Performance Improvement in Steering Torque Simulator With Multibody Vehicle Model

The aim of this study is to improve the performance of a steering torque simulator with a multibody vehicle model. From the perspective of the calculation speed, the augmented formulation and the penalty method were investigated as the formulation of the multibody dynamic analysis. In this study, the step size of the real-time analysis was shortened by embedding matrix libraries to the multibody dynamic analysis. In addition, the friction characteristics of the steering rack of an actual vehicle was experimentally evaluated in order to enhance the reality of the developed simulator. The friction model was identified on the basis of the experimental result and was applied to the multi-body dynamic analysis. A slalom test was conducted with the developed simulator and was compared with the experiment of an actual vehicle.Copyright © 2013 by ASME