Contact Modelling: Possible to model a vehicle driving over an 'obstacle course'?

Hi,

I am trying to model the contact between a vehicle and the ground, however the 'ground' has curves and changes gradients etc. Is there a way to provide a contact between the wheels and the entire surface regardless of if its just a flat plane?

In the picture below I can I only model the contact between that single plane. I want the entire light red colour to be a contact point.

[Kristian König]

Hi Rory,

I have the same issue. Have you already solved the problem?

Thank you and kind regards,

Kris

Answer 1

[Juan Sagarduy]

Hello Rory

I'd like to give this question a shot. The contact between the tires and uneven terrain can be modelled in the latest releases for Simscape Multibody. You extract the geometry from all bodies and the spatial force contact detects that. However, the terrain is an irregular volume and the convex hull approximation might not give you good enough resolution.

in 2021a, we have added the point cloud block, which can create a mesh around the volume with a suitable number of nodes. that can be really helpful to try out.

I add a link to a submission where you see how an STL file for the terrain is brought to Multibody to simulate the run of a simple vehicle. As you can see, the terrain is roughlt approximated.

Vehicle Rolling over Uneven Terrain - File Exchange - MATLAB Central (mathworks.com)

Good luck / Juan