Sim Racing Expo 2016: Niels Heusinkveld talks Vehicle Dynamics

[Paul Jeffrey]

Reiza Studios physics expert Niels Heusinkveld has released a recording from his vehicle dynamics talk at the recent 2016 Sim Racing Expo in Nürburgring, Germany. Discussing many areas around the world of sim racing physics, Niels video is a sim racing must see!

The man behind Heusinkveld Engineering, an engineering company responsible for developing advanced, professional grade sim racing hardware, as well as his role as physics creator for Reiza Studios AMS title, Heusinkveld is considered one of the most knowledgeable physics creators in the sim racing scene.

If you were not lucky enough to attend the Sim Racing Expo on Sunday, fear not! Niels has kindly uploaded a recording from his talk, which can be seen in full below:

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Did you enjoy the Sim Racing Expo 2016 video from Niels? Did you attend the Expo yourself? Have any interesting stories to share? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Vincent.C]

Super interesting stuff. Thx for sharing this

 

[antirussia81]

Not only interesting but also quite intelligible, even for complete amateurs like me. Thanks!

 

[Paulo Gomes]

I have learned something very usefull with this video, always drive with tyre loads in mind, it doens´t take 1 second per lap, but make me search more for that sweet transition from braking to start cornering, what AMS ffb is really good at, and that definitely briengs more consistend lap times and gain some tenths, what is key to be good circuit drivers. Tips like this one, that Niels give us, that sometimes makes that "click" in our brain and we are a bit better drivers, both in sim and real live.

 

[Terry Rock]

'Logic and expertise'..... It's why AMS feels so 'natural' from the very first lap out of the pitbox.
The tires do exactly what you'd expect them to do....and feel.
Lots of sim developer approach it as if tires were made of wood for a few laps... before turning to rubber.

 

[Tim Davila]

simplyfied but very effective tips near the end!
Do more of these videos Niels!

 

[Stenne]

Very interesting! Good level of complexity also for a non-expert like me. Helps a lot for understanding what is happening with the car on track that might help to improve my driving . Would really like to see more of the same kind.

 

[Eric Bergeron]

interresting stuff, thanks for sharing.

 

[Kevin Knorpp]

Understanding these concepts completely transformed my sim racing. I'll never forget the day I just randomly decided to "just check out this vehicle dynamics mumbo jumbo that all these nerds keep on about". Sim racing was never the same after that. God sure did an amazing job with physics with my favorite thing being the endless trade-offs and continued reliance on testing. Even if computers are at some point able to tell us the ideal setup, we'll still have to be able to drive and, in my case, I'll be unaffected because I only drive historics

 

[Stenne]

@Paul Jeffrey
If I got it right, At the end of the video Niels said something about preparing a pdf of his presentation. Would you know anything more about that?

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

Hello Sten,

I have no info on that one atm, however lets ask the man himself... mr @Niels_at_home - over to you sir

 

[Stenne]

Thanks Paul

 

[David Wright]

'Logic and expertise'..... It's why AMS feels so 'natural' from the very first lap out of the pitbox.
The tires do exactly what you'd expect them to do....and feel.
Lots of sim developer approach it as if tires were made of wood for a few laps... before turning to rubber.

Some racing series allow tyre pre-heating and some don't. Pre-heating was introduced for a reason - racing tyres which are cold and at below optimum pressure do not offer very good grip. If a sim is simulating a racing series where you start on cold tyres then they should take a few laps before they perform optimally.

 

[Terry Rock]

Some racing series allow tyre pre-heating and some don't. Pre-heating was introduced for a reason - racing tyres which are cold and at below optimum pressure do not offer very good grip. If a sim is simulating a racing series where you start on cold tyres then they should take a few laps before they perform optimally.

Ah! yes relative to the maximum grip they don't handle as well...but the Chevron B16 I personally took for a spin back in 78 drove very well on cold tires.
There was no tendency to oversteer or understeer at 40 mph....and I drove it fast...very, very fast.

