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Excerpt reprinted from GVSET News
July 2010 Issue
from Partnership Increases Terramechanics High-Fidelity Modeling Capabilities
By Matthew Sablan
Advancing Surface Measuring Capabilities
 Another TARDEC-CVeSS collaboration has been a multiyear study of terrain measuring and vehicle reliability modeling. Virginia Tech’s Vehicle Terrain Performance Laboratory (VTPL) Director Dr. John Ferris explained how the university and TARDEC developed a method to accurately measure and characterize terrain. The 20-year process recently made significant progress as a result of technological improvements. With the development of a scanning laser, one of the first major hurdles was overcome: the ability to accurately measure the terrain’s surface with respect to the vehicle body and develop software to properly remove the vehicle’s motion from that measurement. It is now possible to measure terrain surfaces with millimeter resolution. “The new system measures about 1 million data points per second,” Ferris noted. This shows an increase of more than 50,000 times the previous capabilities. Consequently, the work has captured the interest of various industry and government parties, including the Big Three auto manufacturers and U.S. Army researchers at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD.
“When you need to run vehicle dynamics simulation for any vehicle — a Stryker, an HMMWV, a tank — you need to run it under the most realistic conditions possible.”
 Now that the terrain could be accurately measured, it was time to characterize the measurements with mathematical models to find “how the terrains were similar or dissimilar from each other,” Ferris stated. This helps view the big picture. Being able to model the ground was important, but without being able to characterize it, there was no way to ensure that the vehicle was responding properly in the model. During this phase, it became possible to accurately characterize the terrain. This made the next phase possible — determining the implications of the models on vehicles.
Normally it takes years to create reliability studies from actual vehicles on various terrains, but Virginia Tech’s work will accelerate that process. “This will allow us to get the best information early in the design, when it is less expensive and more practical to make changes,” Ferris commented. The models will become better predictors as they become more detailed and are used more. This will allow designers to improve vehicle performance by understanding their interaction with terrain.
“These models will improve the simulation capability for ground vehicle dynamics, durability, reliability and mobility assurance for the Army, as well as automotive manufacturers and component suppliers by gaining experience with terrain measurement and characterization and in modeling vehicles traveling over rough road conditions,” Ferris asserted. Additionally, these models support the TARDEC National Automotive Center 3-D Terrain Topology Modeling Techniques for Defense and Automotive Applications project.
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