A method to design foot trajectory in Cartesian coordinates for a six-leg walking machine is presented in this thesis. The walking machine is based on the geometry of the darkling beetle. The walking procedure developed by Y.S. Baek is introduced first to provide step length and leg swing time for foot trajectory planning. This procedure also supplies required parameters to describe the relationship between feet and body during locomotion. The trajectory of a single foot consists of the path and its temporal attributes, that is, velocity and acceleration. Several methods and constraints for path and velocity profile design are discussed. Software developed in Microsoft Quick C is used to generate and animate on the screen a single desired foot trajectory applied to each of the six legs by combining paths and velocity profiles. The generated trajectory is converted to joint coordinates to provide necessary data for leg control. Since a single foot trajectory is applied to three pairs of legs of different design, three sets of joint coordinate sequences are produced. Furthermore, each leg consists of three segments and three joints necessitating nine control sequences altogether. Half-ellipse and trochoidal paths are interpolated with 5th and 6th order polynomials to determine minimum required joint acceleration. All paths and their first and second derivatives are required to be smooth. The effect of body pitch are also examined. / Graduation date: 1995

No description available.

A driving simulator reproduces the essential features of a vehicle and provides an interface for direct human operation. It provides a safe and less expensive way of training people how to drive. Against the backdrop of a comprehensive literature survey on driving simulators and their applications, this thesis endeavours to make five unique contributions. Many of the military armoured vehicles have eight wheels, are able to cross trenches of approximately two meters, and can climb steps of as high as one meter. Available research, however, focuses primarily on the vehicle dynamics modelling of commercial four wheel vehicles. In this thesis, a mathematical model is given for simulating the vehicle dynamics of an eight wheel vehicle over rough terrain, taking into account the limitations of real-time driving simulation. A discussion of the model by Janse van Rensburg et al. is contained in a paper which is currently under review by the International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC). To prove the validity of a vehicle model, it is necessary to provide a method of testing the model. Detail about the vehicle dynamics model used is not always available when developed by a third party. This thesis describes a “black box” testing method for the verification of a vehicle dynamics model. An article regarding this matter by Janse van Rensburg et al. has been submitted to the IJMPC and is currently under review. Normally, the focus on driving simulators is on the modelling of realistic vehicle dynamics models. However, the design of a realistic simulation environment is of equal importance. A human driver usually steers one vehicle, but the rest of the vehicles used in the simulation should be managed by a computer program. An automatic driver model is described to be used within the simulation environment. The current presentation is based on the published paper [86] by Janse van Rensburg et al. (IJMPC, 16(6):895-908, 2005). An understanding of three-dimensional coordinate system transformations is one of the most important parts of a flight or driving simulator. Although the procedure of using Euler angles for coordinate system transformations is nothing new, almost no literature is available of how it can be applied on more complex situations. This thesis supplies more information on how a program language such as C++ could be used to apply more complex coordinate transformations in real-life situations. Results appeared in the published paper by Janse van Rensburg et al. (IJMPC, 16(6):909-920, 2005). Finally the use of vocoders is proposed for the modelling of engine sound. For a driving simulator which should be an exact replica of a certain vehicle, an accurate sound model is of extreme importance. By using vocoders, a technique used for the manipulation of voice, a higher level of accuracy and realism can be obtained than with the methods currently discussed in literature. A paper on this matter, compiled by Janse van Rensburg et al. is currently under review by the IJMPC. / Prof. M. A. van Wyk

published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This work presents an investigation into the parameter estimation of suspension components and the vertical motions of wheeled vehicles from experimental data. The estimation problems considered were for suspension dampers, a single wheel station and a full vehicle. Using conventional methods (gradient-based (GB), Downhill Simplex (DS)) and stochastic methods (Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Differential Evolution (DE)), three major problems were encountered. These were concerned with the ability and consistency of finding the global optimum solution, time consumption in the estimation process, and the difficulties in setting the algorithm's control parameters. To overcome these problems, a new technique named the discrete variable Hybrid Differential Evolution (dvHDE) method is presented. The new dvHDE method employs an integer-encoding technique and treats all parameters involved in the same unified way as discrete variables, and embeds two mechanisms that can be used to deal with convergence difficulties and reduce the time consumed in the optimisation process. The dvHDE algorithm has been validated against the conventional GB, DS and DE techniques and was shown to be more efficient and effective in all but the simplest cases. Its robustness was demonstrated by its application to a number of vehicle related problems of increasing complexity. These include case studies involving parameter estimation using experimental data from tests on automotive dampers, a single wheel station and a full vehicle. The investigation has shown that the proposed dvHDE method, when compared to the other methods, was the best for finding the global optimum solutions in a short time. It is recommended for nonlinear vehicle suspension models and other similar systems.

