A symbolic formulation for equations of motion of multibody systems

摘要

This thesis develops a symbolic formulation for the equations of motion of multibody dynamic systems. This technique is unique in that all system definitions are in terms of intuitive Cartesian coordinates, but the final form of the equations are in terms of a minimal set of relative coordinates. Symbolic formulations compute explicit equations of motion which have several advantages over numerical formulation. Numerical integration of symbolic equations is shown to be more efficient. In addition, the equations can be symbolically differentiated to yield system linearizations or sensitivities. This thesis presents several examples highlighting the advantages of this formulation.