Of course there's a Citroen connection.
Interesting article here :
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Fe ... eId=103183
In addition to being a major player in the audio biz, Dr. Bose has had more than a passing fancy in automotive suspension design, which began in 1957 when he bought a new 1958 Pontiac Bonneville equipped with air suspension. Although that system was primitive and prone to breaking down, Dr. Bose was fascinated nonetheless.
Ten years later, he replaced the Bonnie with a Citroën, again because he was intrigued by the use of air [???] suspension. For over a decade, he pondered modern auto suspension design and how he would do it, if he had the resources. Fortunately, he had both the financial and intellectual resources — and in 1980 decided to get to work on his idea. And what was that idea? It was, in a nutshell, the use of electromagnetic technology to provide a luxury car's ride with a sports car's control.
So howzit work? At the risk of oversimplifying, the Bose system uses a linear electromagnetic motor (L.E.M.) at each wheel, in lieu of a conventional shock and spring setup. The L.E.M. has the ability to extend (as if into a pothole) and retract (as if over a bump) with much greater speed than a fluid damper (taking just milliseconds, actually). These lightning-fast reflexes and precise movement allow the wheel's motion to be so finely controlled that the body of the car remains level, regardless of the goings-on at the wheel level. The L.E.M. can also counteract the body motion of a car while accelerating, braking and cornering, giving the driver a greater sense of control and passengers less of a need for Dramamine. To further the smooth ride goal, wheel dampers inside each wheel hub smooth out small road imperfections, isolating even those nuances from the passenger compartment. Torsion bars take care of supporting the vehicle, allowing the Bose system to concentrate on optimizing handling and ride dynamics.
A power amplifier supplies the juice to the L.E.M.s. The amplifier is a regenerative design that uses the compression force to send power back through the amplifier. Thanks to this efficient layout, the Bose suspension uses only about a third of the power of a vehicle's air conditioning system. Of course, there are a few other key components in the system, such as control algorithms that Bose and his fellow brainiacs developed over a few decades of crunching numbers. The target total weight for the system is 200 pounds, a goal Bose is confident of attaining.
The net result was simply something that had to be seen to be believed
http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N59/bose.html
Fifty years ago, Amar G. Bose ’51, the founder of Bose Corp., was a car nut. A geeky kind of car nut.
He wasn’t concerned with the obsessions of the day: horsepower, speed, and tail fins. He just wanted the smoothest ride possible.
Six years before the young Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor founded the company that’s now synonymous with high-end stereo speakers, he bought a 1958 Pontiac, which featured something called Ever-Level air suspension in which air bags replaced steel springs to absorb bumps.
It wasn’t good enough. He tinkered with the suspension for a decade, and then he bought a Citroen DS-19, a French oddball renowned for its radically streamlined shape and a pressurized fluid suspension with nitrogen shock absorbers. It once broke down on him at the Tanglewood music center, and he had to have it towed back to Boston.
And what about Citroen?
The French carmaker is now a division of Peugeot SA, but it still produces cars with the remarkable hydropneumatic suspension and enjoys a reputation for suspension wizardry.
Bose admits he hadn’t even thought of Citroen until a group of French reporters came to Framingham for a demonstration last year, and he doubts the company would take a risk with the new system.
