Gearshift Simulator – Perceive Gearshift Feel at Early Development Stage

One of the very first customer touchpoint in a vehicle is quality of gear shifting. Gearshift quality is perceived as a symbol of refinement of a vehicle. Globally, lot of efforts are taken to refine the gearshift quality. Design improvements in internal components of transmission, cable and shifter assembly, knob design iterations are carried out to arrive at optimum gearshift quality at the vehicle level. Current practice for this activity includes processes such as design modification, manufacturing of proto components, assembly of components and fitment in the vehicle. This vehicle is then instrumented with sensors and data acquisition units to capture the parameters which determine the gearshift quality. This is an iterative process which goes on until necessary refinement/improvement is achieved. This process requires investment of lot of time, efforts and the budget. This paper describes a virtual approach to arrive at optimum design of components. This paper gives details of a gearshift simulator which is capable of simulating in real time the shift feel of the vehicle in both static and dynamic condition. With this, gearshift feel can be perceived at early design stage. The simulator requires all design parameters of shift system components of a particular transmission along with engine and vehicle level parameters. The controller of the simulator processes the input data and based on driver inputs provides real time feedback on the shift lever which is perceived as a gear shift event. Design modification in the components can be readily adopted in the model of simulator giving its effect on the gearshift quality. This reduces the number of iterations to be performed to arrive at design maturity before it is taken ahead for manufacturing.