Customer
The Bloodhound Project

Overview
Cursive was part of a group of Product Sponsors who worked in collaboration to design and implement a driving experience for the Bloodhound SuperSonic Car. The principal purpose of the Bloodhound Driving Experience (BDE) is to provide members of the public with the opportunity to get a flavour of what it will be like to drive the real car. Wing Commander Andy Green (the real driver) had to approve the system, so it needed to be good.

The requirements for the driving experience were set as follows:

• it must be exciting,
• the tasks required of the driver should be representative of those Andy Green will have to perform,
• the challenge of learning and performing these tasks correctly must be achievable within the scope of a five minute session,
• the performance of the driving experience should be close to that of the real car,
• the results achieved by drivers must reflect the level of skill they exhibited,
• the experience should be accessible to ages 8 to 80,
• the cost of development should be low,
• the system should be ‘portable’.

Phase 1
Cursive worked with the University of Southampton and Intel to devise the software specifications and storyboard. We then worked with a commercial computer games engine to implement the software in 3 months, from scratch. This required three software developers working pretty much flat out the whole time. During this process we liaised with the Bloodhound Engineering Team to obtain data and check the performance of our models. The software includes a desert environment, 3D model of the car and cockpit interior, a whole set of working instruments based on what will be in the real car, light-up buttons on the steering wheel, dynamics and performance models, and an audio instructor mode. Once all of this was together there were several test sessions with Andy Green to ensure that everything was just right.

To briefly summarise some of the other sponsors on this project:

• Intel provided computer hardware, some project management, and the core funding.
• Dr Kenji Takeda from the University of Southampton worked with Andy Green on the storyboard, and with Intel on the software requirements.
• The Race Centre developed the physical ‘pod’ – the seat, frame, steering wheel, and pedals.
• The University of the West of England worked with Andy Green to develop the steering wheel.

Ultimately the first operational BDE was launched at Farnborough International Air Show on 19th July 2010.

Phase 1 spin-offs
There were a couple of interesting spin-offs from the first phase. Firstly regarding the cockpit instrumentation, although Andy Green had begun to design these he hadn’t needed to complete the design yet. Through the process of refining the instrument panel layouts and functions we gained a more in-depth understanding of just how much information he will need to absorb when he drives the real car, but also we were able to introduce Bloodhound to a company who specialise in software for cockpit instruments (The DiSTI Corporation) – as a result the real car will have instruments based on this work, and running in DiSTI’s software.

Secondly, the steering wheel design developed for the BDE, based on a design provided by Page Aerospace, has been adapted for the real car.

Phase 2
We can’t tell you much… but there are various exciting options under discussion!

More photos of the BDE