Large-scale deployable cable-driven robots face a lack of kinematic precision, and the cable dynamics impose considerable challenges in terms of controller design. The problem’s complexity increases because a deployable robot may not exploit expensive and highly accurate of measurement devices. Thus, it is necessary to efficiently combine the set of measurements available through low-cost sensors to

Viscoelasticity plays an important role in the dynamic response of flexible multibody systems. First, single degree-of-freedom joints, such as revolute and prismatic joints, are often equipped with elastomeric components that require complex models to capture their nonlinear behavior under the expected large relative motions found at these joints. Second, flexible joints, often called force or bushing

The need for upper limb assistive and wearable exoskeletons is growing in various fields, e.g. either to support patients with neuromuscular disabilities or to reduce the effort strains on workers. These exoskeletons should reduce the efforts required by the user during functional tasks (dynamic consideration) and should fit the user’s size (geometric consideration). This is a tedious task, due to

Looking to nature, animals frequently utilize tails to work alongside or in place of their legs to maneuver, stabilize, and/or propel to achieve highly agile motions. Although the single-link robotic tail shows its dynamical superiority and practical effectiveness in mobile platform maneuvering, most tails observed in nature have multi-link structures. Therefore, to investigate this novel tail structure

Heretofore, the Serret–Frenet frame has been the ubiquitous choice for analyzing the elastic deformations of beam elements. It is well-known that this frame is undefined at the inflection points and straight segments of the beam where its curvature is zero, leading to singularities and errors in their numerical analysis. On the other hand, there exists a lesser-known frame called Bishop which does

This paper proposes a new way of considering wheel–rail contact in multibody systems simulation that goes beyond the traditional planar constraint and elastic approaches. In this approach, wheel–rail interaction is modelled as a force element with pressures and shear stresses distributed over a contact area that may be curved, supporting conformal contact situations. This by-passes the selection of

Hippotherapy, riding a horse in the context of rehabilitation, is a medical treatment that successfully has been employed in various fields, e.g. for improving locomotion performance of patients with movement disorders. Robotic systems enable the application of hippotherapy in clinical environments with additional benefits, like adjustable speed and high repeatability. Fundamental for a therapy outcome

Looking for new arm strategies for better twisting performances during a backward somersault is of interest for the acrobatic sports community while being a complex mechanical problem due to the nonlinearity of the dynamics involved. As the pursued solutions are not intuitive, computer simulation is a relevant tool to explore a wider variety of techniques. Simulations of twisting somersaults have mainly

A new formulation for the modular construction of flexible multibody systems is presented. By rearranging the equations for a flexible floating body and introducing the appropriate canonical momenta, the model is recast into a coupled system of ordinary and partial differential equations in port-Hamiltonian (pH) form. This approach relies on a floating frame description and is valid under the assumption

In this paper, a novel multiobjective algorithm for simultaneous path-following control (PFC) of multivariable flexible dynamical systems and maintaining boundedness of transverse vibrational effects is proposed. This method is specifically designed for control of complicated dynamical systems where obtaining precise mathematical models describing vibrational and translational dynamics is difficult

The design of a vehicle frame is largely dependent on the loads applied on the suspension and heavy parts mounting points. These loads can either be estimated through full analytical multibody dynamic simulations, or from semi-analytical simulations in which tire and road sub-models are not included and external vehicle loads, recorded during field testing, are used as inputs to the wheel hubs. Several

Vibration suppression during attitude control is a fundamental research topic whenever control of the rotational motion of a spacecraft with flexible appendages and internal liquid sloshing is of interest. The proposed method is based on an attitude control system with centralized sensors and actuators, without the usage of collocated devices for vibration management. In this way, it is possible to

Many engineering fields such as aerospace, robotics, and computer graphics, have applications that contain elements amenable to be modeled as slender beams with negligible shear and torsion effects. The literature contains several energy-momentum (EM) formulations for beams based on a nonlinear finite element approach but, to the best of the author’s knowledge, there are not such developments for the

On-orbit servicing, active debris removal or assembling large structures on orbit are only some of the tasks that could be accomplished by space robots. In all these cases, a contact between a space robot and the satellite being serviced, deorbited, or assembled will occur. This contact results in a contact force exerted on the space robot, and therefore momenta of the space robot system are no longer

Computational prediction of 3D crutch-assisted walking patterns is a challenging problem that could be applied to study different biomechanical aspects of crutch walking in virtual subjects, to assist physiotherapists to choose the optimal crutch walking pattern for a specific subject, and to help in the design and control of exoskeletons, when crutches are needed for balance. The aim of this work

