From someone who has been racing Rc for 10+ years, this is a huge game changer and would give an unreal competitive edge to anyone who had access to this sort of tech. You’d have racers throwing spektrum and sanwa in the bin for this.
Great Job! This seems like it could have commercial value for sure. I had a similar thought of FF for RC planes. I had built a couple of prototypes and had some success with measuring the forces on the control surfaces using 3D printed bi-directional load cells, and yes, sifting thru the noise to come up with a smooth enough curve was (and is) a challenge! I sure do appreciate you sharing what you have done to date! Maybe I'll dust off those sensors and take another crack at it... ;-)
Dave, that would be awesome for an airplane! Do you have to have a load cell for each of the controls? Did you glue strain gauges onto the 3D prints to create the load cell? Finding a light weight load cell has been difficult. I've tried other force measurement methods, like measuring the amperage draw of the servos but unless they are really expensive servos, there's too much friction to measure the relatively low steering forces accurately. It might be possible to do this on an airplane though given the much smaller servo size.
It looks like a ton of work. I'm hoping you developed some code for us to try. Hardware parts gonna be easy for me but the software might be a little confusing. I've dealt with home automation projects with the esp32s@@IndeterminateDesign
@@IndeterminateDesign same here. And my biggest issue is being able to make many different systems work together. A TON more work than expected... Especially for someone with close to zero programming skills :((
I had this idea too sort of. But mine was replace the servo with an foc motor and use torque from it rather than load cell. Much like you said at the start. I however haven’t implemented anything tho. Well done!
I can already imagine this being applied to a "Formula RC" with FFB steering wheel joystick and VR glasses, on miniaturized tracks to avoid fatal accidents
This channel is becoming one of my favorite subscriptions. I love the way you explain the unique problems you run into, and your appoach to solving them without getting bogged down by minutiae. Also it was cool seeing all the high tech electronics mounted on an OG RC10 chassis!
As a 1/8 buggy racer this would be amazing. Of course you have by experience some sort of feeling when the car is about to get loose or get a sidebite, but to feel it in the transmitter would be cool, especially on tracks with alot of different track materials like loosedirt, astro, hardpacked. It would make tuning on the car much easier.
I wouldn't be surprised if any hobby grade manufacturers started reaching out to you soon regarding this technology. Frankly, this could become the next big thing in the sport, especially if they can manufacture custom load cells that'll fit on the smaller vehicles. You should try implementing this into a track built car and let a pro racer try it, to see if it improves their lap times!
Yeah. I can’t believe it’s something that doesn’t already exist. Apparently it has been done before many years ago but never made it into production. I’d love to get this working in a smaller car so someone with real driving experience can try it out.
Yeah, I'm not sure why it never became a commercial product. Maybe cost or something, but the parts are relatively cheap compared to a high end RC car chassis.
@@IndeterminateDesign I realize the jump from a working prototype to a viable product is large. However, if you eventually manage it, I would definitely buy the system, and you would change the rc hobby forever. Great project.
This is genius. I was thinking about the possibility of this on a gimbal radio for drone/wing flying a year or two ago. I never really explored it more though. Then I see this. Super cool to see what you are doing with this..
Had the exact same idea since a long time ago, but my major is aerospace engineering and thus not much knowledge on electronic and signal processing side of things. Also have schoolwork and I'm lazy so... never implemented that into reality. Watching this and knowing someone not only have the same concept but also managed to make it work is very inspiring to me. How I wish I could have that much talent in that many different fields.
I always look forward to your updates and this is an excellent addition to RC control. While I understand the desire to pursue 'commercial applications', it would be great/appropriate to feed the code back into the Simple FOC project as this has freely given you so much.
Yeah, that's the best part when you drift a car. Still working on it a bit because the wheels and steering mechanism have almost no weight it tends to overshoot more than you would have in a full size car.
I bet this would be a game changer for you. I’ve thought about putting a gyro at the bottom so you have haptic feedback with what the rear is doing too.
@@IndeterminateDesign you know, being totally blind that kind of feedback I can really get into because I almost have that now with some of the products I have
Nice job! Looks really fun to drive! For simplicity's sake have you considered/tried using lateral acceleration and/or angular velocity (yaw rate) for the force signal? Seems to me like it would allow to feel understeer/oversteer too, and be mechanically much simpler.
