Modeling and Simulation on Axial Piston Pump Based on Virtual Prototype Technology

A particular emphasis is placed on the virtual prototype technology （VPT） of axial piston pump. With this technology it is convenient and flexible to build a complicated 3D virtual based on real physical model. The actual kinematics pairs of the parts were added on the model. The fluid characters were calculated by hydraulic software. The shape of the parts, the flexible body of parts, etc were improved in this prototype. So the virtual prototype of piston pump can work in computer like a real piston pump, and the flow ripple, pressure pulsation, motion principle, stress of parts, etc can be investigated. The development of the VPT is introduced at the beginning, and the modeling process of the virtual prototype is explained. Then a special emphasis is laid on the relationship between the dynamics model and the hydraulic model, and the simulations on the flow ripple, pressure pulsation, motion principle, the stress and strain distribution of the middle shaft and piston are operated. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of the VPT are discussed. The improved virtual prototype of piston pump more tally with the real situation and the VPT has a great potential in simulation on hydraulic components.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF VIRTUAL PROTOTYPE OF RUNNING GEARS FOR RAILWAY VEHICLE

Virtual prototype is an important idea to resolve design problems of railway vehicle. A different development method, which is based on national product and autonomous development, and would like to reflect the specialty of railway vehicle development in China, is presented. According to the developing process of railway vehicle, the research contents and developing method are pointed out. The integration between CAD and performance analysis software on dynamics and strength is mainly considered. In CAD environment, the properties for dynamics computing are extracted directly from the model and exported with model. This method can avoid data losing caused by model rebuilding in CAE software, and increase the direct dependence of product CAD. Then the vehicle model with properties will be used for real-time dynamics and kinematics analysis and simulation. Therefore, the strength of the parts can be analyzed. The results of dynamics and strength analysis will be fed back to optimize the design model. All operations are dispatched by a control platform, and all data are managed according to the principle of PDM. Testing results show this method is correct.

Virtual Prototype Simulation and Reliability Analysis for Drive System of Armored Chassis

Drive system is the key device of armored chassis. Its working state and reliability influence the maneuver performance of armored chassis directly. In order to simulate the failure process and evaluate the service reliability of drive system in training or battle missions,a new kind of dynamic simulation model and driving simulation platform of the complete drive system were established based on virtual prototype and finite element technology in this paper. Using the platform, the kinematics and dynamic characteristics of drive system were studied and analyzed in detail,the dynamic load spectrum of key components was obtained,the service life was predicted, and the service reliability evaluation results were provided. A simulation example of transmission gear was shown to illustrate the simulation and evaluation process. The result proves that the simulation method not only can be used to compute and evaluate the service reliability of complex mechanical mechanism, but also has high precision and reasonable computational cost. Therefore,simulation and reliability analysis based on virtual prototype of the armored chassis drive system will provide scientific reference for the formulation of armored chassis reasonable repair cycle.

Top-level modeling theory of multi-discipline virtual prototype

Multi-disciplinary virtual prototypes of complex products are increasingly and widely used in modern advanced manufactur- ing. How to effectively address the problems of unified modeling, composition and reuse based on the multi-disciplinary heteroge- neous models has brought great challenges to the modeling and simulation （M＆S） science and technology. This paper presents a top-level modeling theory based on the meta modeling framework （M2F） of the COllaborative SIMulation （COSlM） theory of virtual prototyping to solve the problems. Firstly the fundamental prin- ciples of the top-level modeling theory are decribed to expound the premise, assumptions, basic conventions and special require- ments in the description of complex heterogeneous systems. Next the formalized definitions for each factor in top level modeling are proposed and the hierarchical nature of them is illustrated. After demonstrating that they are self-closing, this paper divides the top- level modeling into two views, static structural graph and dynamic behavioral graph. Finally, a case study is discussed to demon- strate the feasibility of the theory.

Firing Stability of Rarefaction Wave Gun Based on Virtual Prototype

The dynamics characteristics of rarefaction wave gun( RAVEN) in launching are studied. Based on its characteristics of structure and interior ballistics, the launch dynamic model and virtual prototype of RAVEN are established. After simulating and solving by ADAMS software, through comparison RAVEN to conventional gun,influences of some structural parameters on firing stability are acquired. Optimization analysis of structural parameters of gun based on analysis of the firing stability is done. It puts forward the theoretic basis for improving firing stability and security.

