 cars that only have regen-based front brakes

 

What if you also have brake by wire?

In the end I guess there should be some statistics about how likely it is that a power failure occurs, how likely it is that the steering column fails, and then go for the safest.

[prty]

Steering failures do happen fairly often, in the form of front tire or suspension failures at the limit of traction, and it's not nice, but racing has managed.

 

But steer by wire wouldn't decrease the probability of a suspension or tyre failure.

 

[HeadFirst]

Nah. Everyone knows wireless is the way forward.

 

And everyone knows the way forward, is often a step backward.

[kumo7]

And everyone knows the way forward, is often a step backward.

Henry Ford would’ve chosen the fly by wire if it were available to him at the time. So is Wright Brothers. Obviously it’s much lighter and allows diverse way of drivers positions and also allows software control, So very soon it will be a steer by wire.

It is like anything on this Formula One, this discussion misses a deductive definition in what competition this series is. If it were the pure technical competition, then drive I would’ve been replaced along time ago. If it were human competition then technical definition must be a completely different.

No worries cars will be fitted with all fly by wire.

Edited by kumo7, 27 June 2022 - 15:44.

[Dmitriy_Guller]

An avarage Direct Drive steering wheel for sim racing weighs much more than actual steering arms. Above 10 kgs at least. I understand endless possibilities with setup, but weight-saving is not a positive if you still want to give feedback to the driver.

The average direct drive steering wheel is an industrial electrical motor with a steering wheel attached.  It makes sense for that application, since those systems are already very expensive, but a racing team is surely going to have a more bespoke implementation.

[AustinF1]

Of course you can simulate feedback. But it’s never the real thing.

 

 

Yep. Steering by wire is fine for everyday road vehicle use, but any enthusiastic driver or race fan who's driven a car with it would know why a racing driver wouldn't want it.

[Dmitriy_Guller]

But steer by wire wouldn't decrease the probability of a suspension or tyre failure.

 

It won't, but the point I was making was that losing steering is not some new mode of failure.  It already happens, and it is a serious failure in many cases, but it's not an existential threat to racing.

[Beri]

Of course you can simulate feedback. But it’s never the real thing.
As for injuries all drivers know to let go of the steering before a crash

Power steering is currently no issue. Even tho that delivered a different feedback compared to the non power steering setup as well.

[Primo]

If I'm not mistaken, the Group E cars in Nitro RX have steer-by-wire. I cannot find anything to confirm my claim, but at the latest (Group E's first) race at Lydden Hill, someone had a steering issue and when they tried to explain it it certainly sounded as if the electric motor/motors that did the actual steering had been broken by an impact.

Edited by Primo, 27 June 2022 - 18:15.

[Primo]

Of course you can simulate feedback. But it’s never the real thing.

As for injuries all drivers know to let go of the steering before a crash

"The real thing" is simply forces from the tires transmitted to the hands of the driver. Any mechanism in between the tire and the hands will affect the force and introduce latency, even if ever so little. The latency in a "wired" system is very close to zero which means that forces that are "sensed" close to where they happen can easily be transferred to the steering wheel and applied in ways that make sense to a driver. It works pretty well in the sim world where the latency is much more in play. Unless F1 bans it, or rather, if F1 allow it, I am sure we will see it in a near future.

[HeadFirst]

Is "Steer By Wire" going to be a real improvement for F1. By that I mean will it offer a performance improvement? Will it offer cost, and/or weight savings? 

[GrumpyYoungMan]

Is "Steer By Wire" going to be a real improvement for F1. By that I mean will it offer a performance improvement? Will it offer cost, and/or weight savings?

I can’t see it, it will only increase costs with no improvement…

As for brake by wire, I think that is slightly misleading as that the brake pedal is more a (pressure) switch to enable the regenerative charging of the ERS

[mikeC]

And everyone knows the way forward, is often a step backward.

Just step back to the beginning of the twentieth century, when practically every car had 'brake by wire', and many had 'steering by wire':

 

[Sterzo]

Just step back to the beginning of the twentieth century, when practically every car had 'brake by wire', and many had 'steering by wire':

Indeed. And should we trust a car with the new-fangled automated ignition timing? Bring back a lever on the steering wheel, I say, and a manual choke to go with it.

[Rumblestrip]

Indeed. And should we trust a car with the new-fangled automated ignition timing? Bring back a lever on the steering wheel, I say, and a manual choke to go with it.

 

Some have said that even the steering wheel has been a bad move, and that we should never have abandoned the tiller...