Thanks so much. So I initially tried using lateral force and yaw rate with the RC Hypercar. I had a second accelerometer mounted inline with the front tires to make it easier to seperate the force at the front vs the rear. In testing it’s hard because there’s not a consistent force from the steering since steering angle and yaw rate don’t relate directly. Maybe I was doing something wrong. That’s when I went into modeling the tire to try and have the self centering force involved. Ultimately I think directly measure the force is the easiest. I think a custom servo maybe the easiest way. Not sure yet.
I love this application - Like you, this is something I've spent a good deal of time daydreaming about and doing that initial research on, kudos to you for taking the time to execute on it! I do expect this to be the norm for RC transmitters in the future. Heck gaming controllers have benefitted from force feedback for years.. The time has come.
Sweet! I had the same idea watching the same simplefoc vids you mentioned :) That FOC board was sold out at the time and I went with B-G431B-ESC1's and ventured away from esp32 to teensy.. I got distracted with applying the idea to 3d printed motorcycles with foc or brushed steering.. time is a b1tc4 and code / cad /etc eat mine away. Hopefully I'll pick a project and actually finish it.. let me know/ I'll keep an eye out for similar projects maybe you open up to contributors. Congratulations edit: I just noticed your RC Hypercar is brushless direct drive :) Your the man ! Iooks like a great design with over the top areo! I have some vids to watch this week. :)
@@IndeterminateDesign I image if it doesn’t already exist it wouldn’t be too difficult for you to create with two cameras. That would be really cool. You would basically have a full simulator in your hands at that point. The remote alone would be worth a fortune if you could commercialize it.
Haven't seen the video yet, but dang that a great idea. You could also add a gyro sensor to measure vibrations of the car and send the info to a vibrating thingy im the remote to get a feeling for the driving surface
The steering resonance can be issue on real cars, too, if they don't have power steering rack, which dampens a lot of unwanted movement. I read a book about development of Skoda Favorit, at one point, they had issue with resonance when the driver removed hand from the wheel. Eventually they found out, that steering wheel manufacturer used solid rod instead of tube in its frame, so whole steering wheel was too heavy, matching resonance of the rest of the steering mechanism.
That makes sense. I never thought about the relative weights. I’m still trying to work out exactly what causes on this car. The slop on RC car tie rods doesn’t help either.
With the servo I’m using, it takes 80+ grams force to see a current difference and the servo responds differently in each direction. (Also can’t tell what direction the force is in unless I modify the servo). The load cell is accurate to about 5g. The plan is to try and test measuring servo and see if it makes a difference in a real world test.
Would it work to measure the ampere draw and voltage of the servo motor to calculate the torque of the steering servo? i think then you dont need the loadcell
I definitely think it’s possible. My initial tests with current didn’t work, but I need to setup a test where I log the current of the servo and the load cell force while driving the car so I can compare them.
I wanted to comment the same. But thinking about it, servo also consumes power just to move itself. That'd probably create weird "springy" feeling during fast movements. Plus, you still somehow need to measure direction - you can do that on brushed servos, not sure about brushless ones.
What is the rc car you are using for the hyprcar. I really want to do something similar with the aerodynamics and 3d print it. Thanks for the inspiration
I custom designed the car because I could find an off the shelf car that would support the aerodynamic loads. I did a series on the development of the aero and the suspension. makerworld.com/en/models/526878
I don’t know much about load cells, but I think because I’m only reading the load cell at 80hz. I know they have some noise and resonance. I want to try a simple amplifier circuit and an analog to digital converter to see how the signal actually looks at different sample rates.
You can turn the servo itself into the load cell relying on its inherent flexibility, or introducing some. This video shows an example of how to. ruclips.net/video/LoqGDTH75jY/видео.html
Saw this the first time here in this video thats now 10 years old and was wondering how its done cause i wanted it + the superscale Suspension module😅 ruclips.net/video/s__nDwhDLSs/видео.html
Yeah, I just saw that video after posting this. I don't know exactly how they're sensing force. I think there's a bunch of different ways to do it. I think the hard part is determining what way works best and doesn't add a lot of extra weight to the car.
