Hi Josh - curious the feedback of others with real world experience. @turbopilot ?
I have no experience with the Bowlus. But given LightShip has a very refined force sensor (on the hitch of the LightShip) and associated hardware/software, there is no reason a "Portable Force Sensor" could not be easily fabricated and placed between the tow vehicle and any brand of trailer for a tow test. The force sensor can read the force necessary to pull the trailer (in Newtons). Once you have the force required to pull the trailer you can back into the hardest number to calculate without a wind tunnel: the
Coefficient of Drag.
So there is no reason LightShip could not easily calculate the
Coefficient of Drag for every make and model towable RV on the market with very little effort. Could even offer a service to anyone with some other brand of towable to come to the factory and get your
Coefficient of Drag measured (along with a sales pitch
)
The drag equation is simple to calculate once you know the Coefficient of Drag for a trailer.
The drag force (F_d) is calculated using the standard aerodynamic drag equation:F_d = ½ × ρ × v² × C_d × AWhere:
- ρ = air density
- v = velocity
- C_d = coefficient of drag
- A = frontal area
I also think it would make sense to display the real time force measurements from the force sensor on the LightShip in tow on the Atlas tablet. There are so many variables impacting drag force (speed, wind, cross wind angle, temperature, altitude, tire pressure, rain, snow etc), displaying the force actually experienced in real time, at the hitch, towing a LightShip would be valuable information for the driver because that directly impacts range.
