A Symbolic Computation Method for Automatic Generation of a Full Vehicle Model Simulation Code for a Driving Simulator

This paper deals with modeling and computer simulation of a full multibody vehicle model for a driving simulator. The multibody vehicle model is based on the recursive formulation and a corresponding simulation code is generated automatically from AUTOCODE, which is a symbolic computation package developed by the authors using MAPLE. The paper describes a procedure for automatically generating a highly efficient simulation code for the full vehicle model, while incorporating realistically modeled components. The following issues have been accounted for in the procedure, including software design for representing a mechanical system in symbolic form as a set of computer data objects, a multibody formulation for systems with various types of connections between bodies, automatic manipulation of symbolic expressions in the multibody formulation, interface design for allowing users to describe unconventional force-and torque-producing components, and a method for accommodating external computer subroutines that may have already been developed. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method have been demonstrated by the simulation code developed and implemented for driving simulation.