The Traffic Accident Reconstruction Origin -ARnews-

Re: G-Analyst Replacement

Randy Chase (randyc@pacbell.net)
Sun, 1 Mar 1998 22:33:58 -0500 (EST)

First, thanks for the private responses also that I have recieved so far. It is encouraging to learn about the uses for this product.

What we intend on creating (or are in the middle of creating) will have two accelerometers with digital outputs and a digital compass, utilizing a Motorola Micro, some Dallas battery backed up SRAM, RS-232 drivers, and some other circuitry. The use of two acceleromemters and an accurate digital compass, will allow us to very precise to where the car went and what various g-forces were applied to it.

Think of this mainly as sensors and software. The main use of this product was for amateur motorsports. We can take the data from the unit and create a graph and map of the actual course the car took, along with g-forces at any time slice. You will be able to overlay additional runs or laps on top of each other for precise comparison. Obviously, this market was the racecar market, and this is what the G-Analyst was being used for also. We know that we can improve the sample rate and capacity of the unit over the G-Analyst. The G-Analyst being a single accelerometer unit, has some compromises also.

I can only pass on what is a planned product cost. I remind you that I am not the company that will be selling this product, I am trying to design a good product for this company. I have heard retail (without lapping software) of about $295, but perhaps it may go to $350 or so if we design in some features that we think will be worth it to the end user. A value judgement if you will. The software that works with the unit (windows based graphing and mapping) may end up being about $500 for the hardware/software. I will be talking to the software gurus about modifying the interface/outputs for specific testing applications, if I think there is enough market to support the effort. Again, this is what I am asking for help on. Do users of the present G-Analyst use bundled software or work off the raw data?

I would be interested in what anyone considers a minimum acceptible sampling rate. As you might guess, there may be less sampling rates required to know where a car is and what it's g-force is at any second, than perhaps you might need for test purposes.

Thanks for your feedback.

Randy Chase
randyc@pacbell.net

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