A real-time multibody vehicle dynamic analysis method using suspension composite joints

This paper presents a real-time vehicle dynamic analysis method using suspension composite joints. Typical suspension systems of vehicles such as MacPherson strut, double wishbone, trailing arm and solid axle suspension systems are modelled by suspension composite joints. The joints are derived and utilised to reduce the computation time of simulation without any degradation of kinematical accuracy of the suspension systems. They are modelled using massless links on the suspension members that have small masses but have kinematical importance. Using the developed suspension composite joints, a multibody vehicle dynamic model is formed and simulations are performed. Accuracy of the simulation results is compared to the real vehicle field test results as well as to the simulation results with a full multibody vehicle model. It is found that the simulation results using the proposed method are very accurate and real-time simulation is achieved on a computer with single PowerPC 604 processor.