[ODE] driving simulator, mechanical differential for steering wheels

[Amund Børsand]

"Cristian Bianchi" <cristian@sssup.it> skreiv:

> Have you an idea on how to implement a mechanical differential for the
> steering system?

I suppose you mean the differential between the driving wheels? In this
case, take a look at this link: http://forum.racesimcentral.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13211

Read post number two. It has a lot of information, but I haven't managed
to implement it into ODE yet... please let me know if you do.


The forklifters I've seen usually have driven front wheels and steering
rear wheels, or one or two wheels in center of the rear which both drive
and steer by rotating around a vertical axis, while the front wheels are
just coasting. The last example should be pretty easy to implement with
ODE, especially the one wheeled example, you'd just have one wheel
(cylinder) driven by the dParamFmax and dParamVel parameters. Or, if
it's two wheels rotating around one axis, you could probably use a
sphere in the center of the wheels, this would behave quite like the
real thing as there would be no resistance when standing still and
rotating the steering wheel.