The Impact Study of Three-axis Servo System Interference Torque based on Virtual Prototype

The three-axis servo system with the core of gyro stabilization is the foundation to realize its function, and a key technology of the seeker devolopment. In order to reduce the costs, improve the efficiency of research and devolopment, a new method that instead of physical prototype by virtual prototype was proposed. Adams and MATLAB/simulink are used to establish the mechanical dynamics model and controller model of the three-axis servo system. The simulation data which was processed and analyzed is compared with test data, to determine the control parameters of the virtual prototype and improve the accuracy of the model, and test the multiple condition simulation,which can provide a reference for practical production.The simulation results verify the feasibility of the models.

A Hyper-redundant Elephant’s Trunk Robot with an Open Structure:Design,Kinematics,Control and Prototype

As for the complex operational tasks in the unstructured environment with narrow workspace and numerous obstacles,the traditional robots cannot accomplish these mentioned complex operational tasks and meet the dexterity demands.The hyper-redundant bionic robots can complete complex tasks in the unstructured environments by simulating the motion characteristics of the elephant’s trunk and octopus tentacles.Compared with traditional robots,the hyper-redundant bionic robots can accomplish complex tasks because of their flexible structure.A hyper-redundant elephant’s trunk robot(HRETR)with an open structure is developed in this paper.The content includes mechanical structure design,kinematic analysis,virtual prototype simulation,control system design,and prototype building.This design is inspired by the flexible motion of an elephant’s trunk,which is expansible and is composed of six unit modules,namely,3UPS-PS parallel in series.First,the mechanical design of the HRETR is completed according to the motion characteristics of an elephant’s trunk and based on the principle of mechanical bionic design.After that,the backbone mode method is used to establish the kinematic model of the robot.The simulation software SolidWorks and ADAMS are combined to analyze the kinematic characteristics when the trajectory of the end moving platform of the robot is assigned.With the help of ANSYS,the static stiffness of each component and the whole robot is analyzed.On this basis,the materials of the weak parts of the mechanical structure and the hardware are selected reasonably.Next,the extensible structures of software and hardware control system are constructed according to the modular and hierarchical design criteria.Finally,the prototype is built and its performance is tested.The proposed research provides a method for the design and development for the hyper-redundant bionic robot.

Simulation of Vertical Planetary Mill Based on Virtual Prototyping

The mechanical model of vertical planetary mill is set up, whose dynamic and kinetic characteristics are described as well. Based on the analysis of system dynamics of vertical planetary mill, virtual prototyping technology is applied in the simulation of this mill. The development of virtual prototype of equipment, virtual test and optimization of virtual prototype are stated in detail. Some useful conclusions which have theoretical meaning for the manufacturing of vertical planetary mill have been obtained. Furthermore, it is pointed out that virtual prototyping technology shows great advantage and is bound to become a main method of developing product in the future.

Analysis of Robot Accuracy Assessed via its Joint Clearance by Virtual Prototyping Method

This paper discusses how joint clearance influences robot end effectorpositioning accuracy and a robot accuracy analysis approach based on a virtual prototype isproposed. First, a 5-DOF(Degree of freedom) neurosurgery robot was introduced. Then we built itsvirtual prototype, made movement planning and measured the manipulator tip accuracy, through whichthis robot accuracy portrait was obtained. Finally, in order to validate the robot accuracyanalysis approach which is based on a virtual prototype, the result was compared with that from amodel built by robot forward kinematics and robot differential kinematics. The robot accuracyanalysis approach presented in this paper gives a new way to enhance robot design quality , and helpto optimize the control and programming of the robot.

Control Performance Evaluation of Serial Urology Manipulator by Virtual Prototyping

Prostatic hyperplasia and tumor are common diseases,and the minimally invasive surgery inserting the instruments through the urethra into the prostate is commonly conducted.Taking the robotic manipulator for such surgery into consideration,this paper analyses the workspace of the end effector,and proposes the distribution error of the fixed point and the tracking error of manipulator end effector on the cone bottom surface of the workspace as the basis for control implementation of the manipulator.The D-H coordinate system of the manipulator is established and the trajectory planning of the end effector in the Cartesian space is carried out.The digital model was established,and dynamics simulation was performed in Solidworks and Matlab/Simulink environment to guide the manipulator design.Trajectory mapping and synchronization control between virtual model and the actual manipulator are realized based on digital twin technique.The virtual manipulator can reflect the real-time state of the manipulator with data interaction by comparing the dynamics simulation results with the motor current values obtained by experiment.Experiment was carried out with PD feedback control and Newton-Euler dynamics based feedforward control to get the trajectory tracking characteristic of each motor,errors of the fixed point and tracking performance of the end effector of the manipulator.The results show that compared with PD feedback control,feed forward control implementation can achieve a reduction of 30.0%in the average error of the fixed point of the manipulator and a reduction of 33.3%in the maximum error.

