Analysis of multibody systems with indirect coordinates and global inertia tensors

A new method for constructing equations of motion for open loop multibody systems is presented. The method is based upon and developed from the principle of virtual power. A new type of coordinates, called indirect coordinates, is introduced. Indirect coordinates can be thought of as lying between relative coordinates and absolute coordinates. They considerably simplify the dynamic model. The essential feature of the analysis is the formulationn of first- and second order partial derivatives in algebraic form. The original problem of constructing inertia coefficients is reduced to the problem of constructing a new tensor, the basic kinetic tensor. The concept of global inertia is further developed