Multibody Systems Handbook

The dynamics of multibody systems are of importance in the fields of robotics, biomechanics, spacecraft control, road and rail vehicle design, and dynamics of machinery. Many research problems have been solved and a considerable number of computer codes based on multibody formalisms are now available. This book is intended to collate software systems for multibody system dynamics which are well established and have found acceptance in the users community. The Handbook will aid the reader in selecting the software system which is most appropriate to his needs. Altogether 17 research groups contributed to the Handbook. A compact summary of important capabilities of these software systems is presented in tabular form. All authors dealt with two typical test examples, a planar mechanism and a spatial robot.