Overview:
Altair MotionSolve and MotionView, Altair’s multibody solutions, offer enhanced usability and flexibility in multibody modeling, simulation, visualization, and optimizations. New real-time capabilities for ground vehicles reduce time to market by providing rapid and accurate model development, allowing engineers to quickly perform large design of experiments (DOE) studies and make informed decisions without waiting for long simulation runtimes. Additional code generation supports hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations, enabling the validation of embedded control systems under realistic and safety-critical conditions before physical prototypes are available. Additional modeling improvements allow for the evaluation of vehicle models that do not achieve static equilibrium, seamlessly parameterize models with data files and much more. The updates released in 2025.1 include:
Real Time Simulation for Vehicle Models
The development of autonomous systems is a global shift that holds significant importance across various industries, particularly within the automotive sector. Real-time simulation emerges as a pivotal technology enabling the construction, evaluation, and enhancement of autonomous systems, including Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS) and Autonomous Driving (AD). Traditional simulation accurately depicts the behavior of a vehicle system, faithfully mirroring real-world dynamics. Real-time simulation serves the same purpose but adds the capability of operating synchronously with real-world time. Results are generated and displayed instantaneously or within a very brief timeframe. This facilitates interactive engagement between humans, acting as the driver, or hardware, serving as controllers, with the vehicle system in real-time.
MotionSolve - RealTime is a feature within the Altair Multibody solution that facilitates real-time simulation of cars and small trucks. Built on the industry-recognized Multibody solver MotionSolve, MotionSolve - RealTime ensures compatibility with all modeling features and entities available in MotionSolve. Furthermore, users can utilize MotionView as graphical environments for model creation. Most importantly, no additional software or model export/translation is required. This means that users always work with the same model, whether it's for vehicle dynamics, durability analysis, or real-time simulation.
Visualization of Tire Deformation for Altair Fiala and Siemens Simcenter MF-Tyre/MF-Swift
The Vehicle Tools Extension now includes the option to visualize tire deformations for Altair Fiala and Simcenter MF-Tyre/MF-Swift. You can turn on the toggle to view the tire deformations in a HyperView animation. These deformations enhance the visual appeal of the animations and provide an approximate estimate of contact patch sizes.
Turn Off Static in Full Vehicle Driver Events
The AltairDriver Events in the Vehicle Tools now contain an option to skip the static simulation that precedes the transient simulation. This option supports the vehicle models that do not achieve static equilibrium easily. A model may not achieve static equilibrium if it is on a road surface this is not flat, or if the model has residual forces at the beginning. Turn off the Run initial static option from the Driver Event's Entity Editor. In addition to the first static, the AltairDriver performs two additional static simulations to estimate steer ratio. These can also be skipped. For example, if you have a rear-axle steered, or all-axle steered vehicle, skipping the steer estimation and manually entering the steer ratio is recommended (steer ratio is used by AltairDriver’s Feed Forward steer controller). Turn off the Compute steering ratio option from the Entity Editor if it is not necessary.
Expression Builder for File Data Members
It is now possible to define parametric expressions for any field that takes a file name as input or output through the Entity Editor. Every file field has the option Build Expression, which gives access to the Expression Builder. This feature supports linking entities to file name datasets or a file path location, such as the solver file location.
Edit Variable Names in Wizard Models
It is now possible to change the variable names of entities in models built using the wizards. Caution is recommended, when changing the variable names, it could affect tasks or events that might depend on entities whose variable names have been changed.
Functional Mockup Unit 3.0 Export
MotionView now supports exporting the model to the Functional Mockup Unit (FMU) version 3.0 format. An additional choice of the format is available in the Export dialog. This allows the implementation of more robust and efficient co-simulation algorithms. More information regarding FMU 3.0 can be found on the FMI Help Site.
Support for Generalized Damping for Flexible Bodies (MotionSolve)
In traditional MBD approaches, modal damping is applied to flexible bodies by assigning damping ratios to specific vibration modes. These damping ratios are typically obtained through physical testing, which can be costly and requires a physical prototype of the part.
Some advanced finite element (FE) models already incorporate damping through mechanisms such as material damping, rubber components, or enclosed fluids. An example is a gearbox filled with oil attached to the chassis via rubber bushings. These models yield a mass matrix (M), damping matrix (C), and stiffness matrix (K). When generalized damping is enabled, OptiStruct includes the C matrix during the creation of the linear flexbody using Component Mode Synthesis (CMS). MotionSolve then utilizes the resulting M_CMS, C_CMS, and K_CMS matrices to represent the flexible body.
Specify the generalized damping using the GenDamp block in Reference_FlexData. In OptiStruct, PARAM,MBDDAMP,YES specifies the inclusion of the generalized damping matrix in the Flex h3d_file. If Body_Flexible contains both a GenDamp block and modal damping, the cumulative damping will be applied.
Version Upgrade for Cosin FTire
The Vehicle Tools Extension has upgraded the support for Cosin FTire to 2024-4. The new version is backward compatible with tire and road input files from previous versions. Going forward, MotionSolve will support the FTire interface v2024-4 and earlier versions. Future versions of MotionSolve will maintain the interface, but cannot guarantee its compatibility.
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