Quote:
Originally Posted by London Lad
So the power of the linear motor has to support the weight of the car and the driving induced forces, no wonder its current hungry. I guess it is constantly looking to keep the car level. I bet that transfers some serious forces into the tyres, interesting concept.
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Yup. But I believe they use torsion bars to offset much of the car weight, so that the linear motors only have to "support" the changes... sort of how a garage door spring offsets much of the weight so that the garage door opener can be less powerful.
But it still takes a LOT of power to use linear motors to move the mass of a vehicle up and down extremely fast in response, or anticipation, of bumps.
Wikipedia has a good explanation:
"This system uses electromagnetic linear motors to raise or lower the wheels of an automobile in response to un-even bumps or potholes on the road. The wheels are raised when approaching a bump, or extended into a pothole, within milliseconds, thus keeping the vehicle steady. This technology is another application of Bose's active noise reduction technology for speakers and earphones. The unevenness of the road is sensed, and processed much like a sound wave. A cancelling wave is generated, which is applied to the wheels through the linear motors."
P.S. The cool thing about the system is that the handling is almost totally programmable, i.e., you can make it behave however you want with a program change... I suspect you could make it simulate a traditional suspension if you wanted. Check-out the last 45 seconds of this video:
YouTube - Suspension BOSE