Comment by zacka | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zacka | Hacker News Reader

ClearMotion founder here! Wanted to share some insights that might answer questions from other commenters and clarify what we've developed.

The ClearMotion1 system is a major leap above all tech currently on the market, with transmitted vibration reduced about 80% versus top market technologies. Here's a video comparing it on production NIO cars against luxury vehicles using semi-active (or slow active) systems others mentioned - sort of like comparing a microcontroller to a NVIDIA H100. http://bit.ly/44TDtgl

This matters especially for autonomous vehicles, where the whole point is to give people back time, and preventing motion sickness while working/reading is essential.

Our tech stack:

- Electro-hydraulic actuators that both push/pull actuate and dampen within a few milliseconds, using electric motors (not solenoid valves or special fluids). We use integrated hydraulics as a mechanical gain lever

- Predictive control software that anticipates vehicle, driver, and road dynamics

- "Infinite preview" control using crowdsourced road data with <3cm localization precision

- Software-enabled features including pre-crash posture mitigation and tire grip technology

The combination creates a "software-defined" chassis, similar to how electric power steering enabled today's driver assist features.

Our Bose acquisition was to acquire specific control software and engineering talent, but most of our IP and our production hardware/software was developed in house.

There were a few questions about durability— our system has passed 5 years of testing across millions of miles - a requirement from all of our customers like NIO and Porsche. It’s also a reason why it’s so difficult to succeed as a startup in automotive, but once you’re in, you’re locked in long-term.

Didn't GM have a camera/software combo that would relax the MR dampener before bumps at one time? It didn't have active movement - just a regular shock but with fine control over fluid movement.

I think you're saying you have a pump that moves hydraulic fluid in anticipation of a road defect/speedbump, and does it per-wheel and proportional to the correction needed. Which is fascinating.

With regards to pre-crash posture, I'm not sure if this is to move the occupants into a more advantageous position for airbag deployment or to get more crash structure involved for a dissimilar vehicle crash (sedan vs. truck). Can you talk more about it? Is there going to be IIHS/Euro NCAP/C-NCAP testing?

Yes correct, we use electric motors to directly control an efficient compact pump to bidirectionally pump fluid, or use back electromotive force to dampen motion (and capture energy while doing so). This eliminates the need for controlled valves, but requires advanced controls to mitigate system dynamics (hydraulic losses, etc).

For ride control, machine vision helps a bit, but it’s limited due to the need to determine high fidelity road z-measurements which requires very high resolution and clarity at speed, and no visual occlusion. It helps with simple problems like bump vs hill (which is not trivial to predict just with accelerometers), but we’ve figured out how to get most of the benefit of machine vision with just accelerometers and fast actuators. GM was able to use vision to improve pothole performance, but it’s still a semi-active system that only provides fast adjustable stiffness (damping).

For pre-crash, the system uses cameras to detect a collision-path vehicle and determine an optimized impact zone for that vehicle. For example, the frame or bumper has more structural rigidity which may be desirable in certain crash scenarios.

http://bit.ly/44TDtgl = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-nEEtD_OXQ

If you are looking for future ideas:

While most vehicles used in ag are going to be combustion based for a long while, if you could apply the shock mitigation to a just a chair in spray rig (https://hayandforage.com/images/29-Thome_MR_38-WEB.7650.png) or fertilizer buggy, a lot of spines could be saved.

These vehicles are lighter and generally run faster than tractors, and applicators who run them for decades tend to be forced to retire in pretty bad shape.

What a waste of people's health and workforce. Do they not have pneumatically sprung seats, at least, if the vehicle has no suspension? These have been available for a long time - my dad was a farmer and had one on his mid 80s Fendt tractor.

Yes, those exist and are very much used (and replaced as a maintenance item).

Unfortunately does not eliminate the slow accumulative injury of going over rough and tilted ground for decades.

It seems like more of an issue here in the willamette valley of Oregon than it was in southwest kansas. I think the steep hills limit what is reasonable for suspension to counter with spines held at an off angle for long periods.

> "Infinite preview" control using crowdsourced road data with <3cm localization precision

Let me guess, all those demos are with carefully mapped bumps.

That was certainly how the original tech demo worked.

Sure, but that invalidates any seemingly/misleadingly direct comparisons like the one linked above. Hell, you could even build bump course in a way to exaggerate bmw/audi wobblines by hand tuning for resonant frequencies those cars are most sensitive to and run it at carefully selected worst case speed.

A other future idea: offer back the crowdsourced data to city and state planners to find the roads in dire need of repairs, and evaluate the quality of road construction to select the best companies

> "Infinite preview" control using crowdsourced road data with <3cm localization precision

Question: Why not use an onboard front-facing camera to detect potholes in real-time? Using crowdsourced data can definitely have outdated-ness issues. Unless, you'll eventually plan to elegantly in-place switch over the data source to near real-time LEO satellite imagery over even better - below-LEO [0] satellite imagery.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/29/near-space-labs-nabs-20m-t...

The article says that Bose gave up and sold the rights because: "Sadly it was totally impractical for mass production in 2004"

What does that mean? Was it too complex or costly to make it back then? Did that change now with your developments?

Better tech is nice but if it's to expensive or hard to mass produce then it could end up the same way as with Bose.

If I recall it was heavy. I think speculation had it adding over 20% to the weight of the Lexus.

And those electric motors and control hardware would not have been cheap. But nobody knows how to estimate it - just that it would be prohibitively expensive.

To create enough force to lift the car using linear motors requires massive copper coils and rare earth magnets, which is heavy and expensive. It’s also wasteful, because in real world drive cycles peak force is only needed for short periods of time and at relatively low linear velocities. Further, linear motors require significant packaging space which requires the chassis be designed around it. Instead, we use a much smaller motor and a high “gear ratio” using hydraulics to achieve high forces via mechanical gain. This reduces raw material cost by a factor of >10x while achieving similar performance.

Impressive, but is it as stylish and smooth as the 1978 Royal Deluxe II?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnOwHu_wchg

> This video contains content from NBC Universal, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds

any work with US automakers planned? Are there issues working with EU / China due to current political realities?

Hello. How does this suspension handle severely neglected roads with large potholes or even off-road type with say 40-50mph? And I mean regularly, for years?

Why would you drive any vehicle on a road like that at 50mph? At some point a neglected road isn’t a road anymore and shouldn’t be considered as such.

I mean I am asking only because my government has failed to fix these roads and we've had protests that lead to nothing. They are the only connection between the rural parts of the country, as in the only ones.

You have no choice but to go at a speed useful enough to get anywhere. For me, these are real-world conditions.

That's going to destroy your tires regardless. The suspension isn't going to save your tires if you deliberately abuse them.

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