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New Driver Models in the VeSyMA - Motorsports 2025.1 Library

Table of contents
Motorsport driver

There are now motorsports variants of the following drivers:

  • Closed-loop which attempts to achieve defined driving targets by considering vehicle metrics and adjusting the vehicle controls, replicating the actions of a ‘real’ driver.
  • Single step test where the selected vehicle control is swapped from closed to open-loop control to perform a specified action at a defined time or distance. If you are interested in more information on the test driver models, see the previous blog post Test Sequence Driver.

Removal of Unnecessary Driver Logic

The VeSyMA – Suspensions driver models, which are primarily aimed at road car driving, include a few driver functions that are not typically required in a motorsport environment:

  • Reversing
  • Trailer reversing
  • Gradients
  • Handbrakes

While these aspects of the driver logic can be conditionally enabled or disabled in the VeSyMA – Suspensions drivers, it still means there is additional complexity and parameterisation that is simply unnecessary for motorsports applications. So the logic for these driver functions have been removed in the new VeSyMA – Motorsport drivers. The image below shows the lateral control used to determine the steering demand in the VeSyMA – Suspensions and VeSyMA – Motorsports driver models; it illustrates how much this one area of the driver can be streamlined by removal of the logic needed for reversing and reversing with a trailer.

Comparison of the lateral control used in the VeSyMA - Suspensions and VeSyMA - Motorsports drivers.
Comparison of the lateral control used in the VeSyMA – Suspensions and VeSyMA – Motorsports drivers

Motorsport Specific Driver Behaviour Added

Alongside the removal of unnecessary driver logic, some new driver behaviour suited to motorsport applications have been included in the new motorsport drivers, with the option to:

  • Not use the clutch while changing gear
  • Have a fixed pull away RPM target

Removal of Final Constraints to Increase Flexibility

The VeSyMA – Motorsports driver models also offer more flexibility for experienced users, by lifting the restrictions imposed by the final constraint when defining and propagating parameters, and when redeclaring components.

To create the new VeSyMA – Motorsports driver models from the existing VeSyMA – Suspensions versions required modified motorsport variants of the planning, longitudinal control, lateral control, and gear-clutch control blocks to be created. New driver profile records, which define the driver model’s characteristics, have also been created to accompany the new motorsports driver models.

Comparison of the closed-loop driver in VeSyMA – Suspensions and VeSyMA – Motorsports

The vehicle experiment examples in the VeSyMA – Motorsports library now use the new motorsport driver models, but they remain compatible with the VeSyMA – Suspension drivers.

Written by: Hannah Hammond-Scott – Modelica Project Leader

 

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