Automotive Applications

Automotive Applications

MiDAS and ProAnalyst® have rooted successes in automotive testing. MiDAS has been widely used by automobile manufacturers, top tier suppliers, and race teams to capture rapid movements of engine components, timing chains, chassis mechanics and brake performance. The introduction of ProAnalyst with the contour tracing toolkit and the 1-D tracking tools allowed customers to analyze airbags and other vehicle safety systems.

Airbag Deployment Testing

An airbag inflates in approximately 30 milliseconds. As the airbag expands, ProAnalyst's powerful 1-D Line Tracking toolkit tracks intensity along a line to calculate expansion velocity in any direction. The Contour Tracking toolkit displays the size and computes size, area, and perimeter.

Automotive Component Testing

Automotive engineers use ProAnalyst to study the oscillations of a valve spring. Automatic tracking of multiple features in ProAnalyst makes it easy to extract and graph several data sets simultaneously.

Automotive Research and Design

Automotive companies use ProAnalyst to test passenger restraint systems. Synchronized video and data are acquired using MiDAS with high-resolution, high-speed video cameras and multi-channel DAQ systems. Stick figure renderings generated by ProAnalyst show the angles and extensions of head and limbs.

Automotive Crash Tests

Car manufacturers use ProAnalyst in crash testing to analyze crumple zones and impact energy absorption.

Automotive Sled Tests

In this sled test video, ProAnalyst's Impact Excursion toolkit tracks head movement in a simulated crash situation. Dynamic measurements indicate forward movement as the head moves away from the car seat. Automotive safety experts use Impact Excursion to ensure compliance with international passenger safety regulations for restraints and car seats. This toolkit is also useful for concussion testing. The Impact Excursion toolkit has been developed with our Impact Test Group partner TRL, a world leader in automotive passenger safety testing and standards.

Engine Motion

In this video, ProAnalyst tracks the moving parts of a BMW race car engine. BMW performed this analysis to check pulley alignment and reduce belt flutter in the engine, thereby improving efficiency. 2-D Feature Tracking and 1-D Line Tracking data displayed in the graph provided automotive engineers with the necessary feedback to perfect a new engine design.

ProAnalyst 3-D analysts of child's car seat test

Complete 3 camera 3-D analysis of a sled test done using ProAnalyst's 3D toolkit. Filmed using i-SPEED high speed cameras.

Engine motion

Automotive engineers use ProAnalyst to study and quantify repetitive dynamics to form a baseline for ideal operation. Future products can then be tested against this baseline for quality control. In this video, engineers used ProAnalyst to analyze the oscillations of a failing automotive valve spring. The video shows that the valve stem is visibly wobbling and flexing in the valve guide. This subjective observation is backed up by objective data automatically gathered from ProAnalyst automated tracking. We are able to instantly calculate the amount of wobble, and using the the instant FFT button, we can generate and observe the frequencies and harmonics that exist within that wobble. ProAnalyst produces simple, fast results; providing automotive engineers with quantifiable, actionable data that saves time and effort.