[ODE] helicopter simulator (was: to many joints...)

[Nate W]

A couple of thoughts about heli simulations...

First, if attaching the joints to the helicopter causes the helicopter to
remain fixed in place, double-check all of the parameters to dJointAttach
and make sure you are not accidentally attaching the helicopter's main
body to a null body.

Second, there's a very informative series of articles on the web about
helicopter physics by a guy named Colin S Mill (or Mills).  I don't have
the URL handy but Google should take you there.  He wrote a great
simulator for radio controlled helicopters, IMO it still has the best
implementation of physics.

That's said, I did some experimentation with a heli simulator (back before
I discovered ODE) and I think that a reasonably control response could be
had just by tweaking the heli's angular acceleration and maximum angular
velocity on each axis.  You'd probably want to go beyond that and into
rotor blade dynamics eventually but it could be a good way to get started.

On Sun, 18 Jul 2004, [iso-8859-1] Pawel S wrote:

> Hi Michael
> 
> I would like to go as far as it's in realtime possible. I even thought
> about simulating air mass movement around the rotor discs (as when a
> helicopter flies through smoke).
> 
> I think that approximating lift force from the whole disc area would be
> enough, but taking into account the angles of the blades.
> 
> With regards
> Pawel
> 
> > 
> > I don't think I can help you with your actual problem, but simulating
> > a helicopter is interesting, as i once thought about that, too. To
> > what degree of realism do you want to simulate its behaviour? That
> > is, do you want to generate lift by the rotating rotor blades? If
> > yes, did you try that already with ODE?
> > 
> > Greets
> > Michael
> > 
> > > I'm very interested in helicopters. I am developing a simulator of
> > the
> > > Bell 222 helicopter. This particular model has 3 retractable wheels.
> > I
> > > use hinges and sliders to realistically  model the wheels in my
> > > simulator. I use 5 bodies, 5 hinges and a slider for every wheel.
> > >
> > > The problem is that the helicopter does not respond to the forces I
> > > apply, but when I dont attach the joint to the bodies the helicopter
> > > behaves as expected.
> > >
> > > I dont know what is wrong. Please help.
> > >
> > > Pawel
> >
> 
> 
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-- 

Nate Waddoups
Redmond WA USA
http://www.natew.com/
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