In the automotive industry one of the methods used in accelerating the design, testing and development of a system or a vehicle is the use of virtual vehicle simulations. The simulations cut costs in the form of fewer prototypes required for actual testing and accelerated fault finding in the design of a system. The simulation results are very dependent on the model used for the simulation and the inputs to the system. Feasible results can often be obtained with a simplified model if the correct input data is supplied to the simulation. In South Africa, the commercial, military and off-road vehicle industries mainly use the test tracks at the Gerotek Test Facilities for ride comfort and durability tests over repeatable terrains. Terrain profiles of these tracks are not available and cannot be measured using commercially available inertial profilometers due to the severe roughness of the terrain. This study concentrates on obtaining the input data in the form of the terrain profile used for vehicle simulations and field tests in which a vehicle is driving on rough terrains. The input data is referred to as the profile of the terrain and the profiled terrains are the actual terrains used for testing. Three different methods are used in measuring the profile of the terrain namely a mechanical profilometer, photogrammetry and a 3-D scanner using a laser displacement sensor. These methods are evaluated by profiling the same section of the Belgian paving and calculating the Displacement Spectral Densities. The most efficient method is used to profile additional terrains. The terrain profiles thus obtained is used as input to an existing off-road vehicle simulation model built in MSC Adams View. This model has previously been verified over discrete obstacles where excellent correlation with experimental results was obtained. Comparison between simulated and measured results over the terrains profiled in this study also gives good correlation, establishing further confidence in the measured terrain profiles. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / unrestricted

För att kunna konkurrera inom dagens fordonsindustri krävs effektiv produktutveckling. Det är under designprocessen som det finns störst möjlighet att påverka slutprodukten till det bättre. Ett sätt att åstadkomma effektivare produktutveckling är att tillämpa ny teknik. För att generera digitaliserade vägmodeller som används i simuleringar kan laserskanning appliceras. I dessa simuleringar kan fordonen testköras virtuellt och därigenom förkorta dimensioneringsprocessen. Laserskanning av kuperad terräng är komplex och därför saknas det underlag av kuperade testbanor i simuleringar. Denna studie syftar till att presentera olika laserskanningstekniker samt att utöka underlaget för virtuella simuleringar inom dimensioneringsprocessen av dumprar. Målet med arbetet är att skapa virtuella vägsektioner som kan användas i simuleringsmodeller.  Tre huvudtekniker inom laserskanning presenteras i teorikapitlet. Vidare har terrest laserskanning utförts på Volvos testbana i Målajord och med skanningsdata som underlag har en vägmodell som kan användas i fordonssimuleringar skapats i Matlab. Vägmodellen som skapats representerar väl den verkliga körbanan, vilket indikerar att terrest laserskanning är en väl fungerande metod för detta ändamål. / Product development is necessary to compete in today´s vehicle industry. During the design process the largest possibility to affect the end product to the better exists. One way to achieve product development is to apply new technology. Through application of terrestrial laser scanning digitalized road models can be achieved and be used in simulations. In these simulations, vehicles can virtually do a trial run and thereby shorten the dimensionprocess. Laser scanning of hilly terrain is complex and therefore groundwork of hilly roadways in simulations is missing.  This study refers to present different types of laser scanning methods and expand the groundwork for virtual simulations in the dimensionprocess of dumpers. The vision is to create virtual roadways which can be used in simulation models. Three main techniques of laser scanning are presented in the theory chapter. Further on terrestrial laser scanning has been used on Volvos test track in Målajord and with this scanning data as groundwork a road model, which can be used in vehicle simulations, has been created in Matlab. The road model is well representing the real roadway, which indicates that terrestrial laser scanning is a well working method for this purpose.