Active suspension sMotion from ZF reduces travel sickness

Comfort electronics Active suspension sMotion from ZF reduces travel sickness

2024-12-22 Source: Press release | Translated by AI 3 min Reading Time

Related Vendor

With the active chassis system sMotion, ZF aims to resolve an old conflict of objectives in the design of car chassis, ensuring stability and dynamics on one hand and comfort on the other. The system precisely adjusts the damping force to the respective driving situation; furthermore, the dampers can initiate rapid individual vertical movements, actively lifting the vehicle to ensure optimal road holding.

The active damping system sMotion controls the pitching and rolling of the vehicle during steering, acceleration, and braking maneuvers, thereby improving both the comfort and driving dynamics of passenger cars.(Image: ZF Group) — The active damping system sMotion controls the pitching and rolling of the vehicle during steering, acceleration, and braking maneuvers, thereby improving both the comfort and driving dynamics of passenger cars.
(Image: ZF Group)

In car chassis, it has always been about combining excellent dynamic properties with the best comfort. For this, ZF has developed its active chassis system sMotion. "Our fully active chassis system sMotion can almost completely prevent the movements of the vehicle body in certain driving situations," explains Dr. Peter Holdmann, a board member at ZF and also responsible for the Chassis Solutions division. This includes the pitching and rolling, which were previously inevitable side effects of dynamic steering, braking, and acceleration maneuvers, and intensified the more weight a vehicle carried.

The new Porsche models Panamera and Taycan already use part of the ZF system for implementing the Porsche Active Ride air suspension chassis – specifically, the technology group's damper and valve technology.

Damping system CDC as a basis

The active chassis system is based on the adaptive ZF damping system Continuous Damping Control (CDC) with two external valves that independently control the compression and rebound of the damper. This way, the damping hardness is optimally adjusted to the respective driving situation, which is already a great gain in terms of driving comfort and dynamics. sMotion goes a step further: with the system, a high-performance pump can pump oil into and out of the damper, actively moving the suspension via the piston rod. This allows the electronic control to individually neutralize the effects of road surface irregularities on each wheel. It is also able to compensate for or even counteract the wheel height during cornering—for example, during acceleration and braking.

Active vertical movement of the wheels

This effect is especially enormous during dynamic driving maneuvers: In a sharp steering movement to the right, a conventionally damped vehicle would "lean" on the left side. In a car equipped with sMotion, this type of vertical movement of the vehicle body is avoided. The vehicle can even adjust the cornering angle to the speed and display a "helicopter mode" when braking and accelerating. This makes the vehicle appear almost nimble in its driving behavior.

Two figures illustrate the system's performance: within half a second, the active dampers can "raise" a vehicle by eight centimeters. In this manner, the control electronics, also developed by ZF, can keep a three-ton car almost level on the road at a cornering force of up to 1 g.

Motion sickness: Minimizing causes

This individual wheel-active body control, which does without stabilizers, has significant potential in terms of comfort. If vertical movements of the vehicle body are prevented, motion sickness also becomes a thing of the past. It mainly affects passengers who focus on other activities while driving today: "Our system prevents the so-called motion sickness, which mainly affects passengers who read or watch movies during the journey," explains Thomas Kutsche, Vice President Engineering Productline Suspension at ZF. The calming of the vehicle body can be further enhanced, especially when information about road irregularities is known and the system precisely compensates for them. As automated and autonomous driving continues to increase in practice, this chassis feature becomes increasingly valuable for all vehicle occupants.

Portfolio addition

With sMotion, the supplier expands its portfolio for the steering, brake, and chassis of passenger cars. With all these electronically controlled actuators, ZF can influence the complete longitudinal, lateral, and vertical dynamics of vehicles as a software-controlled overall system. The combination of these technologies will lead to networked chassis systems in the future, which can be holistically coordinated with the ZF software cubiX. (se)

Consent to the use of data for promotional purposes

I hereby consent to Vogel Communications Group GmbH & Co. KG, Max-Planck-Str. 7-9, 97082 Würzburg including any affiliated companies according to §§ 15 et seq. AktG (hereafter: Vogel Communications Group) using my e-mail address to send editorial newsletters. A list of all affiliated companies can be found here

Newsletter content may include all products and services of any companies mentioned above, including for example specialist journals and books, events and fairs as well as event-related products and services, print and digital media offers and services such as additional (editorial) newsletters, raffles, lead campaigns, market research both online and offline, specialist webportals and e-learning offers. In case my personal telephone number has also been collected, it may be used for offers of aforementioned products, for services of the companies mentioned above, and market research purposes.

Additionally, my consent also includes the processing of my email address and telephone number for data matching for marketing purposes with select advertising partners such as LinkedIn, Google, and Meta. For this, Vogel Communications Group may transmit said data in hashed form to the advertising partners who then use said data to determine whether I am also a member of the mentioned advertising partner portals. Vogel Communications Group uses this feature for the purposes of re-targeting (up-selling, cross-selling, and customer loyalty), generating so-called look-alike audiences for acquisition of new customers, and as basis for exclusion for on-going advertising campaigns. Further information can be found in section “data matching for marketing purposes”.

In case I access protected data on Internet portals of Vogel Communications Group including any affiliated companies according to §§ 15 et seq. AktG, I need to provide further data in order to register for the access to such content. In return for this free access to editorial content, my data may be used in accordance with this consent for the purposes stated here. This does not apply to data matching for marketing purposes.

Right of revocation

I understand that I can revoke my consent at will. My revocation does not change the lawfulness of data processing that was conducted based on my consent leading up to my revocation. One option to declare my revocation is to use the contact form found at https://contact.vogel.de. In case I no longer wish to receive certain newsletters, I have subscribed to, I can also click on the unsubscribe link included at the end of a newsletter. Further information regarding my right of revocation and the implementation of it as well as the consequences of my revocation can be found in the data protection declaration, section editorial newsletter.