Real-Time Multibody System Dynamic Simulation: Part I. A Modified Recursive Formulation and Topological Analysis

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT With the advent of parallel computers and recursive dynamics formulations, multibody mechanical systems such as ground vehicles can be simulated in real time. This permits the engineer to rapidly modify design parameters, evaluate dynamic performance, and improve designs, prior to fabrication and testing. Perhaps more important, real-time simulation can be used for simulation with the operator-in-the-loop, permitting system design to be optimized for the capability of the human operator. To achieve the goal of real-time simulation, a modified recursive dynamics formulation and a topological analysis method for the formulation are presented in Part I. A parallel computational algorithm that exploits inherent parallelism in the modified recursive formulation and numerical results will be presented in Part II. By combining the topological analysis method and the parallel algorithm, an efficient general-purpose dynamic simulation method is developed for real-time simulation on shared memory parallel processors.