Real-time model for simulating a tracked vehicle on deformable soils

Abstract

Simulation is one possibility to gain insight into the behaviour of tracked vehicles on deformable soils. A lot of publications are known on this topic, but most of the simulations described there cannot be run in real-time. The ability to run a simulation in real-time is necessary for driving simulators. This article describes an approach for real-time simulation of a tracked vehicle on deformable soils. The components of the real-time model are as follows: a conventional wheeled vehicle simulated in the Multi Body System software TRUCKSim, a geometric description of landscape, a track model and an interaction model between track and deformable soils based on Bekker theory and Janosi-Hanamoto, on one hand, and between track and vehicle wheels, on the other hand. Landscape, track model, soil model and the interaction are implemented in MATLAB/Simulink. The details of the real-time model are described in this article, and a detailed description of the Multi Body System part is omitted. Simulations with the real-time model are compared to measurements and to a detailed Multi Body System-finite element method model of a tracked vehicle. An application of the real-time model in a driving simulator is presented, in which 13 drivers assess the comfort of a passive and an active suspension of a tracked vehicle.