This work presents an investigation into the parameter estimation of suspension components and the vertical motions of wheeled vehicles from experimental data. The estimation problems considered were for suspension dampers, a single wheel station and a full vehicle. Using conventional methods (gradient-based (GB), Downhill Simplex (DS)) and stochastic methods (Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Differential Evolution (DE)), three major problems were encountered. These were concerned with the ability and consistency of finding the global optimum solution, time consumption in the estimation process, and the difficulties in setting the algorithm's control parameters. To overcome these problems, a new technique named the discrete variable Hybrid Differential Evolution (dvHDE) method is presented. The new dvHDE method employs an integer-encoding technique and treats all parameters involved in the same unified way as discrete variables, and embeds two mechanisms that can be used to deal with convergence difficulties and reduce the time consumed in the optimisation process. The dvHDE algorithm has been validated against the conventional GB, DS and DE techniques and was shown to be more efficient and effective in all but the simplest cases. Its robustness was demonstrated by its application to a number of vehicle related problems of increasing complexity. These include case studies involving parameter estimation using experimental data from tests on automotive dampers, a single wheel station and a full vehicle. The investigation has shown that the proposed dvHDE method, when compared to the other methods, was the best for finding the global optimum solutions in a short time. It is recommended for nonlinear vehicle suspension models and other similar systems.

Vehicle suspension optimisation is a complex and difficult task, as there are a variety of factors influencing the dynamic performance of a vehicle. During suspension development, the optimisation of a selected few of these factors is often to the detriment of others, as they are all inter-related. In addition, expertise in vehicle setup and suspension tuning is scarce, and is limited to experienced racing teams and large automotive manufacturers with extensive research and development capabilities. The motivation for this research was therefore to provide objective and user-friendly methodologies for vehicle suspension optimisation, in order to support student projects like Formula Student, while having relevance to the needs of the South African automotive industry and racing community. With the onset of digital data acquisition, it has become feasible to take real-time measurements of tyre temperatures, to provide information on how a tyre is performing at a specific point on the track. Measuring the tyre surface temperature can provide a useful indication on whether the tyre is loaded equally or not, and what suspension adjustments should be made to improve tyre load distribution.

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Orientadores: Oscar A. Braunbeck, Paulo Sérgio G. Magalhães / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Agrícola / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-21T09:11:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 SantosNeto_CarlosRodriguesdos_D.pdf: 9737086 bytes, checksum: 98cdfa2418494f6470bfeaf9648b17f5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: A deficiência direcional de equipamentos agrícolas autopropelidos restringe o seu uso em terrenos onde a declividade é superior a 12%, inibindo um processo de mecanização agrícola adequado.Partindo-se de um veículo equipado com um sistema de direção e propulsão atuando nas quatro rodas foi desenvolvido um estudo sobre o comportamento do ângulo de esterçamento nas rodas dianteiras e traseiras necessário para manter o veículo em sua trajetória desejada. Para tanto, as forças que agem no movimento do veículo foram determinadas, principalmente as forças laterais geradas no contato do pneu com o solo. Estas forças foram medidas com o auxílio de uma roda dinamométrica em diversas condições de carregamento, superfície, ângulo de esterçamento e pressão de inflação do pneu.Os resultados obtidos revelam que o aumento do ângulo de esterçamento da roda direcional aumenta a força transversal que atua sobre o pneu e que o tipo de piso de tráfego e de cobertura tem grande influência na deformação transversal do pneumático, pisos mais firmes permitem aumento mais linear da força transversal, a variação de pressão e de carga vertical também causa alteração neste comportamento principalmente quando se trata de pisos macios com e sem cobertura. A ação de uma força longitudinal no rodado oriunda do torque aumenta a rigidez ocasionando uma diminuição na deformação da linha equatorial do pneu, minimizando a deriva. Com o intuito de contribuir com o aprimoramento do desempenho direcional de veículos agrícolas foi desenvolvido um modelo para predizer a força transversal desenvolvida na interfase pneu-solo em função do ângulo de esterçamento, o tipo de piso, a pressão de inflação e a carga vertical aplicada ao pneu / Abstract: Directional disability of self-propelled vehicles restricts their use in agricultural land where the slope exceeds 12%, inhibiting a process of appropriate agricultural mechanization. A study was conducted on the steering ability of a vehicle having four wheel drive and four wheel steering. For that purpose the forces acting on the vehicle were determined, especially the lateral forces generated by the tire in contact with the ground. These forces were measured with the aid of a gage wheel under varying conditions of loading, surface type, steering angle and internal pressure. The results show that the increase of the steering angle of the wheel increases the lateral force acting on the tire. The type of traffic ground and its coverage have great influence on the lateral deformation of the tire; firmer soils allowed more linear increase of the transversal force under the increase of the steering angle. The variation of the tire pressure and vertical load applied to it also causes changes in steering behavior especially when it comes to soft soils with and without coverage. The action of a longitudinal force coming from the torque applied to the wheel increases the stiffness of the tire causing a decrease in the deformation of the equatorial line of the tire, minimizing the drift. In order to contribute for the improvement of the steering performance of agricultural vehicles a model was developed to predict the lateral force developed at the tire-soil interphase depending on the steering angle, the floor type, inflation pressure and vertical load applied to the tyre / Doutorado / Maquinas Agricolas / Doutor em Engenharia Agrícola