Vehicle Simulator based on a New Computational Model of Friction |
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Abstract
Techniques for simulation and modeling of wheeled vehicles are important for the purposes of efficient design of vehicle components, driving simulators for training, computer games and computer graphics. One of most important factors that determine the behavior of a vehicle is the friction between the tires and the road. It is quite a familiar physical phenomenon in our daily lives, but is a really complicated phenomenon consisting of viscoelastic behaviors of the contact patch and the mixture of static friction and kinetic friction. In particular, there have been little simulation techniques that properly capture the discontinuity induced by the switching between the kinetic friction and the static friction.
In this project, we are studying on mathematical models of the interaction between a tire and the road based on our recent technique to simulate physical systems involving Coulomb friction. By using the new method, we can realize realistic vehicle simulator that captures slow and small motions like K-turn, dry steering, as well as high-speed steering.
 Snapshot of the simulator |
 Experimental setup (Logitech G25 Raching Wheel) |
Papers
- Ryo Kikuuwe, Tomozou Mikami, and Motoji Yamamoto:“A Rotational Surface-Contact Friction Model for Vehicle Simulation,” In Proceedings of SICE System Integration Division Anual Conference, 3I2-3, December 2008.