Modeling and Simulation of Multibody Systems - Part II

Modeling and Simulation of Multibody Systems - Part II

This course aims at acquainting you with the modeling and simulation of constrained multibody systems, and especially mechanical systems with kinematic loops, such as real vehicle or bicycle suspensions, parallel manipulators or robots, musculoskeletal systems, etc.

You will also learn to deal with more advanced numerical analyses:

• Direct kinematics;
• Inverse kinematics;
• Equilibrium;
• Modal analysis;
• Direct Dynamics;
• Inverse Dynamics.

This course is based on (1) video clips focusing on the main theoretical background and concepts, (2) well-illustrated written sections given more details about the mathematical formulation, and (3) questions, exercises and modeling projects.

Despite the intrinsic complexity of such systems in terms of morphology and motions, basic skills in Newtonian mechanics, linear algebra and numerical methods are sufficient to model them, provided that the endless and tedious computation related to their internal kinematics and dynamics are at our disposal. This is the purpose of the symbolic program ROBOTRAN, which can be used with this course and can automatically generate the full set of equations of motion of a constrained MBS, in a symbolic manner, i.e. exactly as if you were writing them by hand, whatever the size and their morphological complexity of the application. Hence, this course will instead teach you how to intervene upstream and downstream this generation step.

Upstream the latter, you will learn how to translate a real system, e.g. a car suspension, into a virtual multibody model comprising algebraic constraints between joints, kinematic loops, etc.