Overview

A general purpose simulator for the kinematics and dynamics of two dimensional multibody systems.

Heavily inspired by the work of Javad N. Nikravesh, Planar Multibody Dynamics. I started it as part of a course on multibody dynamics in my university Hoschule Rhein-Waal, but I have since continuously improved it. Unlike Nikravhesh, this project uses the MATLAB symbolic toolbox to generalise formulations and also increases the accuracy of calculations at a marginal decrease in speed.

🔧 Current Features

• Core functions for dynamics using the body coordinate formulation
  (see the Functions/ directory)
• General-purpose scripts for simulating multibody systems
  (see the BC_Formulation/ directory)
• Example simulations of two mechanisms from Nikravesh’s text

📦 Requirements

• MATLAB R2018b or later
• Symbolic Math Toolbox

🚧 Future Work

• Implementation of kinetic analyses (e.g., forward and inverse dynamics)
• Additional examples and validation cases
• More Animations

📚 References

NIKRAVESH, Parviz. Planar Multibody Dynamics: Formulation, Programming with MATLAB®, and Applications. CRC Press, 2007.