 

[Richard Eriksson]

From my own work in this field i have learned another thing. AMS actually does this right as well... That thing is that having the "right" numbers and formulae is not always what you want, incidentally. Because in the simulator environment there are a lot of things missing in natural feedback and spatial awareness, so for it to "feel" right you need to tweak the way the dynamics are presented. There is an excellent report by an old colleague of mine, Nomar Khan, at the time working with some stuff for the Eurofighter simulators on that subject, that details that pilots think that "real" numbers feel wrong in the simulator... This is because the simulator is not having all the feedbacks and periferal awareness of the real fighter jet.

It can be clearly seen in simracing as well, for instance, take the "driving on ice" statement regarding iRacing. Now the physics model for that title is pretty spot on, regarding "hard" numbers. But it "feels" wrong to some people, mostly real racing drivers. Why? Probably because the restricted presentation of the data makes for so low comprehension of it that without simplifications it feels off.

What you should do is have the correct numbers backing the simulation, but then you should filter them, to acount for the lack of real control and periferal environments.

For instance, Dr. Khan's report shows that if input was filtered in the EF simulators the pilots felt it to be more real, when in fact it was 20% LESS responsive to control than the real life counterpart.

 

[fortyfivekev]

Niels is great as ever. The only trouble is now when I am looking at some motec traces I will be imagining him standing over my shoulder telling me how bad I am.

 

[Terry Rock]

@Richard...Dr Kahn's assessment is quite valid.
I am currently working as a flight simulator technician for a very 'cutting-edge' private jet.
What he discovered then, is where we have gone for the past year and a half.
Some of the test pilots initially stated that the simulator felt a bit too sensitive compared to the aircraft during rudder pedal inputs on the ground. Both use the exact same data plots.
The control-loading and motion engineers then got to work 'tweaking' the numbers.
They then had all test pilots and SME fly it for an accurate 'feel'.
It is 'spot-on' now based on collective feedback.

 

[Richard Eriksson]

@Richard...Dr Kahn's assessment is quite valid.
I am currently working as a flight simulator technician for a very 'cutting-edge' private jet.
What he discovered then, is where we have gone for the past year and a half.
Some of the test pilots initially stated that the simulator felt a bit too sensitive compared to the aircraft during rudder pedal inputs on the ground. Both use the exact same data plots.
The control-loading and motion engineers then got to work 'tweaking' the numbers.
They then had all test pilots and SME fly it for an accurate 'feel'.
It is 'spot-on' now based on collective feedback.

Exactly my experience as well, from working on defence contracts. Many details of a simulation feels weird if they are exactly correct, numbers wise. And only by some tweaking can you get the same "feel" in a simulator environment.

As for the psychology behind it, Kahn is much better than me at explaining it, seeing he worked extensively with "sensomotoric input" but like i said, the gist of it is that the restrictions of the environment needs to be compensated for.

A classic example in sim-racing is also exaggerated force feedback. With power-steering, used in real race cars, the actual wheel feedback is rather small. But most sim-racers say FFB is "too weak", and demand to feel "grip of tyres" and so on, even if you rarely do that by using the steering wheel in real life, but rather by your butt

The other way around is also true... If you put a person who is an expert in a flight simulator, in a real plane, he will feel out of place, and be bad at controlling it at first.

Same would be true of putting the simracing aliens who believe that mastering "driving on ice" is real deal, behind the wheel of a real racecar. They would be good at the things that cross over, but rather slow overall in general, at least at first.

 

[Terry Rock]

I am always a bit amazed by some sim developers and especially simracers who'll argue to the 'death', that older racecars handle badly and don't stop properly.
Well.... relative to today's sintered carbon and ceramic brakes, they're outclassed but they do stop darn well.
Well enough, to pitch your a** right through a windshield if you're not belted in securely.
Never could understand that oversight.

 

[P*Funk]

Apparently a lot of it is owed to the set ups that came with GPL which fundamentally didn't understand the cars, the set ups being based on modern super stiff F1 principles totally unsuited to the bouncy springy 60s cars. Also the constant death of drivers back then probably lends credibility to this otherwise totally incorrect assumption.