Multiphysics modeling and optimization of mechatronic multibody systems (Q2458281)

The paper is devoted to the modeling and analysis of mechatronic multibody systems. It is a result of cooperation of three laboratories, and its aim is to show that for applied purposes (i.e., industrial issues) multibody dynamics formulations can be extended to mechatronic systems, for the model construction as well as for the numerical analysis. The authors propose two formulations. The first one is based on a symbolic procedure and allows to model an appropriate rigid multibody system, so that the resulting model can be easily incorporated into a control-oriented software. The second one is based on a numerical finite element formulation and leads to an integrated modeling of flexible multibody systems in block-diagram format. For the optimization purposes, standard interfaces between the multibody tools and general optimization software can be used. Also, the authors come to the conclusion that the reciprocity between symbolic and numerical formulations is essential. As a demonstration, a model-free control design has been performed for a real passenger car (Audi A6) equipped with a semi-active-suspension.