Geometric methods in determining rigid-body dynamics

This research develops a measurement system using linear accelerometers to determine the three-dimensional, six degrees of freedom, impact response of an anthropomorphic test device (dummy). A procedure using spherical geometric analysis (SGA) was developed. It uses three triaxial accelerometer clusters for determining angular velocity, angular acceleration, and linear acceleration. SGA differs in its calculation of angular velocity from other procedures which determine rigid-body motion. Unlike procedures which use linear accelerometers to determine angular velocity by integration of angular acceleration, SGA uses the topology of the sphere to obtain both angular acceleration and angular velocity through algebraic manipulation of the output from the linear accelerations. The validation of SGA is accomplished by the use of hypothetical as well as experimental data.