VI-grade Announces Virtual Formula 2011

Marburg – VI-grade GmbH, a provider of best-in-class products and services to bridge the gap between real world testing and technical simulation, today announced the 2011 edition of the Virtual Formula competition.

Virtual Formula 2011 is built upon the rules and regulations of the popular Formula SAE and Formula Student. This year’s edition, with a particular focus on optimization, will be based on the usage of VI-Motorsport, VI-grade’s interactive simulation environment for motorsport vehicle modeling and dynamic analysis, and modeFRONTIER, the multidisciplinary and multi-objective optimization and design environment from Esteco. All registered teams will be granted access to a complete state-of-the-art racing simulation and optimization software to find the best set-up for their car. Deadline for registration is Mar 31st, 2011, registered teams will receive models and specifications on Apr 1st, 2011 and will have time until Sept 15th, 2011 to submit their results to VI-grade.

The participating teams will be challenged to optimize the performance of a virtual race car, minimizing the lap time on a given autocross track. The competition will be won by the team that will drive the vehicle with the shortest lap-time on the given circuit. The winning team will receive a complete software package including multiple user access to the VI-MotorSport and modeFRONTIER technologies!

“VI-Grade Virtual Formula is a powerful educational tool to increase the knowledge of our students in vehicle dynamics”, declared Prof. Andrea Tonoli, faculty advisor of Squadra Corse Politecnico di Torino, winning team of the 2010 Virtual Formula edition. “This solution gave our students the possibility to quickly estimate the effects of such vehicle set-up parameters on car performance and lap-time and to better understand the sensitivity of parameter variation with respect to the final goal. We found this very effective not only at the design phase, but also for reducing the track test time, that is a critical issue because of the very tight timing of the project.”

“We are extremely happy about our participation as main sponsors to the Virtual Formula competition”, declared Davide Ludovisi, Sales and Marketing Manager at Esteco. “We are looking forward to sharing to the participating teams the outstanding optimization capabilities offered by our modeFRONTIER solution. We also invite all teams to register to the social network modeFrontier @ Formula SAE (www.modefrontier-formulasae.com), a useful web environment where Formula SAE participants can share every experience linked to the design process (comments, pictures, video, etc.), and discover new ways to use modeFRONTIER for Formula SAE needs.”

“Last year’s edition of Virtual Formula was one of our most successful initiatives, with 66 registered teams from all over the world, almost 4 times as many as the previous edition.”, declared Guido Bairati, Sales Director of VI-grade. “We are looking forward to welcoming an even higher number of participating teams, also thanks to our expanded network of international partners for the initiative.”