Mitsubishi Omnidirectional Rally Concept Car

[Madison]

Someone sent this along to me today: http://www.autobloggreen.com/photos/...-2025/1119822/

Awesome. I'm pretty sure it's not real, though.

Doubt that would ever come to fruition.

Still incredibly smexy, though.

[gorrilla]

awsome, though i dont see how it could be advantageous?(except maybe having the motors in each wheel to increase repairability)



and how could machanums work in anything other than a road

[Tristan Lall]

Looks like it was designed by a stylist with a poor grasp of racing...or maybe they're envisioning some rally unlike any that I've ever seen.

Why put up with wasting 30% of your power going forwards? That's really the biggest question. What race has so many curves that straight-line acceleration is irrelevant?

Also, you'd need a fancy suspension to keep the wheels on the ground. Not the transverse leaf springs described, mystery memory metal or not. Lift a wheel in a critical corner and you're in big trouble. Some of those mountain rallies have sheer drops among switchbacks...that might end badly. Imagine trying to negotiate the Dakar with wheels like that. (How are mecanum wheels on sand, anyway? My guess is awful.)

And the cockpit is ridiculous. Unless this is a remote-controlled rally, it doesn't help to go sideways if you can't see out of the stupid car.

As an exercise in styling, it's definitely interesting.

[willson.thomas]

It does appear to be real; it is all over the auto blogs. Still though, it will never see production.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by willson.thomas

It does appear to be real

As real as any other fantasy, I suppose

Great fodder for video game designers, at the least.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

The Jeep Hurricane was almost a swerve drive.

They could have made it go sideways if they had wanted...

At least THEY actually built one.

[EricVanWyk]

I do want a car that can go sideways, just to make parallel parking easier. I don't need it to be fully holonomic: One direction at a time is fine. Mecanums are cool, but Not what I need.

That being said, I don't think that this particular car is attempting to appeal to my small wallet.

[Adam Y.]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Also, you'd need a fancy suspension to keep the wheels on the ground. Not the transverse leaf springs described, mystery memory metal or not.

Actually if you have the memory metal then yes you would be able to keep the wheel on the road because then your leaf springs become an actuator. It's not really the hardest problem one could think of.

Lift a wheel in a critical corner and you're in big trouble.

And that's why you design it correctly. What you are describing goes for a large number of airplanes, satellites, the Segway, and a bunch of other things that would blow up and tear itself to pieces if you do it incorrectly.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Adam Y.

Actually if you have the memory metal then yes you would be able to keep the wheel on the road because then your leaf springs become an actuator. It's not really the hardest problem one could think of.

What memory metal spring can be actuated rapidly through large changes in stiffness, while supporting hundreds or even thousands of pounds and being subjected to unpredictable deformations and shock loadings? Can it be controlled to the degree necessary to keep the chassis stable and all of the holonomic wheels on the ground, even when conditions are highly variable (snow, sand, potholes, rocks, jumps, etc.)? From a materials point of view, that's far beyond the state of the art.

And where do you put the electrical system to drive such a thing? Typically, electricity is used to make either heat or magnetism, which drives the memory metal device. If it's resistance-heated, you can heat it easily (and maybe even quickly), but you'll have a hard time cooling it at the same rate. If it's magnetic, the coils needed to generate the necessary field strengths will be large and heavy, and will have to be positioned in awkward places (because the effect is localized to the regions of high field strength). Hysteresis is a huge problem with this idea, in either case.

This begs a question: is the controllability of the memory metal spring keeping the wheel on the ground, or is there some other active suspension component? Active suspensions currently depend on having very powerful electric or hydraulic actuators that can make quick, forceful and precise movements. So if there's some of that technology in there as well, then it would be a whole lot more practical.

Like I said, I don't think it's an engineered design study.

[MrForbes]

It definitely looks more like an artistic design study

But they do have 15 years to figure it out...you never know!

[pacoliketaco]

i looked through the rest of those pictures, they are all very impressive renders/drawings. i especially liked the car/boat/plane idea, even though it wouldn't be possible.

[AndyB]

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblogg...bishi_05_l.jpg

It appears as though their wheels are oriented incorrectly as well.

[MrForbes]

....as in, you can't drive sideways?

[Jeff 801]

Originally Posted by squirrel

....as in, you can't drive sideways?

Yes that is correct you would not go sideways unless they changed the orientation of the wheels