In this paper, a novel hybrid fractional-order control strategy for the PUMA-560 robot manipulator is developed and presented, which combines the derivative of Caputo–Fabrizio and the integral of Atangana–Baleanu, both in the Caputo sense. The fractional-order dynamic model of the system (FODM) is also considered which consists of two models, the robot manipulator model, and the model of the induction

We develop a referenced nodal coordinate formulation (RNCF) to study the dynamics of flexible bodies undergoing large-distance travels and/or high-speed rotations. RNCF is similar to the absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF) but is presented in a noninertia reference coordinate system (RCS). The position vector and rotation matrix of the RCS describe translational and rotational motions of the

The aim of this paper is to discuss the effect of cosimulation on a railway vehicle/track/soil model. Firstly, only the vehicle and a flexible track are considered without taking the soil flexibility into account. Two well-known co-simulation approaches are used: a parallel approach, called Jacobi, and a sequential approach, called Gauß–Seidel. The definition of the subsystems, thus the place at which

Using detailed musculoskeletal models in computer simulations of human movement can provide insights into individual muscle and joint loading; however, these muscle models increase problem dimensionality and require difficult-to-fit parameters. Here, we provide a brief overview of a muscle model alternative, muscle torque generators (MTGs), and highlight how MTG functions have been used by researchers

In this study, we develop an analytical formula to approximate the damping coefficient as a function of the coefficient of restitution for a class of continuous contact models. The contact force is generated by a logical point-to-point force element consisting of a linear damper connected in parallel to a spring with Hertz force–penetration characteristic, while the exponent of deformation of the Hertz

Traditional physics-based contact models have been widely used for describing various contact phenomena such as robotic grasping and assembly. However, difficulties in carrying out contact parameter identification as well as the relatively low measurement accuracy due to complex contact geometry and surface uncertainties are the limiting factors of the physics-based contact modeling methods. In this

We discuss modeling, algorithmic, and software aspects that allow a simulation tool called Chrono::Granular to run billion-degree-of-freedom dynamics problems on commodity hardware, i.e., a workstation with one GPU. The ability to scale the solution to large problem sizes is traced back to an adimensionalization process combined with the use of mixed-precision data types that reduce memory pressure

The superellipsoids, part of the family of superquadratics, have geometric and mathematical properties that not only make them suitable for the representation of solids, ranging from spheres to relatively thin sheets, but also allow describing a very broad number of complex geometries. Their mathematical description favors a very efficient numerical treatment, in particular when used in the context

Collision between hard objects causes abrupt changes in the velocities of the system, which are characterized by very large contact forces over very small time durations. A common approach in the analysis of such collisions is to describe the system velocities using an impulse–momentum based relationship. The time duration of impact and the deformations at the contact points are usually assumed to

The dynamic response of many flexible multibody systems of practical interest is periodic. The investigation of such problems involves two intertwined tasks: first, the determination of the periodic response of the system and second, the analysis of the stability of this periodic solution. Starting from Hamilton’s principle, a unified solution procedure for continuous and discontinuous Galerkin methods

An optimization-based multibody dynamics modeling method is proposed for two-dimensional (2D) team lifting prediction. The box itself is modeled as a floating-base rigid body in Denavit–Hartenberg representation. The interactions between humans and box are modeled as a set of grasping forces which are treated as unknowns (design variables) in the optimization formulation. An inverse-dynamics-based

The conventional use of inverse dynamics applied to gait analysis involves the estimation of joint forces and moments based on kinematic data, anthropometric parameters and force plate data. The procedure uses the measured ground reactions and, beginning with those segments in contact with the ground, calculates joint forces and moments at each successive segment. However, this procedure cannot always

Forward dynamics golf swing simulations are important to gain insight into how a golfer should swing a particular club and which design improvements should be considered by golf club manufacturers. A new method of optimizing a four degree-of-freedom (DoF) biomechanical golfer model swinging a flexible shaft with a rigid clubhead was developed using a direct orthogonal collocation approach. The kinematic

New products in the automotive and aerospace industries must provide increased energy efficiency and exceed previous performance, safety and reliability. To meet these expectations, the role of simulation continues to grow. Within this context, simulation models are used in real-time embedded applications such as advanced real-time control and virtual sensing. Both applications require the execution

A collision between two bodies is a usual phenomenon in many engineering applications. The most important problem with the collision analysis is determining the hysteresis damping factor or the hysteresis damping ratio. The hysteresis damping ratio is related to the coefficient of restitution. In this paper, an explicit expression is determined for this relation. For this reason, a parametric expression

