| Just got my October Car and Driver. In it is an article about a new suspension developed by Bose. I would love to hear what you all think given your experience with Bose automotive products. Here's part of the article: "All current suspensions are reactive. When a vehicle's wheel rolls over a bump or dip in the pavement, the change in wheel position causes the suspension to compress or extend in response. Cornering, braking, and acceleration similarly cause the suspension to move and let the body roll, squat, or dive. That's been the case since springs were added to horse-drawn carriages in the middle of the 17th century. An active suspension, however, is playing offense. It has a computer that tells a powerful actuator at each wheel exactly when, which way, how far, and how fast to move. The wheel motions are no longer subject to the random interactions between the road and the various springs, shocks, and anti-roll bars. Just as you can bend your knees and suddenly extend them to jump up, and active suspension car (programmed to perform this parking-lot trick) can leap over a two-by-six, or "proactively" counteract the forces action on a vehicle. The computer making these decisions uses a network of sensors to measure, for example, the car's speed, longitudinal and lateral acceleration, and forces and accelerations acting at each wheel. The computer then commands the wheel to move in the ideal way for the existing circumstances. No more compromise between ride and handling, rough roads and smooth roads, high speeds and low speeds. The company's founder..initiated a project at the Bose Corporation to investigate a better approach to automotive suspensions...they developed a model for the behavior of an ideal suspension..the solution was a powerful electromagnetic linear motor at each corner to move the wheels as the computerized model demanded. The Bose engineers claim these motors have significant advantages in response time and power consumption over the hydraulic cylinders we've seen on all previous active suspensions. According to Dr. Bose, the system revealed to us has a total stroke of 8.5 inches, can respond faster than 100 times per second, and consumes about two horsepower as a complete system... Bose is seeking a partner to help in these areas at take the product to market, but the company doesn't want to just license it's technology to a suspension supplier or car company. Bose wants to stay in this business for the long term as the supplier of it's system." While I was looking for the article on line (it's not yet) I found this really nice 350Z: Toucan's 350Z. Sorry if it's a repost.
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