Mercedes Active chassis
05.10 .2010
B isher, car chassis are reactionary comrades. They only react when the road forces them to. This usually works quite well, but the chassis developers at Mercedes saw a need for action as early as the 1990s. They developed Active Body Control (ABC), an active chassis in which the suspension can be controlled selectively for each wheel. This solves the previous conflict of goals - comfortable or tight? - on. The suspension struts always react optimally, even preventing pitching and rolling movements of the body.
Magic Body Control for an immense gain in comfort
An immense gain in comfort, but the next step was logical: the anticipatory recognition of Uneven road surfaces should come even closer to the proverbial magic carpet. For example, Daimler presented the F700 research car, the laser-based Pre-Scan system, which scans the road in front of the moving vehicle. It sends this data to the control unit, which then precisely informs the ABC of what is in store for the wheels and prepares the struts accordingly. Magic Body Control goes even further. The two expensive, heavy and bulky lasers are replaced by a stereo camera. In the standard trim, it should be less than 20 centimeters wide and completely disappear behind the interior mirror.
At the same time, she has multifunctional tasks, her images are also used by the computer for security and assistance systems such as Distronic Plus and Pre-Safe. And this is how the system works: the camera with its two lenses records the roadway in the area of five to 15 meters in front of the car. The images are delivered to the control unit, where the real work begins.
There is still a lot of work to be done before the series launch in 2013
The heart of the system is the data center, where a huge flood of data is processed in real time. At 120 km /h and 25 frames per second, the measurement accuracy is one to two millimeters. Mercedes is particularly proud of these complicated algorithms, as it is important to assess the type of obstacle detected - whether it is stone, pothole, bump, transverse joint or plastic bag. As well as the system is already working, there is still a lot of work to be done before the series launch in 2013. Mercedes wants to noticeably improve the detection of difficult surfaces such as reflective water or fresh snow. But the new name is already certain: Magic Body Control soundsin contrast to ABC for magic, for the magic carpet.
