Development of an Environment Framework for a Modular Vehicle Simulation System

Abstract

Recent vehicle developments are forced by continuously decreasing development times. To reach this aim virtual methods are necessary. Concerning the research area of vehicle dynamics, virtual analyses play an important role during the whole development process of a vehicle. Vehicle dynamics simulations using different manoeuvres, models and environments become a key component. This important role is even more significant for the early design phase of the vehicle, where only few and uncertain parameters are available. The present thesis expands the simulation platform MOVES2, designed for modular vehicle dynamic simulations during the early design phase, at the Institute of Automotive Engineering at Graz University of Technology. The presented expansion implements a set of modules to generate arbitrary roads within arbitrary scenarios, to animate the simulated vehicle motion within a virtual reality world based on the generated scenario, to define the desired trajectory for the simulation and to configure the modelling complexity of the model. To ensure a high level of user-friendliness, the Graphical User Interface of MOVES2 manages the required data from these modules, by creating, editing and deleting it.