AUTOMOTIVE TESTING: SIMULATION


Maserati lifts its veil on innovation


Jonathan Newell takes a look at the technological aspects that have enabled Maserati to achieve its recent success


the Italian manufacturer’s products has set the automotive press alight with its combination of design, performance and driving pleasure. Such success isn’t possible to achieve


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without significant effort and investment in people, technology and development. Maserati’s road to its renewed success has until now been understandably shrouded in secrecy. But at the end of last year, the Modena company flung open the doors of the Maserati Innovation Lab for all to see. The brand’s engineering hub,


inaugurated in September 2015 and located on via Emilia Ovest in Modena, is for the first time sharing with the outside world its fundamental role as the brand’s beating pulse, driving research technology, development and planning. The Innovation Lab was opened in late


2015 as a state-of-the-art facility using digital processing technology to support product development. This technology is sited in three major areas - the Static Simulator, the latest generation Dynamic Simulator featuring DiM (driver-in- motion) technology and the User eXperience development labs.


STATIC SIMULATOR The Static Simulator is composed of a cockpit, three projectors and lots of computational power. It is a simple system that helps engineers from the very initial


30 /// Testing & Test Houses /// February 2020


he old and esteemed Maserati brand has in recent years seen a resurgence to its former glory, following a long period of mediocrity. The latest line-up of


phase of the development process to obtain immediate feedback from the driver, and makes a major contribution to new model validation. In particular, Maserati engineering


ensures a driver-centred strategy even during virtual development by creating a link between the hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) methodology and the simulator. Using this approach real subsystems, such as steering and braking, ABS and ESC, can be added to create tests that connect physical and simulated components providing a test bed for developing all the characteristics of a new vehicle. Last but not least, driver assist systems can be developed, trialled and validated in a safe environment by reproducing the complex scenarios that may arise anywhere in the world.


DYNAMIC DIM SIMULATOR The Dynamic Simulator with its DiM technology allows development engineers to fully exploit all aspects of system integration thanks to the evolution of proprietary control strategies, cutting development times and costs. It also helps to reduce the number of prototypes and ensures that the virtual sign-off is very close to the final product. With various directions of movement,


the simulator generates an effective driving experience, emulating in a virtual environment the driving dynamics of a car in the real world on a wide variety of road surfaces or conditions, including the world’s top international racing circuits. Modifications to the vehicle can be made


with a few simple clicks, greatly simplifying data analysis. Unlike most six-axis dynamic simulators,


the system used at Maserati employs nine actuators (three on the lower platform and six in the upper), thereby offering nine degrees of freedom to accurately reproduce the driving characteristics of a car. All of this enables the engineers to precisely analyse the dynamics of the car, in addition to driving performance and comfort, all on the same moving platform. So far, the use of the DiM simulator has


enabled Maserati to cut the time to market for new cars by half and to reduce the use of physical prototypes by 40 per cent, resulting in considerable reduction in cost, wastage and development lead times.


USER EXPERIENCE LAB The User eXperience development labs focus on the human-machine interaction, one of the major challenges of the latest development projects relating to the rapid evolution of connectivity and the use of driver assist systems, combined with electrification. The Maserati driver simulator hub


includes a lab dedicated to vehicle ergonomics, enabling accurate


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