Member Article

Silverstone Park’s Performance Projects driving future of autonomous vehicles and child safety designs

From designing Formula 1 components to a breakthrough autonomous agricultural vehicle – it is all in a day’s work for innovative Silverstone Park-based business Performance Projects.

Now the engineering specialist has developed a redesign of the child’s car seat, enabling fitted child seats to slide sideways to create more space in the centre seat, which now looks set to go into mass production.

In addition to this revolutionary design, Performance Projects has just provided major input into an autonomous vehicle for a major agricultural manufacturer, which has the potential to transform the industry.

Director Chris Horton, who established the company with Terence Goad in 2010, explains: “If a brand or manufacturer has an engineering challenge then they call on us to find the solution.

“In a nutshell, we take various problems or ideas for products that customers have and create them. This can range from something for a low volume run to producing a fully functioning item for technical appraisal.

“The agricultural vehicle… this has been a very exciting project. Obviously, we can’t name names or go into too much detail, but it’s fully autonomous and demonstrates all new-technology on an all-new platform.

“Our bit is the mechanical design – all the bits that bolt together so chassis-engine tract, hydraulic pumps, cooling etc. We design all the hardware for assembly. ‘The tricky bit’ as we call it!”

Aptly, the SME is based inside the Silverstone Park estate’s renowned Innovation Centre with much of its work formulated on advanced CAD (computer aided design) systems, while core design plus finite element and dynamic analysis are very much part of its skills set.

The company continues to be relied on to provide its expertise at motorsport’s highest levels. In 2017, cars on the grid in Formula 1 and Le Mans Prototypes (World Endurance Championship) are competing using technical input from Performance Projects’ office.

As an aside, it has project-managed the production of niche vehicles for a major automotive manufacturer and even royalty, but one project that really excites the company at present is its child seat, which has now gone beyond the prototype stage.

“Nobody’s done it before – it is innovative in its field,” continues Chris. “There’s a lot of regulation to make sure it is a useable functioning item and that’s called on our technical ability.

“The seat allows three passengers to use the rear seat of a car, which hasn’t been possible before with normal ISOFIX child seats. Our design enables the seat to slide sideways and lock securely into position, thereby creating more space in the middle.

“We’re now at the stage that we term ‘production intent’ – in other words, we’re confident enough from market feedback to take it to a production run to be homologated.

“And that’s what the manufacturers are telling us – they don’t want the concept; they are only interested in buying a fully functioning homologated item. By the end of 2017 there’s a very real chance our seat will have gone into mass production and be available in stores.”

Further details on Performance Projects Ltd and its work is available from performance-projects.com.

For more information on projects and engineering specialists based at Silverstone Park, please visit silverstone-park.com.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sarah Ross .