Seeking smoother ride for autonomous cars
Technology called ‘noise cancelling for motion’
WOBURN, MASS. — The obstacle course was a series of speed bumps in a parking lot at the headquarters of ClearMotion, a supplier of high-tech chassis parts for production cars. The challengers were a late-model Mercedes-Benz and a 2016 BMW 535i equipped with the company’s technology — an electrically powered hydraulic device meant to complement the shock absorber and keep the passenger compartment as level as possible.
The difference was stark. ClearMotion’s technology greatly smoothed the way, significantly reducing not just the movement up and down, but also the right-left lurch from bumps on either side. And while the system doesn’t make speed bumps obsolete, its goal is to become the kind of system that car owners won’t be able to live without once selfdriving technology turns them from drivers into passengers.
Shakeel Avadhany, founder and chief executive of ClearMotion, said he had been inspired by the ride in Japanese bullet trains, which can reach 200 m.p.h. with little sensation of movement. “We are engineering ClearMotion to recreate that train experience in the car,” he said. “As autonomy matures beyond the basics, we will see the conversation shift to user experience. The sensation of stability and comfort will enable productive activity while in motion.”
The earliest cars didn’t bother with shock absorbers, but some way of reducing, or damping, spring movement was clearly needed as speeds increased. Monroe debuted a hydraulic shock absorber in 1926, and then the groundbreaking Monro-Matic telescopic damper — “with automatic adjustment for all roads and loads!”
ClearMotion’s Activalve system is an electrohydraulic unit the size of a softball that works with the car’s existing shocks, and counteracts road disturbances by putting pressure on the dampers in milliseconds.
Avadhany calls the technology “noise cancelling for motion.”
So far, he said, ClearMotion has raised $180 million in equity capital, and six automakers have signed on. He said he expected the first cars equipped with the system to appear in 2020. Such systems are power hungry, requiring either the new 48-volt electrical systems hitting the market or the ability to convert 12 volts to 48 volts, so the devices may first show up in hybrids, electrics or cars equipped with start-stop technology.
ClearMotion’s headquarters is a Silicon Valley-like beehive of young workers, many of them from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company is gearing up to produce the Activalves itself at a small factory in nearby Wilmington. It also operates a motion sickness project, aimed at — among other things — reducing the queasy feelings that motorists may be more likely to get if they face backward in the living-room-like interiors of tomorrow’s autonomous cars.
But ClearMotion is far from the only company trying to smooth automakers’ road into the self-driving future.
Vibracoustic’s three-chamber air suspension system is available on the new generation of the Porsche Cayenne introduced this year. It allows the driver to dial in settings, and adjust ride height, appropriate for different road conditions. At high speeds, for instance, ride height is at its lowest setting to minimize drag and increase stability.
In the future, ClearMotion hopes to use its camera system to crowdsource maps of road surfaces to better prepare its system for what lies ahead of it, or to be ready the next time the car takes the same route.
“Cars today,” Avadhany said, “are at the mercy of the road.”