Development of a Special Machine Rotating Cutter Based on Virtual Prototyping

We first describe the fundamental concept of virtual prototyping（ VP ） technology and discuss the differences among VP, computer aided design, computer aided engineering and computer aided manufacture. Then we present the application flow of virtual prototyping technology to the development of mechanical products. Based on ADAMS/VIEW, a new kind of special machine rotating cutter has been developed. The simulation results show that the rotating cutter meets the design requirements. It is concluded that virtual prototyping technology is quite valuable in designing and manufacturing mechanical product.

Functional Virtual Prototyping in Vehicle Chassis Reform Analysis and Improvement Design

The contribution of functional virtual prototyping to vehicle chassis development is presented. The different topics that we took into consideration were reform analysis and improvement design during the vehicle chassis development. A frame of coordinates based on the digital-model was established, the main CAE analy- sis methods, multi-body system dynamics and finite element analysis were applied to the digital-model build by CAD/CAM software. The method was applied in the vehicle chassis reform analysis and improvement design, all the analysis and design projects were implemented in the uniform digital-model, and the development was carried through effectively.

Simulation Analysis of Electromechanical Coupling for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Cabin Door System

In order to study the dynamic response of the unmanned aerial vehicle cabin door opening and closing system under impact load conditions, considering the flexible treatment of mechanical components, and the system’s motion with different stiffness of energy-absorbing components, a rigid-flexible coupling model of the cabin door actuation system was established in LMS. Virtual. Motion. In Amesim, a control model of the motor was created. Through the Motion-Amesim co-simulation module, the dynamic module of the system was combined with the motor control module to complete the electromechanical coupling simulation and analyze the results. .

Design of an Automatic Autonomous Mini Prone-cone Microsatellite Docking Mechanism

The capability of docking, refueling, repairing, and updating microsatellites using automatic autonomous vehicles will be of significance critical value for design and operation of several space systems in the near feature. Automatic docking capability was successfully tested by many institutions such as National Space Development Agency in Japan, European Space Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration in USA, etc. However, there is still much more space for improvement of degree of automation during the process of docking with large deviations of the initial attitude. A novel automatic autonomous probe-cone docking mechanism used for microsatellite docking is proposed. This docking mechanism is designed according to the design indices such as miniaturization, degree of automation and automatic capture capability within large deviation of the initial attitude. On the basis of the virtual work principle, the dynamics modeling of the docking process is presented. The position of the contact point is then analyzed. Comprehensive system level simulation is conducted in the 13 kinds of typical operating conditions with the initial deviations. Capture performance is analyzed. The simulation results show that the docking mechanism can be smoothly captured within 2 s in all cases of large attitude deviation between the active and passive spacecrafts. A virtual prototype model of the docking mechanism is established through ADAMS for further verifying the correctness of the buffer parameter model and the autonomous docking capability. A laboratory platform is designed for on-the-ground experimental validation of the property of mini probe-cone docking mechanism. Repeated docking tests prove the proposed design of the mini probe-cone docking mechanism system for its high reliability, and automatic capture capability within large attitude range. The kinetic model of the docking capture process and the mechanism structure could provide some references for similar mechanism design of in-orbit spacecraft.

MOBILITY EVALUATION AND INNOVATION OF WHEELED SPACE ROVER

The mission and function requirements of lunar rover are analyzed, based on virtual prototype technology, the mobility evaluation theory and method for wheeled space rover are proposed, which provide a new way to study the innovative design of lunar rover. Based on the above theoretical system, an innovative lunar rover suspension system, which adopts a two-crank-slider mechanism, is proposed, and its dynamics model is created. Adopting virtual prototype technology, the ground adaptability, over-obstacle ability and driving placidity of the rover are evaluated in the virtual prototype software ADAMS. The analysis results show that the rover provides a high degree of mobility.

