Interfacing with a custom Vehicle Dynamics Model (VDM)

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IanCol
Posts: 12
Joined: 18 Aug 2016, 04:03

Interfacing with a custom Vehicle Dynamics Model (VDM)

Post by IanCol »

Hi There,

A partner research group has developed a detailed VDM of a car. Is it possible to integrate this VDM into V-rep?
I see two ways to approach this:
1. Get the V-Rep physics engine to solve the set of ODEs (Ordinary Differential Equations) that describe the motion of the vehicle at each time step.
2. Solve the ODEs outside of Vrep and simply update vrep with the state of the model (vehicle position, orienation, etc) at each time step.

Collision detection (and feeding it back into the VDM) is of no concern to us. We can assume the vehicle will drive on a flat plane without collisions.

Based on my high-level knowledge of video games physics engines option 1 is not possible because all objects are modelled as rigid bodies / point masses and therefore their motion is dictated by a specific set of hard-coded ODEs that cannot be modified.

Option 2 seems like the only way to do this, but perhaps I am misunderstanding the flexibility of modern physics engines.
Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Ian

coppelia
Site Admin
Posts: 10339
Joined: 14 Dec 2012, 00:25

Re: Interfacing with a custom Vehicle Dynamics Model (VDM)

Post by coppelia »

Hello Ian,

I am not familiar with VDM. But my guess is that the second approach is the only practical approach in your case. Unless you want to modify the various physics engine plugins, which I do not recommend (you have only little possibilities to interact with the physics engines from V-REP, if you want to do something non-standard).

Cheers

IanCol
Posts: 12
Joined: 18 Aug 2016, 04:03

Re: Interfacing with a custom Vehicle Dynamics Model (VDM)

Post by IanCol »

Thanks for the fast reply!

Currently our plan is to go with option 2 because it also gives us the option to use other simulators in the future if we wish.
(and because option 1 is infeasible as you confirmed :D )

Thanks!
Ian

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