Bose Developing New Suspension

[ragingfish]

http://www.edmunds.com/insidel...03183Quote »Bose SuspensionBy: John DiPietroDate Posted 09-28-2004Bose. Mention that word and music comes to mind — specifically, audio systems for upscale cars, as well as expensive but worth-the-cost systems for the home. Business travelers might even connect that name with noise-canceling headphones that reduce some of the stress of flying. What one doesn't associate with Bose is automobile suspension. But after nearly a quarter-century of steadfast and costly research and development by the audio giant, we're willing to gamble that that will change within the next five or so years.One might ask why a company that's seemingly rooted in the home/automobile audio system business would delve into an area that is so unrelated to its core business. We were wondering this as well, until Dr. Bose addressed us and made it as crystal clear as the sound reproduction of the company's best car stereos. In addition to being a major player in the audio biz, Dr. Bose has had more than a passing fancy in automotive suspension design, which began in 1957 when he bought a new 1958 Pontiac Bonneville equipped with air suspension. Although that system was primitive and prone to breaking down, Dr. Bose was fascinated nonetheless.Ten years later, he replaced the Bonnie with a Citroën, again because he was intrigued by the use of air suspension. For over a decade, he pondered modern auto suspension design and how he would do it, if he had the resources. Fortunately, he had both the financial and intellectual resources — and in 1980 decided to get to work on his idea. And what was that idea? It was, in a nutshell, the use of electromagnetic technology to provide a luxury car's ride with a sports car's control.By and large, today's vehicle suspensions use hydraulic dampers (a.k.a. "shock absorbers") and springs that are charged with the tasks of absorbing bumps, minimizing the car's body motions while accelerating, braking and turning and keeping the tires in contact with the road surface. Typically, these goals are somewhat at odds with each other. Luxury cars are great at swallowing bumps and providing a plush ride, but handling usually suffers as the car is prone to pitch and dive under acceleration and braking, as well as body lean (or "sway") under cornering — think Lincoln Town Car.On the other end of the spectrum, stiffly sprung sports cars exhibit minimal body motion as the car is driven aggressively, as cornering is flat, but the ride quality generally suffers — think Mazda Miata. Yes, there are a number of current vehicles that do a good job of providing an agreeable balance of ride and handling, such as a BMW 5 Series, the C6 Corvette and even the Cadillac SRX SUV. But Dr. Bose's goal was to offer a suspension design that would provide an even smoother ride than a top luxury car (such as the Lexus LS 430 sedan) while simultaneously providing more body control than a top sports car (such as a Porsche 911).Twenty-four years after making a commitment to this vision, Dr. Bose presented his idea to the automotive press. Admittedly, that's a long gestation period for his "baby," but one that he could afford thanks to the freedom afforded by a privately held company. And we were stunned by this achievement. To say that this technology is the biggest advance in automobile suspension since all-independent design would be an understatement.So howzit work? At the risk of oversimplifying, the Bose system uses a linear electromagnetic motor (L.E.M.) at each wheel, in lieu of a conventional shock and spring setup. The L.E.M. has the ability to extend (as if into a pothole) and retract (as if over a bump) with much greater speed than a fluid damper (taking just milliseconds, actually). These lightning-fast reflexes and precise movement allow the wheel's motion to be so finely controlled that the body of the car remains level, regardless of the goings-on at the wheel level. The L.E.M. can also counteract the body motion of a car while accelerating, braking and cornering, giving the driver a greater sense of control and passengers less of a need for Dramamine. To further the smooth ride goal, wheel dampers inside each wheel hub smooth out small road imperfections, isolating even those nuances from the passenger compartment. Torsion bars take care of supporting the vehicle, allowing the Bose system to concentrate on optimizing handling and ride dynamics.A power amplifier supplies the juice to the L.E.M.s. The amplifier is a regenerative design that uses the compression force to send power back through the amplifier. Thanks to this efficient layout, the Bose suspension uses only about a third of the power of a vehicle's air conditioning system. Of course, there are a few other key components in the system, such as control algorithms that Bose and his fellow brainiacs developed over a few decades of crunching numbers. The target total weight for the system is 200 pounds, a goal Bose is confident of attaining.The net result was simply something that had to be seen to be believed.As this project began some time ago, the cars Bose used to develop and demonstrate this technology were a pair of Lexus LS 400 sedans that were purchased new in the early '90s. Anyone who has driven or ridden in one of these Lexus flagships can tell you what a nice, soft ride they have. One car had the stock suspension and the other had the Bose system. After we viewed displays of the individual components of the Bose system, the demos commenced.First, we were brought to a garage where both cars sat side by side on unique "Four Poster" testing machines. Used to put suspension systems to the test, a Four Poster supports each of the car's wheels independently and has the ability to move up and down in varying amounts