All-Season Virtual Test Site for a Real-Time Vehicle Simulator

Abstract

A virtual, all-season test site for use in real-time vehicle simulators and mobility models was constructed of an Army firing range in Northern Vermont. The virtual terrain will mimic the terrain of our Virtual Data Acquisition and Test Site (VDATS) at Ethan Allen Firing Range (EAFR). The objective is to realistically simulate on- and off-road vehicle performance in all weather conditions for training and vehicle design for the US Army. To this end, several spatial datasets were needed to accurately map the terrain and estimate the state-of-the- ground and terrain strength at different times of the year. The terrain strength is characterized by terramechanics properties used in algorithms to calculate the forces at the vehicle-terrain interface. The performance of the real vehicles will be compared to the simulated vehicle performance of operator-in-the-loop and unmanned vehicles for validation of the simulations. Real vehicles are instrumented and perform maneuvers at the test site to develop and validate mathematic models describing vehicle behavior in all-season conditions, including snow, ice, frozen and thawing ground.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2004
Accession Number
ADA605593

Entities

People

  • Alexander Reid
  • Barry Coutermarsh
  • Sally Shoop

Organizations

  • United States Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Climate Change
  • Cold Regions
  • Data Acquisition
  • Engineering
  • Geographic Information Systems
  • Global Positioning Systems
  • High Resolution
  • Mechanics
  • Physics
  • Regions
  • Reliability
  • Simulations
  • Simulators
  • Temperature Gradients
  • Terramechanics
  • Unmanned Vehicles
  • Vehicles

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Pavement Materials Engineering.
  • Robotics and Automation.

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy