CarSim vehicle simulation program

[Lars Kanter]

I was looking through the FSAE official website and came across an event sponsorship page listing those companies who are offering product discounts or donations to registered teams. One of the companies is Mechanical Simulation Corp who is offering a 90% discount off of their CarSim program, which appears to be similar to ADAMS/Car, but seems to be much more user friendly. Has anyone had experience using this software? Has anyone even heard of this software before?

[Lars Kanter]

I was looking through the FSAE official website and came across an event sponsorship page listing those companies who are offering product discounts or donations to registered teams. One of the companies is Mechanical Simulation Corp who is offering a 90% discount off of their CarSim program, which appears to be similar to ADAMS/Car, but seems to be much more user friendly. Has anyone had experience using this software? Has anyone even heard of this software before?

[Schumi_Jr]

I attanded a webinar on carsim and it looks really promising. It is much easier to use than ADAMS- entering vehicle data is dead simple. It seems very powerful- you can enter non-linear data describing most systems and it can interface with simulink making it almost infinitely expandable. It has open and closed-loop driver control, but I don't know how it compares to ADAMS/Driver.

MechSimCorp was founded by Dr. Thomas Gillespie, a well respected vehicle dynamicist which adds credibility to the software.

[Alan]

I have used CarSim some. Its not something you would necessarily use to do detailed suspension design (like ADAMS). The suspension is described by K&C parameters rather than hardpoints. But you can alter things like springs,dampers, and camber curves fairly easy. You can change things like CG location, inertia, wheelbase, etc... pretty easy as well.

As far as I know, there is no closed loop steering control. I don't think you can load a course map, and have it drive the course without providing steering vs time/distance. Since a change in setup with the same steering input might give a different path, its not really useful for laptime optimization. However you can look at responses such as lateral G, yaw rate, etc... for a given input and see how the outputs compare.

To use if for suspension design, you would need something like Mitchell's software or SuspProg3D as a complement. It is very powerful, as Aaron said once you get it into Simulink, you can do a lot.

It has a clunky interface, but overall it can be an extremely useful tool if you have the right data to create the model.

[Dan G]

EDIT:

This web demo is over now, but is supposed to be available on Carsim's website to download in a few days.

http://www.carsim.com/services/formula_sae/index.php

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">To support the Formula SAE raceteams we are offering a web seminar titled " Develop your Formula SAE Racecar faster and better with Simulated Testing" on November 9.

Dr. Thomas D. Gillespie, author of the book Fundamentals of Vehicle Dynamics, and Phil Mather, five-year veteran of Formula SAE, demonstrate how you can use CarSim to perform simulated testing to improve your Formula SAE racecar. This demonstration will illustrate better decision making with CarSim. For more information or to enroll please go to http://carsim.webex.com.

With CarSim simulated testing you can test your vehicle in situations that would be difficult and hard to repeat in the real world:

Skid pads: flat, banked, bumpy
Straight-line acceleration
Cornering while accelerating or braking
Step steer inputs, control studies
Wet vs. dry surface studies
Get actual tire forces and other information impossible to measure w ith physical testing.

Also learn how to add CarSim animations and plots to your presentations and make excellent impressions with the judges!

As a commercial sponsor Mechanical Simulation schedules courses for Formula SAE raceteams using CarSim which are open to all universities.

To find out more about training for Formula SAE Introduction to CarSim Training click here.

http://www.carsim.com/services/formula_sae/index.php




Sincerely,

Damon A. Becker
Academic Sales and Marketing Manager
Mechanical Simulation Corporation
912 North Main Suite 210
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Phone: 734 668 2930 ext 212
Fax: 734 668 2877
dbecker@carsim.com
http://www.carsim.com/applications/education.php
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Ayrton]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Alan:
I have used CarSim some. Its not something you would necessarily use to do detailed suspension design (like ADAMS). The suspension is described by K&C parameters rather than hardpoints. But you can alter things like springs,dampers, and camber curves fairly easy. You can change things like CG location, inertia, wheelbase, etc... pretty easy as well.

As far as I know, there is no closed loop steering control. I don't think you can load a course map, and have it drive the course without providing steering vs time/distance. Since a change in setup with the same steering input might give a different path, its not really useful for laptime optimization. However you can look at responses such as lateral G, yaw rate, etc... for a given input and see how the outputs compare.

To use if for suspension design, you would need something like Mitchell's software or SuspProg3D as a complement. It is very powerful, as Aaron said once you get it into Simulink, you can do a lot.

It has a clunky interface, but overall it can be an extremely useful tool if you have the right data to create the model. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>


Just so everybody knows, there is a closed loop steering control, although not the smartest in the world. Additionally, you can add your own course and that is extremely simple of doing and the driver will then try and follow the centerline of that course if you select the closed loop driver model. You can adjust the driver as PI controller but you can't really adjust the line, it simply tries to follow the center of the road.

I am doing a co-op at CarSim and working on a smart racing driver simulink model to use on carsim which is not hard to do. If you have CarSim you should have an example of a steering simulink model and you can go from there.

[GSpeedR]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Alan:
I have used CarSim some. Its not something you would necessarily use to do detailed suspension design (like ADAMS). The suspension is described by K&C parameters rather than hardpoints. But you can alter things like springs,dampers, and camber curves fairly easy. You can change things like CG location, inertia, wheelbase, etc... pretty easy as well.

As far as I know, there is no closed loop steering control. I don't think you can load a course map, and have it drive the course without providing steering vs time/distance. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yep, you enter in your kinematic (and compliance if you have em) curves obtained from ADAMS or something else. CarSim does have a kinematic suspension solver also, which I've never used. Also, you can enter in channel information obtained by data acquisition...which makes me smile.