DaimlerChrysler is exhibiting a special concept at the 35th Tokyo Motor Show: the F 400 Carving is a vehicle packed with dynamic systems designed to give the car enhanced active safety & dynamic handling control. The F 400 houses a new system that varies the camber angle on the outer wheels between 0 and 20 degrees depending on the road surface. Used in conjunction with newly-developed tires, it provides 30 percent more lateral stability than a conventional system with a fixed camber setting and standard tyres. This considerably enhances active safety, since better lateral stability equals improved road adhesion and greater cornering stability.The active camber control in the F 400 Carving paves the way for an equally new asymmetrical-tread tyre concept. When the two-seater car is cornering, the outer wheels tilt inwards, leaving only the inner area of these tyres in contact with the road. This area of the tread is slightly rounded off. Meanwhile both the tread pattern and the rubber blend have been specially selected to ensure highly dynamic and extremely safe cornering. When driving straight ahead, however, it is the outer areas of the tyres that are in contact with the road. These areas have a tried-and-tested car tread pattern, offering excellent high-speed and low-noise performance. Two different concepts therefore come to fruition in a single tire, thanks to active camber control
The F400 definitely wins the award for weirdest looking Mercedes ever made. What makes the F400 Carving so special is that the camber angle of the outer wheels can be adjusted by up to 20 degrees providing 30% more lateral stability. Active camber control boosts the research vehicle's maximum lateral acceleration to 1.28 g, meaning that the concept study outperforms current sports cars by some 28 percent.
Two different concepts therefore come to fruition in a single tyre, thanks to active camber control. The research vehicle's "Carving" epithet symbolizes the new technology, evoking images of the high-speed winter sport in which adepts perform sharp turns on a specially-shaped high-grip ski.
The F 400 Carving is something of a mobile research laboratory for the Stuttgart-based automotive engineers. They will be using it to investigate the undoubted further potential of this new chassis technology: besides of-fering excellent directional stability during cornering, the new technology ensures a much higher level of active safety in the event of an emergency. By way of example, if there is a risk of skidding, the wheel camber is in-creased by an appropriate degree. The resultant gain in lateral stability significantly enhances the effect of ESP®, the Electronic Stability Program. If the research car needs to be braked in an emergency, all four of its wheels can be tilted in next to no time, thus shortening the stopping distance from 100 km/h by a good five metres.
