Validating a Wheeled Vehicle Model for All-Season Simulations

Researchers at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (ERDC-CRREL) and the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) have developed methods to model the physical interactions of vehicles with deformable terrain surfaces such as snow, mud, and soft soil during vehicle dynamic simulations. This paper describes the methodology that will be used to validate these modeling methods, and presents the results of driving simulations that verify the simulation vehicle dynamics model. Future work will concentrate on validating the physical interactions on deformable terrain using this verified dynamics model. Validation parameters include tri-axial forces at the four tire–terrain interfaces, wheel speeds, vehicle speed, and tri-axial linear accelerations and angular velocities at the vehicle center of gravity.