Final week, BMW held its annual Innovation Days event in Munich where BMWBLOG was present too. I of the topics in the several workshops held throughout the twenty-four hours was the development of a new adaptive viii-speed transmission.

Based on the current ZF 8-speed automatic, the new transmission utilizes a broad range of technologies, GPS mapping, DSC, wireless data connectiion, front and rear-mounted cameras and radar sensors, which all together can help the gearbox adjust its shifting pattern and power delivery to accommodate the road conditions.

Autoblog illustrates an example on how this new manual would piece of work.

06 bmw adaptive transmission slides 655x367 "So, let's say you lot're heading out on the route and it's raining. The information connexion pulls in the nearly recent weather information, the DSC takes in the coefficient of friction of the road and and so restricts power to avoid wheel spin. With the integrated GPS, the organisation can detect the adjacent curve, recognize yous're in Sport style and downshift into a lower gear to perfectly conform the bend you're nigh to bomb."

Substantially, using data from different sources, the 8-speed adaptive transmission would know what gear to apply in a abrupt curve and what is the appropriate gear to accelerate out. BMWBLOG asked if FlexRay was necessary to handle the communication between sensors for the adaptive transmission and were told "No", the bandwidth required to pull off the predictive/adaptive tranny was not greater than what a CAN double-decker tin handle (nigh 1Mb a second).

BMW has refrained from commenting on when such technology would exist available in production cars, but as nosotros accept seen in the by, the high-end BMWs tend to receive start the latest technologies; this assumption would place the 2022 BMW seven Series every bit the prime candidate.

Here are some illustrations of this new technology along with the official printing release from BMW.

Development objective: identify road profile, understand driver's wishes.

Every bit a result of further development in that location is now the possibility to adapt gearshift commands given by the transmission command system to each driving state of affairs even more than flexibly and at the same time more accurately. The anticipatory manual control organization currently in the advance evolution stage utilises, in addition to the driver's intention, further information to take into consideration road surface atmospheric condition, road topology as well equally the traffic situation when selecting the platonic gear. For this purpose, the transmission control system is linked to both the DSC (Dynamics Stability Control) role as well as the navigation system in the initial stage. In the configuration levels that follow, a link-upward with the cameras utilised for the driver aid systems or radar and additional sensors respectively is nether consideration.

The information provided by the DSC sensors pertaining to the road surface friction coefficient help the system peculiarly in the case of low friction coefficients to prepare optimally for the typical control intervention during the acceleration stage that follows. Using the data provided by the navigation organization, information technology is possible to determine the radius of a bend long before it is approached. Based on this data the transmission control arrangement so determines with even greater accurateness the gear required for a smooth driving manoeuvre and confident acceleration out of the bend. Moreover, using information provided by cameras and radar sensors and pertaining to the traffic situation ahead of the vehicle, it volition in future be possible to determine for case the required amount of deceleration and arrange the bulldoze management to each specific situation.

In do and cheers to this anticipatory control system, the automatic transmission adapts remarkably accurately to the situation-related requirements and demands of the driver. As a result of the complexity of the factors taken into consideration by the control system, the automatic transmission selects the appropriate gear similarly equally foresighted as an experienced driver using a manual gearbox. It assists the commuter with fast and appropriate response, which immediately leads to an increase in driving pleasure and optimised efficiency. Hence, the interaction betwixt driver and vehicle reaches a new dimension.

[Source: BMW | Autoblog ]