In this paper, the contact control problem of a space robot to grasp a non-cooperative satellite is investigated in detail, and a new capture control strategy is proposed. Firstly, the dynamic equation of the robot system is derived based on the multibody dynamics theory, and a modified Hertz model is used to describe the contact force between the robot end-effector and the target satellite. Then,

The dynamic modeling for the foldable origami space membrane structure considering contact-impact during the deployment is studied in this paper. The membrane is discretized using the triangular elements of the Absolute Nodal Coordinate Formulation (ANCF), and the stress–strain relationship of the membrane is determined based on the Stiffness Reduction Model (SRM). A mixed method is proposed for the

A review of the current use of multibody dynamics methods in the analysis of the dynamics of vehicles is given. Railway vehicle dynamics as well as road vehicle dynamics are considered, where for the latter the dynamics of cars and trucks and the dynamics of single-track vehicles, in particular motorcycles and bicycles, are reviewed. Commonalities and differences are shown, and open questions and challenges

This paper proposes a systematic methodology to obtain a closed-form formulation for dynamics analysis of a new design of a fully spherical robot that is called a 3(RSS)-S parallel manipulator with real co-axial actuated shafts. The proposed robot can completely rotate about a vertical axis and can be used in celestial orientation and rehabilitation applications. After describing the robot and its

Skeletal muscles usually wrap over multiple anatomical features, and their mass moves along the curved muscle paths during human locomotion. However, existing musculoskeletal models simply lump the mass of muscles to the nearby body segments without considering the effect of mass flow, which has been shown to induce non-negligible errors. A mass-variable multibody formulation is proposed here to simultaneously

Foot–ground contact models play an important role in the accuracy of predictive human gait simulations, and there is a need for a computationally-efficient dynamic contact model for predictive and evaluative studies. In this research, we generated symbolic dynamic equations for a 2D torque-driven 11-DOF human model with a 3D ellipsoidal volumetric foot–ground contact model. The main goal was to increase

Existing Floating Offshore Wind Turbine (FOWT) platforms are usually designed using static or rigid-body models for the concept stage and, subsequently, sophisticated integrated aero-hydro-servo-elastic models, applicable for design certification. For the new technology of FOWTs, a comprehensive understanding of the system dynamics at the concept phase is crucial to save costs in later design phases

This paper develops a compact form dynamics controller to generate multi-compliant behaviors for a new designed tetrapod-on-wheel robot with one manipulator. The whole-body compliant torque controller is stated through one null-space-based convex optimization and compatible null-space-based impedance controllers. Different from fixed contact points of conventional quadruped robots, the kinematic wheel

Sensitivity analysis computes the derivatives of general cost functions that depend on the system solution with respect to parameters or initial conditions. This work develops adjoint sensitivity analysis for hybrid multibody dynamic systems. The adjoint sensitivity is commonly referred to as backward propagation. Hybrid systems are characterized by trajectories that are piecewise continuous in time

The simulation of mechanical devices using multibody system dynamics (MBS) algorithms frequently requires the consideration of their interaction with components of a different physical nature, such as electronics, hydraulics, or thermodynamics. An increasingly popular way to perform this task is through co-simulation, that is, assigning a tailored formulation and solver to each subsystem in the application

Much of the previous research on modeling and simulation of cycling has focused on seated pedaling, modeling the crank load with an effective resistive torque and inertia. This study focuses on modeling standing starts, a component of certain track cycling events in which the cyclist starts from rest and attempts to accelerate to top speed as quickly as possible. A ten degree-of-freedom, two-legged

This work presents a contribution to the active image stabilization of optical systems, involving model development, control design, and the hardware setup. A laboratory experiment is built, which demonstrates the vibration sensitivity of a mechanical-optical system. In order to stabilize the undesired image motion actively, a model-based compensation of the image vibration is developed, realized and

The isotropic compliance property is examined in the Special Euclidean Group SE(3) in the case of redundant manipulators. The redundancy problem is solved by means of the QR decomposition of the transposed Jacobian matrix, and the compliance property is achieved by means of active stiffness regulation. Thanks to the defined control matrices, the control system realizes the isotropy condition. The local

Multibody models are often coupled with other domains in order to enlarge the scope of computer-based analysis. In particular, modeling multibody systems (MBSs) in interaction with granular media is of great interest for industrial process such as railway track maintenance, handling of aggregates, etc. This paper presents a strong coupling methodology for unifying a multibody formalism using relative

This paper presents a general method for the trajectory planning of the redundant planar manipulator. The mathematical relation between joint space and Cartesian space in a two-dimensional space is first derived. The joint classification is employed to obtain the solutions of corresponding joints. It divides joints into class I redundant joints, class II redundant joints, and nonredundant joints. The

