A methodology for active control of multibody test-rig for virtual simulation of vehicles through acceleration inputs

Dynamic simulation through Multibody Systems is more and more used for the design of new industrial products to avoid long and expensive experimental tests on them. The research presented in this paper deals with the realization of an actively controlled virtual test-rig, functional for comfort and durability tests of entire vehicles. The virtual test rig, is capable to impose any experimental acceleration to the centers of the four vehicle wheels through four imposed displacements to the actuators. The active control is implemented with four independent degrees of freedom, one for every actuator. In the paper the active controller logic and its automatic setup will be fully explained. Moreover it will be also explained how to avoid the aliasing and the so called “random signal drift” problems. Finally the results of some virtual pave road experiments to an existing vehicle will be presented.