Interactive FMU-Based Visualization for an Early Design Experience

Abstract

User experience is an eminent part of holistic product design. Especially in the field of mobile machinery, the driver's impression of the machine handling is crucial for successful design. To get an early understanding of the ergonomic aspects of a new concept of operation, functional prototypes can be applied. This paper presents the tools to develop a functional prototype using free software and low-cost hardware. This includes prototyping of control devices, interfaces to the Modelica-based simulation models and a generic visualization using a game engine. In order to speed up the process of functional prototyping, an approach to automatically visualizing FMUs based on a scene description file is presented. The application of interactive simulation was used to support the development of a novel control device for excavators in a student project at TU Dresden.

Model-based Development of an Automated and Remotely-Controlled Demolition Excavator

“…A kinetic multi-body simulation or hydraulic system simulation is not implemented as this is unnecessary for the application. A Co-Simulation to e.g., a Modelica-Based Model via an FMU or interprocess communication would be possible as done by the authors in previous projects [2].…”

An Immersive Virtual Environment for Reviewing Model-Centric Designs

“…This has already been demonstrated in several application domains as medical (Mirhosseini et al, 2014), ergonomics (Michalos et al, 2018), or archaeology (Bennett, Zielinski and Kopper, 2014). For engineering activities, virtual reality, for instance, is used for maintenance scenarios (Louison et al, 2017) and behavioural simulation (Waurich and Weber, 2017), which are two user-centric applications. Although all these domains contain some elements motivating us to assume that virtual reality would facilitate the review of a model-centric design, this literature review concentrates on two applications that are tightly related to our domain of interest: the review of mechanical designs and software architecture.…”

The OpenModelica Integrated Environment for Modeling, Simulation, and Model-Based Development

“…OpenModelica generates a scene description XML-file which assigns model variables to visualization shape attributes. The scene description file can also be used to generate a visualization controlled by an FMU either in OMEdit or in an external visualization tool as Unity 3D (Waurich and Weber, 2017). In combination with the Modelica DeviceDrivers Library, interactive simulations with visual feedback and 3D-interactions can be implemented for training, development and testing purposes.…”