and speeds, simulating bumps and ruts in the road. Not satisfied with current Four Poster technology, Bose designed its own. After driving a loop on real roads that offered a variety of bumps, ruts and potholes, engineers were able to program that loop into each machine. They also programmed the stock suspension calibrations into the Bose-equipped LS 400, allowing, at the flick of a button, that car to be switched back and forth between standard suspension mode and Bose suspension mode.After a couple of us carefully got into the Bose car, the engineers started up the Four Posters. At first, the Bose car was set in stock suspension mode, and the bumps, though not harsh, were felt and it was easy to see the car's body bobbing around via mirrors placed off to the side. The other LS 400, the one without the Bose setup, was moving about in exactly the same way, as the Four Posters played out their identical bump track. The engineer then hit the button that put the Bose system in operation and the difference was astounding. Although we could see the wheels (via the adjacent mirrors) moving up and down in concert with the non-Bose car beside us, the cabin was so still that one could drink coffee without spilling any.Still amazed by this display of physics-defying technology, we moved outside where the two cars were brought out and driven side by side over a series of staggered bumps. The stock car waddled over the bumps, while the Bose car seemingly floated over them. Only the movement of the wheels over the bumps proved that this was not some magic trick worthy of David Copperfield. Next was the handling course, where the cars, again running side by side, went through a slalom course, executed an emergency lane change and came to a quick stop. Where the normal car leaned to and fro when going through the cones and dipped its nose under hard braking, the Bose car remained eerily flat through it all. Again, something we wouldn't have believed had we not seen it for ourselves. To further emphasize the amazing level of body control the Bose system provide
s, a new Porsche 911 was brought out and run side by side with the Bose Lexus. You guessed it, that world-class sports car leaned more than the Bose car through the slalom (of course, the sway was minimal, but the Bose car had none at all) and showed some nose dive under hard braking (where again, the Bose car showed zilch).The grand finale was something out of a Matrix-style movie. A two-by-six piece of wood was placed on edge and the Bose car drove toward it at moderate speed and then leapt over the board as elegantly as a cat, touching down softly. Though this wouldn't be something applicable in the real world (then again, we can already envision scofflaws jumping over speed bumps…), it served to show what this great technology was capable of.The next obvious question was when would we see this suspension incorporated? Dr. Bose stated that within five years the company hopes to have the Bose suspension offered on one or more high-end luxury cars, and thanks to the system's modular design, it shouldn't be much of a problem to install at the factory. No information was provided as far as cost, though we imagine that it would come down as production goes up.Some may say that spending nearly 25 years on developing an automotive suspension is too long. But for the fortunate few who were able to witness Dr. Bose's invention firsthand, it was obviously time well spent. One could say that this incredible Bose invention is to current automotive suspension architecture what a CD changer is to an eight-track player. How fitting.http://www.automobilemag.com/news/0410_bose/Quote »A Bose Suspension?By Jean JenningsProject Sound reinvents the automotive suspension systemFront corners contain electromagneticuprights and custom lower control arms.We have just returned from The Mountain (AKA Bose Corporation Headquarters in Framingham, Massachusetts) where we witnessed the first mega-breakthrough in car suspensions since the gas-pressurized shock. Is that hyperbolic enough for you? Well, it's impossible to overstate what the brilliant Fulbright Scholar and longtime MIT professor Dr. Amar Bose and his engineers have accomplished in the black magic arts of ride and handling.The premise was simple: Develop a suspension system that would offer the magic carpet ride of a fine luxury automobile, yet provide the crisp handling of a high-performance sports car. Simple premise, yet seemingly insurmountable (and senseless) task given that the active suspension systems designed by savvy engineers at companies such as Lotus, Infiniti, and Mercedes-Benz in the past two decades have all since been discontinued.While other, lesser systems have come and gone, the Bose Corporation, known more for its ubiquitous Wave radio and blessed acoustic noise-canceling headphones than for automotive engineering, has beavered away in virtual secrecy for an impossibly long twenty-four years on its own version of the active suspension. (Let's pause a moment to appreciate that any company would have a well of optimism deep enough to sustain a research project for more than two decades. "I would have been fired several times," chortles Dr. Bose, chairman and chief technical officer of the privately-held company into which he has always plowed 100% of profits back into development and growth.)Behind it all is Dr. Bose's lifelong fascination with air and hydraulic suspensions, which grew from a Pontiac he bought in 1957, to a Citroen he bought in Paris in 1967, to finally formalizing suspension research at BOSE in 1980. "I gave that Citroen suspension system as a quiz in acoustics to my students," Dr. Bose says. "The same mathematic principles apply."Apply them, they did. Having decided after five years of mathematical research that suspensions