I love that we can watch people on real time developing cutting edge electronics projects. Its just the most interesting time to be alive
My dad has Parkinson's, and he's been incredibly sad that he's been unable to drive his car. I think something like this could really help. Good work.
Try some VR with Oculus 2 or 3 and a Logitech wheel.
Put that man on forza
Start this man a kick starter ASAP.
From someone who has been racing Rc for 10+ years, this is a huge game changer and would give an unreal competitive edge to anyone who had access to this sort of tech. You’d have racers throwing spektrum and sanwa in the bin for this.
Great Job! This seems like it could have commercial value for sure. I had a similar thought of FF for RC planes. I had built a couple of prototypes and had some success with measuring the forces on the control surfaces using 3D printed bi-directional load cells, and yes, sifting thru the noise to come up with a smooth enough curve was (and is) a challenge! I sure do appreciate you sharing what you have done to date! Maybe I'll dust off those sensors and take another crack at it... ;-)
Dave, that would be awesome for an airplane! Do you have to have a load cell for each of the controls? Did you glue strain gauges onto the 3D prints to create the load cell? Finding a light weight load cell has been difficult. I've tried other force measurement methods, like measuring the amperage draw of the servos but unless they are really expensive servos, there's too much friction to measure the relatively low steering forces accurately. It might be possible to do this on an airplane though given the much smaller servo size.
Your channel scares me because you had exactly the same ideas for projects i had for a long time and never started because i was too lazy.
lol. I didn’t do it for a long time because I figured someone else already had to have have done it. Way more work than I expected though.
It looks like a ton of work. I'm hoping you developed some code for us to try. Hardware parts gonna be easy for me but the software might be a little confusing. I've dealt with home automation projects with the esp32s@@IndeterminateDesign
@@IndeterminateDesign same here.
And my biggest issue is being able to make many different systems work together.
A TON more work than expected... Especially for someone with close to zero programming skills :((
I had this idea too sort of. But mine was replace the servo with an foc motor and use torque from it rather than load cell. Much like you said at the start. I however haven’t implemented anything tho. Well done!
I can already imagine this being applied to a "Formula RC" with FFB steering wheel joystick and VR glasses, on miniaturized tracks to avoid fatal accidents
God I've daydreamed about this _exact_ idea soooo often.
With real engines it would be insane
I'm going for it, just built a 1/5th scale with stabilized live FPV. Almost ready to add FFB :D
Not to mention it would make formula e actually viable. The speeds would be insane.
This really could be a game changer for RC.
This channel is becoming one of my favorite subscriptions. I love the way you explain the unique problems you run into, and your appoach to solving them without getting bogged down by minutiae.
Also it was cool seeing all the high tech electronics mounted on an OG RC10 chassis!
As a 1/8 buggy racer this would be amazing. Of course you have by experience some sort of feeling when the car is about to get loose or get a sidebite, but to feel it in the transmitter would be cool, especially on tracks with alot of different track materials like loosedirt, astro, hardpacked. It would make tuning on the car much easier.
There would definitely be plenty of room in one of those to fit a load cell. I just need to convince the wife I need another expensive RC car. :-)
@@3dprintedrc503 man I hadn't even thought of that application. Changing surfaces would be so sickkkkk
I wouldn't be surprised if any hobby grade manufacturers started reaching out to you soon regarding this technology. Frankly, this could become the next big thing in the sport, especially if they can manufacture custom load cells that'll fit on the smaller vehicles. You should try implementing this into a track built car and let a pro racer try it, to see if it improves their lap times!
Yeah. I can’t believe it’s something that doesn’t already exist. Apparently it has been done before many years ago but never made it into production. I’d love to get this working in a smaller car so someone with real driving experience can try it out.
@@IndeterminateDesign Is there any larger tracks near you? If your system fits into an RC10, it would fit comfortably into a 1/8th scale.
There was an attempt for a commercial product years ago, but it never eventuated. It would be awesome to have feedback.
