A Physical-Based Model Reduction Metric with an Application to Vehicle Dynamics

Abstract

In recent years, modeling metrics and algorithms have been developed to help automate the production of dynamic system models. More specifically, an energy-based modeling metric called the activity index has been developed by the authors. Also, the Model Order Reduction Algorithm (MORA) has been developed based on the activity index. The purpose of this paper is to extend the application of the energy-based activity index to nonlinear systems under transient conditions. This metric and procedure are applied to a large nonlinear rigid body model of a heavy duty tractor-semitrailer. The extension of the activity as developed in this paper appears to hold much promise as a general purpose model reduction metric when physical based model states and parameters are required.