[MikeTekRacing]

"The real thing" is simply forces from the tires transmitted to the hands of the driver. Any mechanism in between the tire and the hands will affect the force and introduce latency, even if ever so little. The latency in a "wired" system is very close to zero which means that forces that are "sensed" close to where they happen can easily be transferred to the steering wheel and applied in ways that make sense to a driver. It works pretty well in the sim world where the latency is much more in play. Unless F1 bans it, or rather, if F1 allow it, I am sure we will see it in a near future.

Modeling those forces is ALWAYS an exercise of also filtering them. Drivers pick up an enormous amount of feedback through tyres as their sensitivity is super high.
it does not matter that much for the average joe or even enthusiasts. But the world's best are uber sensistive

 

[Ross Stonefeld]

Yeah I'd be curious to see how well this could be tuned on something like an Indycar qualifying for the 500. It's probably good enough for hacking a GT car around a road course.

[Primo]

Modeling those forces is ALWAYS an exercise of also filtering them. Drivers pick up an enormous amount of feedback through tyres as their sensitivity is super high.
it does not matter that much for the average joe or even enthusiasts. But the world's best are uber sensistive

There's the big difference between the sim- and the real worlds "by wire" - you do not need to model the forces in a real car, you just sense and translate them. 

Edited by Primo, 28 June 2022 - 19:29.

[ARTGP]

There's the big difference between the sim- and the real worlds "by wire" - you do not need to model the forces in a real car, you just sense and translate them. 

 

I think if a steer by wire system were to be implemented, they could place some kind of load sensor in the tie-rod, and then have an electric motor on the steering wheel shaft that reproduces the forces. 

 

There's something in the sim racing community called a "direct drive" wheel which is basically a steering wheel connected to a high torque electric motor. In the case of a video game, the game physics engine has to model the forces to apply to the steering wheel.  However, in the real world, if you could simply measure the loads in the track rods, you can just "apply" them to the steering wheel.  

 

The limitation of a video game is how good the physics model is to replicate real world forces. In a real world application, you don't need to model anything. You just need to measure what is already there.

Edited by ARTGP, 28 June 2022 - 19:37.

[MikeTekRacing]

that's a very hard technical problem because you need to convert analogue movement to digital, process it, convert it again to analogue via the motor. That is filtering the signal somehow. Can be much worse or barely worse, but it's clearly filtered. 
Then all that processing takes time to happen. Nothing is really in real time so you add some sort of lag.

the way the motor responds to commands also is a bit of a different model - since no devices are truly linear - another variable

 

it creates more problems than it solves...

Edited by MikeTekRacing, 28 June 2022 - 19:42.

[ARTGP]

that's a very hard technical problem because you need to convert analogue movement to digital, process it, convert it again to analogue via the motor. That is filtering the signal somehow. Can be much worse or barely worse, but it's clearly filtered. 
Then all that processing takes time to happen. Nothing is really in real time so you add some sort of lag.

the way the motor responds to commands also is a bit of a different model - since no devices are truly linear - another variable

 

it creates more problems than it solves...

 

I agree that it seems like a whole load of work that F1 drivers are not really asking for and it's not like steer by wire will help the cars to become "smaller" either. This isn't something that I view as high on the list of things that can make F1 better. It's a sideways move at best, and one that cost money. 

Edited by ARTGP, 28 June 2022 - 19:51.

[Primo]

I think if a steer by wire system were to be implemented, they could place some kind of load sensor in the tie-rod, and then have an electric motor on the steering wheel shaft that reproduces the forces. 

 

There's something in the sim racing community called a "direct drive" wheel which is basically a steering wheel connected to a high torque electric motor. In the case of a video game, the game physics engine has to model the forces to apply to the steering wheel.  However, in the real world, if you could simply measure the loads in the track rods, you can just "apply" them to the steering wheel.  

 

The limitation of a video game is how good the physics model is to replicate real world forces. In a real world application, you don't need to model anything. You just need to measure what is already there.

 

Well, yes, that's what I tried to say ;)

The current dominant system, assisting the movement of mechanical linkage with a power source, is not without problems, "feeling" do get weakened and to a certain extent hindered by the power steering. If you think about it - the same mechanism must produce brute force while still letting subtle movements through. In both directions. I think the effective "lag" can actually be smaller "by wire". 

I a steer by wire system, there is so much more information that can be transferred, not necessarily more accurately, at least more pronounced. There will be possibilities to add feedback mechanisms to the steering wheel, or maybe to the seat itself, to get that "pants" feeling. Imagine holding the wheel and on the inside, where the tip of your fingers are, you have some area that, by hydraulics or pneumatic s, put the slip angle at your finger tips, telling you exactly how much you have "left". 

Many rules need to be written, but if allowed, it will beat any mechanical alternative within a few moons after the signatures is down.
 
 

Edited by Primo, 28 June 2022 - 20:16.