Yeah, I'm not sure why it never became a commercial product. Maybe cost or something, but the parts are relatively cheap compared to a high end RC car chassis.
@@IndeterminateDesign I realize the jump from a working prototype to a viable product is large. However, if you eventually manage it, I would definitely buy the system, and you would change the rc hobby forever. Great project.
maybe measure the current of the sterring servo and convert it to torque？
This is genius. I was thinking about the possibility of this on a gimbal radio for drone/wing flying a year or two ago. I never really explored it more though. Then I see this. Super cool to see what you are doing with this..
Had the exact same idea since a long time ago, but my major is aerospace engineering and thus not much knowledge on electronic and signal processing side of things. Also have schoolwork and I'm lazy so... never implemented that into reality. Watching this and knowing someone not only have the same concept but also managed to make it work is very inspiring to me. How I wish I could have that much talent in that many different fields.
I am so excited to see where this goes, this sounds super awesome!
I always look forward to your updates and this is an excellent addition to RC control. While I understand the desire to pursue 'commercial applications', it would be great/appropriate to feed the code back into the Simple FOC project as this has freely given you so much.
Yes but not fair. He is the genius that put all most all of it together. Tons of time and dedication went into this.
This is an awesome project!
You chould add an airbag to the controller so you also get force feedback when you crash. 😛
that would actually be super fun!
This seems best for offroad RC’s. This is awesome!
Im looking forward to see a rc car drifting with real steering forces. You could let the wheel selfsteer itself like in reallife, that's crazy
Yeah, that's the best part when you drift a car. Still working on it a bit because the wheels and steering mechanism have almost no weight it tends to overshoot more than you would have in a full size car.
This is incredible!
Thanks for sharing! :)
Dude your rc stuff is next level😂🤜🤛
Why hasnt this been done already? Great video!
There's a dude in Japan who did it with his drift car. He had it hooked to a steering wheel with fpv and head tracker too if I remember right.
Omg. Your are amazing. I'm gonna try and build one on payday. I'm sure it will be a fun project.
The way I have to drive. I could see this being very interesting in letting you feel where you drive. I’ve been since I do it by hearing now.
I bet this would be a game changer for you. I’ve thought about putting a gyro at the bottom so you have haptic feedback with what the rear is doing too.
@@IndeterminateDesign you know, being totally blind that kind of feedback I can really get into because I almost have that now with some of the products I have
This is insane. You're insane. I love it. Subscribed.
OK, I'm back to being completly amazed! What an idea!
Thanks. It such a simple concept I can't believe it isn't something that hasn't already been done.
Nice job! Looks really fun to drive! For simplicity's sake have you considered/tried using lateral acceleration and/or angular velocity (yaw rate) for the force signal? Seems to me like it would allow to feel understeer/oversteer too, and be mechanically much simpler.
Thanks so much. So I initially tried using lateral force and yaw rate with the RC Hypercar. I had a second accelerometer mounted inline with the front tires to make it easier to seperate the force at the front vs the rear. In testing it’s hard because there’s not a consistent force from the steering since steering angle and yaw rate don’t relate directly. Maybe I was doing something wrong. That’s when I went into modeling the tire to try and have the self centering force involved.
Ultimately I think directly measure the force is the easiest. I think a custom servo maybe the easiest way. Not sure yet.
Incredible stuff!👍 Keep up the good work!👍
Thanks!
Fpv camera and a set of goggles make it like real life
This crazy good. Really impressive work 😊
I've always thought about this. I'm going to have to look into applying this to an offroad racing application. thanks for sharing.
I love this application - Like you, this is something I've spent a good deal of time daydreaming about and doing that initial research on, kudos to you for taking the time to execute on it! I do expect this to be the norm for RC transmitters in the future. Heck gaming controllers have benefitted from force feedback for years.. The time has come.
Dw-link?
Sweet! I had the same idea watching the same simplefoc vids you mentioned :) That FOC board was sold out at the time and I went with B-G431B-ESC1's and ventured away from esp32 to teensy.. I got distracted with applying the idea to 3d printed motorcycles with foc or brushed steering.. time is a b1tc4 and code / cad /etc eat mine away. Hopefully I'll pick a project and actually finish it.. let me know/ I'll keep an eye out for similar projects maybe you open up to contributors.