In multibody systems, there are not only holonomic bilateral constraints, but also unilateral constraints. The existence of unilateral constraints brings nonsmooth contact dynamic problems into multibody dynamic systems. In this paper, we present an approach based on the symplectic method and the linear complementary method to solve multibody dynamic problems with impact contact. As the symplectic

In this paper, a novel dynamic model of coupling translation joints with subsidence for time-varying load in a planar mechanical system is established. One translational joint has four working scenarios, which are free motion, one corner rub-impact, two adjacent corners rub-impact and two opposite corners rub-impact. However, the rub-impact of double coupling translation joints are not a simple superposition

Joints with clearances in flexible multibody systems have been investigated for many years. However, the previous work is mainly concerned with the lower pair joints with small clearances. The aim of this paper is to present a formulation for the sliding joint with clearance between a flexible beam and a rigid hole, with special focus on the frictional contact. We thoroughly discuss a contact detection

In this study, we develop an innovative numerical method for the investigation of the stability of a partially filled tank wagon moving on a curved track. The calculations are carried out in two subsystems including a dynamic system and fluid sloshing. We analyze the wagon dynamic system the multibody dynamic (MBD) model with 21 degrees of freedom (21-DOFs), which takes into account the lateral, vertical

The Floating Frame of Reference Formulation (FFRF) is one of the most widely used methods to analyze flexible multibody systems subjected to large rigid-body motion but small strains and deformations. The FFRF is conventionally derived via a continuum mechanics approach. This tedious and circuitous approach, which still attracts attention among researchers, yields so-called inertia shape integrals

In this article we analyze the following problem: given a mechanical system subject to (possibly redundant) bilateral and unilateral constraints with set-valued Coulomb’s friction, provide conditions such that the state, which consists of all contacts sticking in both tangential and normal directions, is solvable. The analysis uses complementarity problems, variational inequalities, and linear algebra

The use of principal points and principal vectors in the formulation of the equations of motion of a general 4R planar four-bar linkage is shown with two kinds of methods, one that opens kinematic loops and one that does not. The opened kinematic loop approach analyses the moving links as a system with a tree connectivity, introducing reaction forces for closing the loops. Compared with the conventional

The computational procedures of higher-order implicit integrators for mechanical systems with friction are provided in this paper. The dynamic equations are established using the augmented Lagrangian formulation, and set-valued friction forces are described by projection functions. To reduce the accuracy loss caused by event transitions and to eliminate spurious oscillations in the acceleration, a

This work addresses the synergistic fusion of optimal control simulations and marker-based optical measurements of human motion. The latter is a widespread capturing technology in biomechanics and movement science. In the context of optimal control simulations, the idea is to improve the computational performance by using a realistic initial guess and to increase the realism of the simulated motion

Computational speed and stability are two important aspects in the dynamics analysis of large-scale complex multibody systems. In order to improve both in the context of the multibody system transfer matrix method, a new version of the Riccati transfer matrix method is presented. Based on the new version of the general transfer matrix method for multibody system simulation, recursive formulae are developed

This paper describes a new numerical procedure for the modelling and simulation of the wheel–rail contact in railway dynamic simulations. The method is called knife-edge-equivalent contact constraint method, or simply KEC-method. Using this method, the wheel–rail contact is modelled as rigid or constraint-based using a set of kinematic constraints that eliminates one-degree of freedom of relative wheel–rail

This paper presents a general explicit differential form of Lagrange’s equations for systems with hybrid coordinates and general holonomic and nonholonomic constraints. The appropriate constraint conditions are imposed on d’Alembert–Lagrange principle via Lagrange multipliers to find the correct equations of state of nonholonomic systems. The developed equations take the differential form in terms

This paper describes the development of a dynamic model for parallel manipulators based on the Lagrange–D’Alembert equation, the Hessian matrix of the kinetic energy of the manipulator, and the Jacobian/Hessian matrices of the constraint equations. The model generates the forward and inverse dynamics formulations of parallel manipulators. First, the kinematic relations between the input actuated variables

It has been known that bicycle stability is closely linked to a pair of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). The linearization technique used to derive these ODEs, nevertheless, has yet to be thoroughly examined. For this purpose, we conduct an analysis of the dynamics of the Whipple bicycle, starting with the contact kinematics, using the Gibbs–Appell method. The effort results in a complete nonlinear

A novel formulation for the description of spatial rigid body motion using six non-redundant, homogeneous local velocity coordinates is presented. In contrast to common practice, the formulation proposed here does not distinguish between a translational and rotational motion in the sense that only translational velocity coordinates are used to describe the spatial motion of a rigid body. We obtain