This paper studies local configuration controllability of multibody systems with nonholonomic constraints. As a nontrivial example of the theory, we consider the dynamics and control of a multibody spherical robot. Internal rotors and sliders are used as the mechanisms for control. Our model is based on equations developed by the second author for certain mechanical systems with nonholonomic co...

This paper introduces into a graphical, computer aided modelling methodology that is particularly suited for the concurrent design of mechatronic systems, viz. of engineering systems with mechanical, electrical, hydraulic or pneumatic components including interactions of physical effects from various energy domains. Beyond the introduction, bond graph modelling of multibody systems, as an examp...

A detailed description of the bond graph representation for the most general type of constraint in multibody systems is presented. This representation has a tight correspondence with our recent object-oriented implementation of the mechanical constraint architecture on Modelica language. The implementation is based on the library of Modelica classes to simulate the sparse multibody systems dyna...

The multibody system approach provides enhanced models of vehicles , robots, and air-and spacecrafts. Mixed systems consisting of both rigid and deformable bodies are aimed at growing demands for reened simulation. A basic modeling framework for this class of mechanical systems is presented which covers also inelastic material behavior. Moreover, the Diierential-Algebraic Equations (DAEs) obtai...

A recently developed extrapolation method for integrating the equations of motion of mechanical multibody systems is investigated. The inherent parallelism of the extrapolation scheme is used for an implementation on a transputer network. The eeciency of the parallel algorithm is demonstrated at a multibody system which is part of a mechanical printing device. Identiizierungs-, Analyse-und Entw...

This paper presents the approach currently followed by our research team in teaching multibody dynamics to aerospace engineering students at the University “Politecnico di Milano”, Italy. The high level of complexity in multibody dynamics, both in terms of the physical phenomena that are modeled and of architecture of the numerical codes needed to solve them, makes this task extremely hard, esp...

The effect of structural relaxations in alloys is described using a multibody energy expansion formalism. N-body potentials in the multibody expansion are computed from energies of isolated clusters, which, in turn, are calculated from empirical potentials or self-consistent quantum mechanical calculations. Convergence characteristics of multibody expansions MBEs are improved by weighting energ...