Computer Aided Formulation of Equations of Motion

Summary

As part of the process of designing a control system for a mechanical device, one frequently must formulate the equations of motion of the device, which is a task that can be very laborious, especially if the device under consideration has a relatively large number of moving parts. This paper deals with a computer program intended to enable an analyst to formulate equations of motion with minimal labor. The name of the program is AUTOLEV.

The principal concept underlying the program is that one can create symbol manipulation functions that carry out many of the operations one normally performs by hand when formulating equations of motion. In practice, the dynamicist makes use of such functions by typing instructions on a computer terminal; the computer responds with lines of text representing equations needed to continue the analysis. Ultimately, the equations of motion appear on the screen, and one additional command then leads to a FORTRAN simulation program.