Modeling and simulation for small-tracked mobile robots

The small-tracked mobile robots（ STMRs） are small,portable and concealed,and they are widely used in scouting,investigation,rescue and assistance. In this paper,a mechanical model is established based on the multi-body dynamic software RecurD yn,and a control system is simulated through Simulink,including its kinematics model,speed controller,motors＇ model. Associating the mechanical and control model,the cosimulation model is established for STMRs. The co-simulation approach is applied to optimize the motor parameters. A series of experiments are conducted to examine the accuracy of the virtual prototype,and the results demonstrate that the STMR virtual prototype can exactly illustrate the dynamic performance of the physical one.The co-simulation of mechanical model and control model is applied in forecasting and debugging critical parameters,also it provides guidance in defining motor＇s peak current.

Research on Biologically Inspired Hexapod Robot's Gait and Path Planning

Realistically there are many robot joints in the biologically inspired hexapod robot, so they will generate many complexities in the calculations of the gait and the path planning and the control variables. The software Solidworks and MSC. ADAMS are adopted to simulate and analyze the prototype model of the robot. By the simulations used in our design, the applicability of the tripod gait is validated, and the scheme which uses cubic spline curve as the endpoint of foot＇s path is feasible. The principles, methods, and processes of the simulation of hexapod robot are illustrated. A methodology is proposed to get the robot inverse solution in ADAMS, and to simplify the theoretical calculation, and further more to improve the efficiency of the design.

Dynamic Analysis of Flexible Multibody Systems for High-Rise Building Window Cleaning Gondola

A virtual prototype of high-rise building window cleaning gondola based on multibody system dynamics software MS（2. ADAMS is presented. The rigid bodies are modeled by CAD software and flexible bodies are modeled by discrete beam method. The whole machine＇s natural characteristics are analyzed and changed to frequency field. According to the results, the dangerous frequencies are avoided and the design can be optimized and the performance can be improved.

Motion Planning for Industrial Robots Based on Task Process Decomposition

The existing research of the industrial robotic motion planning mainly focuses on the trajectory planning and the path planning, which aim at obtaining a minimum-time trajectory and finding an obstacle-free path respectively. In the trajectory planning, the jerks of robotic joints are usually not considered, so the smoothness of the robotic motion cannot be ensured. In the path planning, the complex spatial curves generally cannot be tracked easily, and it needs the fussy teach-and-playback operation. In this paper, based on the different constraint characteristic of the variable motion phases in the practical robotic task, the complicated task is decomposed into two kinds of sub processes, which are the free motion process and the constrained motion process. In the free motion process, the kinematic models of quasi trapezoidal waveform and quasi triangular waveform are proposed with the dynamic limits of maximum velocities, accelerations and jerks of robotic joints, so the minimum-time trajectory can be obtained with the motion smoothness. In the constrained motion process, the mathematical presentation of the task paths is extracted from the CAD models of the workpieces, so the complex spatial curves can be tracked autonomously without much teaching operation. In addition to the theoretical research, a robotic virtual prototyping system is also developed for the industrial arc welding production. The proposed research ensures the robotic motion smoothness, enhances the ability for tracking the complex spatial curves, and improves the quality and efficiency of the robotic motion planning.

Problems,assumptions and solutions in locomotive design,traction and operational studies

Locomotive design is a highly complex task that requires the use of systems engineering that depends upon knowledge from a range of disciplines and is strongly oriented on how to design and manage complex systems that operate under a wide range of different train operational conditions on various types of tracks.Considering that field investigation programs for locomotive operational scenarios involve high costs and cause disruption of train operations on real railway networks and given recent developments in the rollingstock compliance standards in Australia and overseas that allow the assessment of some aspects of rail vehicle behaviour through computer simulations,a great number of multidisciplinary research studies have been performed and these can contribute to further improvement of a locomotive design technique by increasing the amount of computer-based studies.This paper was focused on the presentation of the all-important key components required for locomotive studies,starting from developing a realistic locomotive design model,its validation and further applications for train studies.The integration of all engineering disciplines is achieved by means of advanced simulation approaches that can incorporate existing AC and DC locomotive designs,hybrid locomotive designs,full locomotive traction system models,rail friction processes,the application of simplified and exact wheel-rail contact theories,wheel-rail wear and rolling contact fatigue,train dynamic behaviour and intrain forces,comprehensive track infrastructure details,and the use of co-simulation and parallel computing.The cosimulation and parallel computing approaches that have been implemented on Central Queensland University’s High-Performance Computing cluster for locomotive studies will be presented.The confidence in these approaches is based on specific validation procedures that include a locomotive model acceptance procedure and field test data.The problems and limitations presented in locomotive traction studies in the way they are conducted at the present time are summarised and discussed.