Generating a new drive for speed in the desert

Industry 4.0 and the industrial Internet of things are not only useful in the factory: they can also be used in the design process. Generative design is a concept behind many innovations of the US-based manufacturing technology and software company Autodesk, and one particularly striking use of the technique comes from the automotive sector.

Custom car builder Hack Rod, founded by Felix Holst, former creative vice president for a toy manufacturer, and Mike "Mouse" McCoy, a film director and former motorbike racer, is no stranger to using advanced technologies and new ideas in its projects, and Holst and McCoy decided to work with Autodesk to see whether its design techniques could be used to create visually striking new cars with high-performance properties.

The first stage was to optimise one of its existing designs. The Hack Rod team, working with Autodesk research fellow Mickey McManus, made a 3D scan of an existing chassis with a proven design and uploaded it to the cloud. They then wired the chassis with dozens of wireless sensors and gave it to a stunt driver to take it on a joyride around the Mojave Desert, observed by a drone which captured a 3D model of the landscape over which it was careering. This resulted in an enormous dataset consisting of information about the car’s structure and all the forces acting upon it.