From motion-controlled VR rigs to Volvo’s 3 million euro R&D chassis simulator, I’ve examined a variety of racing simulator setups. But as shut as the very best get to replicating the texture of driving, all fall simply wanting the true factor. BMW’s M racing and efficiency division’s newest challenge comes at this drawback from the wrong way, bringing an actual accelerating, cornering, power-sliding 2023 M2 sport coupe into the simulation utilizing blended actuality know-how.
I used to be capable of take a look at BMW’s M Combined Actuality M2 prototype on a grey afternoon in late November on the M Driving Academy at Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, only a half-hour’s experience from the automaker’s Munich headquarters. For probably the most half, that is only a regular 2023 M2 with a darkish techno-livery. Opening the door, I spy the massive stereoscopic digicam pod occupying a lot of the dashboard and the blended actuality headset ready for me within the driver’s seat.
The headset is the Varjo XR-3, a pro-level blended actuality unit that options lidar-based 3D spatial positioning, passthrough cameras and hand and eye monitoring. It is the newest model of the XR-1 rig that Volvo used just a few years in the past to check driver security, and it is one of the crucial superior VR/MR headsets that I’ve ever strapped to my melon. The XR-3 has been modified barely with six small positioning spheres that additional increase head monitoring accuracy.
The blended actuality headset combines a reside view of the dashboard and driver’s palms, however completely replaces the view out of the windshield.
BMW
As I settle into the racing bucket seats and safe the four-point harness, BMW’s engineer explains to me that by combining digital actuality with precise driving, the M crew is taking an inside-out strategy to creating probably the most sensible simulator. There’s additionally much less movement illness than with a completely digital expertise as a result of your physique (particularly, your inside ear) might be experiencing real-world physics. He additionally explains that he is obtained a distant brake pedal on his facet of the automobile — like a driver’s ed automobile — however promised solely to make use of it in an emergency.
Via the XR-3’s shows, my imaginative and prescient is crammed with reside video of the M2’s precise dashboard in entrance of me, full with my actual palms on the very actual wheel. It is as if somebody changed my eyes with the MR headset’s cameras. It is slightly bizarre, however there isn’t any perceptible latency. I am instructed to shift into drive and transfer to the beginning line.
All of the sudden, the view outdoors the automobile modifications. The grey sky and empty airstrip I would lined up on disappear they usually’re changed by a futuristic racetrack with a cyberpunk nighttime cityscape within the distance. As I transfer my head, the digital world strikes completely in sync; I may even lean ahead or tilt my head to see across the roof up on the night time sky — at the least, so far as the harness will let me. My actual palms and the. M2’s dashboard are nonetheless there — that’ s the blended a part of this actuality — however past them stretches a neon-lit course, marked by tall, glowing boundaries. The massive digicam pod, I discover, has additionally seemingly disappeared.
BMW partnered with Epic Video games to create the blended actuality simulation in Unreal Engine 4.
BMW
My co-driver explains that the elongated figure-eight circuit matches properly inside the paved runway — which they surveyed and GPS-marked with a drone at first of the occasion very like the way you’d mark the secure boundaries of room-scale VR at residence. The system makes use of a mix of digicam and laser head monitoring, precision accelerometer information and GPS, together with information pulled from the M2’s onboard sensor community, to precisely line up the car’s place and my augmented area of view.
Then it is “prepared, set, GO!” as I am instructed to take a gradual lap to get acquainted with the system. The second I get rolling, the entire blended actuality weirdness disappears and I am immersed within the sim. Muscle reminiscence takes over as I pilot the M2 easily by means of the online game panorama. BMW added a little bit of Mario Kart gamification to the course with BMW roundel tokens to gather to enhance my rating and huge pink digital boundaries to keep away from. It is enjoyable.
After all, there are limitations to the tech. It will possibly’t create camber or elevation modifications the place there are none — a giant car parking zone isn’t going to really feel just like the Nürburgring’s banked carousels or Laguna Seca’s corkscrew. And so the 2 instances this tech has been demonstrated to journalists have been flat simulations on easy runways. The other can also be true: If there is a bump or pothole on the true driving floor, you will really feel it — and if a puddle or oil slick develops or a deer runs into the driving space, you will not see it coming within the simulation, which is why the human co-driver and their emergency brake pedal are there.
Later, BMW’s engineers excitedly clarify their imaginative and prescient for utilizing know-how developed within the M Combined Actuality prototype to show novice drivers efficiency strategies or to permit informal lovers to check the real-world limits of a automobile just like the M2 with out the concern of placing it right into a wall or wrapping it round a pole.
At present, the prototype makes use of a Varjo XR-3 headset, however that might change sooner or later.
BMW
Professional drivers can even profit from blended actuality driving. Say there is a tough phase on the Nürburgring you need to apply. Load it up on a skid pad and hit it again and again with out the necessity to full the whole Nordschleife between makes an attempt. You can spend the day autocrossing with a special course, every run with out having to put out or choose up dozens of cones.
On my second lap, I push the velocity slightly additional and the phantasm stays unbroken. The automobile strikes across the simulated course exactly, naturally following my inputs and matching completely with the seat-of-the-pants really feel. Solely the load of the headset jogs my memory that I have never been magically transported inside an arcade racer.
The BMW M Combined Actuality prototype is a ton of enjoyable, however for now it is only a growth platform with no plans to supply or supply the tech to M automobile house owners. On the finish of my session, all that I really need is another lap.
