Physics-Based Vehicle Simulation Using PD Servo

In this paper, we introduce a novel system for physics-based vehicle simulation from input trajectory. The proposed system approximates the physical movements of a real vehicle using a proportional derivative (PD) servo which estimates proper torques for wheels and controls a vehicle’s acceleration based on the conditions of the given trajectory. To avoid expensive simulation calculation, the input trajectory is segmented and compared to the optimized trajectories stored in a path library. Based on the similarity of the curve shape between the input and simulated trajectories, an iterative search method is introduced to generate a physically derivable trajectory for convincing simulation results. For an interaction with other objects in the virtual environment, the surface of the vehicle is subdivided into several parts and deformed individually from external forces. As demonstrated in the experimental results, the proposed system can create diverse traffic scenes with multiple vehicles in a fully automated way.