Title
Modeling and real-time simulation architectures for virtual prototyping of off-road vehicles
Abstract
Virtual Reality-based simulation technology has evolved as a useful design and analysis tool at an early stage in the design for evaluating performance of human-operated agricultural and construction machinery. Detecting anomalies in the design prior to building physical prototypes and expensive testing leads to significant cost savings. The efficacy of such simulation technology depends on how realistically the simulation mimics the real-life operation of the machinery. It is therefore necessary to achieve ‘real-time’ dynamic simulation of such machines with operator-in-the-loop functionality. Such simulation often leads to intensive computational burdens. A distributed architecture was developed for off-road vehicle dynamic models and 3D graphics visualization to distribute the overall computational load of the system across multiple computational platforms. Multi-rate model simulation was also used to simulate various system dynamics with different integration time steps, so that the computational power can be distributed more intelligently. This architecture consisted of three major components: a dynamic model simulator, a virtual reality simulator for 3D graphics, and an interface to the controller and input hardware devices. Several off-road vehicle dynamics models were developed with varying degrees of fidelity, as well as automatic guidance controller models and a controller area network interface to embedded controllers and user input devices. The simulation architecture reduced the computational load to an individual machine and increased the real-time simulation capability with complex off-road vehicle system models and controllers. This architecture provides an environment to test virtual prototypes of the vehicle systems in real-time and the opportunity to test the functionality of newly developed controller software and hardware.
Year
DOI
Venue
2011
10.1007/s10055-009-0150-1
Virtual Reality
Keywords
Field
DocType
overall computational load,intensive computational burden,multi-rate model simulation,multiple computational platform,real-time simulation � distributed architecturevirtual reality � vehicle dynamics modelsmulti-rate simulation,virtual prototyping,dynamic simulation,simulation technology,computational power,computational load,simulation architecture,real-time simulation capability,real-time simulation architecture,off-road vehicle,virtual reality,system dynamics,distributed architecture,3d graphics,system modeling,vehicle dynamics,input device,controller area network
Control theory,3D computer graphics,Computer science,Simulation,Vehicle dynamics,Real-time simulation,Computer graphics,Dynamic simulation,Input device,Virtual prototyping
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
15
1
1434-9957
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
3
0.59
11
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Manoj Karkee1509.02
Brian L. Steward2101.85
Atul G. Kelkar3114.80
Zachary T. Kemp, II430.59