Research Areas

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• Kinematics and Dynamics of Multibody Systems

• Computational Methods for Analysis and Design

• Mechatronic and Robotic Systems

• Advanced Vehicle Systems

• Mechanisms and Machinery

• Biomechanics and Sports Engineering

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Kinematics and Dynamics of Multibody Systems

The main goal of this research is to develop new theories and procedures for analyzing the kinematics and dynamics of multibody systems of interconnected rigid and flexible bodies.
This fundamental research makes extensive use of linear graph theory, which leads to significant pedagogical and practical improvements over conventional approaches to multibody dynamics. Some key modelling challenges that we are tackling include:  impact and friction, the use of substructuring methods for large systems, and the multi-physics phenomena that is typical of MEMS and other mechatronic systems.
This research has been applied to mechanisms and machinery, piano actions, serial and parallel robots, road and rail vehicles, biomechanics, sports equipment, and satellites.

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Computational Methods for Analysis and Design

By encoding our multibody dynamic formulations into symbolic and numeric computer programs, powerful tools for computer-aided analysis have been obtained. These tools can automatically generate the equations of motion for a multibody system, given only a description of the system as input.  By solving these equations using appropriate numerical methods, kinematic and dynamic simulations have been quickly created for very complex mechanical systems.

In addition, the overall design cycle has been semi-automated by using numerical methods of optimization. Once an initial system configuration has been established, and an objective function defined (e.g. minimum-time or minimum-power maneuver), the computer has been used to perform the tedious iterative calculations needed to determine the "best" set of design or control parameters.

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Mechatronic and Robotic Systems

In this research, our methods for multibody mechanical systems have been extended to multibody mechatronic systems. This research has been greatly facilitated by the use of graph-theoretic methods, which provides a single, consistent linear graph representation of a system containing analog and digital components from mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, and other physical domains.

A major application of this research is to the field of robotics.  In addition to analyzing serial robots with rigid and flexible links driven by DC motors, we are using linear graph theory to exploit the specialized topologies that are typical of parallel robots, i.e. multiple legs connected in parallel to a common end effector.

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Advanced Vehicle Systems

Our research work on multibody dynamics and design optimization has been applied to the analysis and optimal design of road and rail vehicles. Industrial applications of this research include: the design optimization of  the suspension system of a Lola World Sports Car (for Multimatic Inc.), the optimization of a rail vehicle with passive and active suspension components (for Bombardier Inc.), and the dynamic analysis of a heavy off-road vehicle with an articulated main body (for Timberjack Inc).

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Mechanisms and Machinery

Mechanisms and machinery are two important classes of application of our research in multibody dynamics and design optimization.
We are currently tackling the "type synthesis" problem by combining our analysis methods with genetic algorithms for optimization; the end result will be a theory and computer algorithm that determines the optimal mechanism topology (e.g. 4-bar vs. Watt II 6-bar) for a given design task.
A very interesting industrial application of our research is to the dynamics of a "piano action", the complex mechanism that transforms the finger-driven key motion into the flight of a hammer that strikes a string.
Other industrial applications have included the mechanisms for opening/closing automobile trunks, and the optimal design of articulated booms used in heavy machine industries, e.g. construction and wood harvesting.
 

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Biomechanics and Sports Engineering

Our research on multibody dynamics and optimization is directly applicable to problems in biomechanics and sports engineering.  We have modelled human gait and the motion of a human arm, and used optimization methods to determine optimal arm trajectories and energy-optimal walking gaits.  The same basic theory was used to model and optimize the suspension system of a mountain bicycle.

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