Congratulations
edit: I just noticed your RC Hypercar is brushless direct drive :) Your the man ! Iooks like a great design with over the top areo! I have some vids to watch this week.
:)
Amazing project.
SO HYPED! I was wondering how you were gonna achieve this!
Just fantastic
Man that's awesome, I thought the latency would absolutely kill it. Can't wait for the follow up. Would definitely buy one
I would have never thought of that. That’s cool. I would have just put an fpv cam in it but that’s been done before. This is way more impressive.
I think FPV would be awesome too. Do they have stereo vision setup for FPV? I think you'd really need some depth perception.
@@IndeterminateDesign I image if it doesn’t already exist it wouldn’t be too difficult for you to create with two cameras. That would be really cool. You would basically have a full simulator in your hands at that point. The remote alone would be worth a fortune if you could commercialize it.
I love it, it's awesome!
Yes yes so good
Don't leave that make it a standard
Haven't seen the video yet, but dang that a great idea. You could also add a gyro sensor to measure vibrations of the car and send the info to a vibrating thingy im the remote to get a feeling for the driving surface
The steering resonance can be issue on real cars, too, if they don't have power steering rack, which dampens a lot of unwanted movement.
I read a book about development of Skoda Favorit, at one point, they had issue with resonance when the driver removed hand from the wheel. Eventually they found out, that steering wheel manufacturer used solid rod instead of tube in its frame, so whole steering wheel was too heavy, matching resonance of the rest of the steering mechanism.
That makes sense. I never thought about the relative weights. I’m still trying to work out exactly what causes on this car. The slop on RC car tie rods doesn’t help either.
Out of curiosity could the same type of output be achieved by just monitoring the load on the servo through a current sensor?
With the servo I’m using, it takes 80+ grams force to see a current difference and the servo responds differently in each direction. (Also can’t tell what direction the force is in unless I modify the servo). The load cell is accurate to about 5g.
The plan is to try and test measuring servo and see if it makes a difference in a real world test.
@@IndeterminateDesign gotcha. Well let me know when you can send me a setup :-) I want to try it!
Can you tell me when there will be a tutorial for RC hypercar?
I don’t know if everyone got it, but I sent out post for subs. It’s available at makerworld.com/en/models/526878
Would it work to measure the ampere draw and voltage of the servo motor to calculate the torque of the steering servo? i think then you dont need the loadcell
I definitely think it’s possible. My initial tests with current didn’t work, but I need to setup a test where I log the current of the servo and the load cell force while driving the car so I can compare them.
@richardmitd8993 the servo has gearing, which introduces stiction. It's a nonlinearity and would filter out smaller forces.
I wanted to comment the same. But thinking about it, servo also consumes power just to move itself. That'd probably create weird "springy" feeling during fast movements. Plus, you still somehow need to measure direction - you can do that on brushed servos, not sure about brushless ones.
What is the rc car you are using for the hyprcar. I really want to do something similar with the aerodynamics and 3d print it. Thanks for the inspiration
I custom designed the car because I could find an off the shelf car that would support the aerodynamic loads. I did a series on the development of the aero and the suspension. makerworld.com/en/models/526878
@@IndeterminateDesign Okay, thank you!
seems im not the only one the pondered this lol
I would have thought that hysteresis in the steering wheel would obviate the need for filtering.
I don’t know much about load cells, but I think because I’m only reading the load cell at 80hz. I know they have some noise and resonance. I want to try a simple amplifier circuit and an analog to digital converter to see how the signal actually looks at different sample rates.
You can turn the servo itself into the load cell relying on its inherent flexibility, or introducing some. This video shows an example of how to. ruclips.net/video/LoqGDTH75jY/видео.html
Saw this the first time here in this video thats now 10 years old and was wondering how its done cause i wanted it + the superscale Suspension module😅
ruclips.net/video/s__nDwhDLSs/видео.html
Yeah, I just saw that video after posting this. I don't know exactly how they're sensing force. I think there's a bunch of different ways to do it. I think the hard part is determining what way works best and doesn't add a lot of extra weight to the car.