could be improved dramatically enough to make the journey worth it, Bose soldiered on, focusing on electromagnetics as the key to success. Never mind that high-efficiency, fast, high-power linear motors did not exist. Never mind that high-efficiency, high-power amplifiers to drive those non-existent motors would need to be developed. Never mind that control algorithms would need to be developed to stabilize the motors. Never mind that the super-quick microcomputers needed to run the whole shooting match also didn't exist. Bose took on the first three daunting tasks and bet on the industry to come up with the fourth.The patents have now been filed. Project Sound is very nearly ready for prime time, and it is nothing short of revolutionary.The heart of the Bose suspension system is a linear electromagnetic motor installed at each wheel in a modified McPherson strut arrangement. When electricity is fed to wire coils inside, the motor expands and contracts so quickly and forcefully that it prevents pitch and roll during times when the car is driven hard, all the while maintaining passenger car isolation from the sort of wheel impacts that would typically slam your head to the ceiling. Anti-roll bars are no longer necessary. The bobbing-head dog for the parcel shelf is obsolete.The new design is modular, allowing Bose engineers to easily retrofit existing cars with four independent modules (fronts incorporate a two-piece lower control arm, wheel damper mounted inside the wheel, and torsion bar; rears include wheel dampers and suspension links, with electromagnetic motors laid out more in double-wishbone fashion) mounted in aluminum cradles directly to original suspension sub-system attachment points. A belt-driven alternator powers the system and its twelve-volt battery.The Bose-equipped car (below) has farbetter body control than the standardcar (above).To witness the miracle, we were strapped into a retrofitted Lexus LS400 perched atop a Bose-designed ride simulator (itself an engineering tour de force that will most likely replace the towering three-story edifices currently used by car companies around the world). The initial experience programmed into the simulator emulated a terribly choppy road with a whole lot of high frequency energy "exciting" the wheels. Butts wiggled and stomachs hopped up and down. It was a buckboard. A martini shaker. The research engineers working the controls were just a little too jolly watching the journalists shaken, not stirred.Next, in Bose mode, we attacked the same horrid road, but inside the passenger compartment, we were sailing along on a cruise ship. The teensiest of cradle rock. Looking at a mirror on an adjacent wall of the garage, we could see our LS400's tires chattering and bashing along, as if they belonged to another car, not the one in which we were blissfully rocking along. It was mind-boggling, unbelievably astonishing, no less than earth shattering.Outside, we witnessed two test drivers take a basic LS400 and a Bose-retrofitted LS400 through a series of side-by-side tests that allowed us to see the performance angle of the equation. In a double lane-change maneuver, going through a bump course, and being thrown aggressively into a deep corner, the Bose-equipped Lexus remained unnervingly flat, with not a hint of body pitch or roll.Then the Bose Lexus rushed up to a curb in the middle of the lot and jumped through the air, hurdling it neatly. The crowd roared. The driver got out and bowed. The empty car next to him bowed, too. Body pitch (and its opposite!) on demand, as it were. The wonders of mathematics.The patents have been filed, and the engineering continues, with Bose promising a weight reduction of fifty percent in the next six months.When will it be ready? "In 1990, I said two years," remembers Dr. Bose. "Within the next six to ten months, I'll be in a position to select a manufacturer, only one, to team with. We have
to focus on its perfection. But don't anticipate it coming down to a low-priced car. They're low-priced for a reason."But Bose will manufacture it. It is an enormous amount of technology and we want to follow it through."How much went into developing the Bose system? "You want me to get fired?" shouts Dr. Bose. "I'm embarrassed to say! You can imagine!"What you can't imagine is the astonishingly silken ride and the remarkable level of handling achievable without compromise in the same vehicle.Click here to see Project Sound in action. This video supplied by Bose.Watch that video clip, it's unreal!I read somewhere GM will be the first (and only) company in the beginning to get this system, since they apparantly helped funded the project.I can't wait to experience this someday...

[kostby]

It simply boggles the mind!Just think! In a few years, 'lowriders' will be ripping out their hydraulic systems to have Bose suspensions in their 63 Chevy Impalas!Now they'll be able to actually leap their cars over tallboys at speed instead of just 'jumping' the cars in parking lots.Racing applications abound: The Indy Racing League will be the first to ban it outright.NASCAR won't adopt it until 150 years after all cars on the road have it, but they'll still stick with 2-valve-per cylinder V8 engines with 4-barrel carburetors.F1 probably had it last year, and Bernie Ecclestone will ban it the week after the first race of the season when Michael Schumacher laps the entire field in only two laps using it.Imagine Baja 1000 race trucks equipped with 'industrial strength' versions of this technology! 8 foot boulders become 'no problem'.

[damronjr]

Alll I can say is wow. Watch all the other movies on their site. I can't imagine what that will tack onto the price of a new vehicle! Or replacement parts! Better come with a car lifetime warranty!

[Jahntassa]

Just amazing...simply amazing.