Rotorcraft Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) often need to take off and land under complex working conditions. The rugged terrains may cause the UAV to tilt during takeoff and landing and even cause rollover and other accidents in severe cases. In this paper, a new four-legged landing gear of multirotor UAVs with a passive cushioning structure is designed, aiming at the landing stability requirement of rotorcraft UAVs in complex terrains. The mathematical model of the landing gear dynamics is established in MATLAB/Simulink, and the drop test simulation is carried out under different landing terrain conditions. By comparing the simulation results of the drop test multibody dynamic model in Simcenter3D dynamics software, the adaptive landing and cushioning capacity of the landing gear and the accuracy of the mathematical model are verified. Combined with the landing stability criterion and control strategy of adaptive landing gear adjustment, the landing stability of adaptive landing gear under different slope angles of landing surface and horizontal velocities is studied. The landing stability boundary under different combinations of these two parameters is found.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a co-simulation method to study the ground maneuvers of aircraft anti-skid braking and steering. Design/methodology/approach – A virtual prototype of aircraft is established in the multibody system dynamics software MSC.ADAMS/Aircraft. The anti-skid braking control model, which adopts the multi-threshold PID control method with a slip-velocity-controlled, pressure-bias-modulated (PBM) system, is established in MATLAB/Simulink. EASY5 is used to establish the hydraulic system of nose wheel steering. The ADAMS model is connected to block diagrams of the anti-skid braking control model in MATLAB/Simulink, and is also connected to the block diagrams of nose wheel steering system model in EASY5, so that the ground maneuvers of aircraft anti-skid braking and steering are simulated separately. Findings – Results are presented to investigate the performance of anti-skid braking system in aircraft anti-skid simulation. In aircraft steering simulation, the influence of two important parameters on the forces acting on the tires is discussed in detail, and the safe area to prevent aircraft sideslip is obtained. Originality/value – This paper presents an advanced method to study the ground maneuvers of aircraft anti-skid braking and steering, and establishes an integrated aircraft model of airframe, landing gear, steering system, and anti-skid braking system to investigate the interaction of each subsystem via simulation.

Summary: Determining an appropriate grasp configuration for multi-finger grasping is difficult due to the complexity of robotic hands. The multi-finger grasp planning should consider not only geometry constraints of objects but also kinematics and dynamics of robotic hand. In this paper, a precision grasp-planning framework is presented for multi-finger hand to grasp unknown objects. First, the manipulation capabilities of the robotic hand are analyzed. The analysis results are further used as bases for the precision grasp planning. Second, the superquadric (SQ) fitting method is used for approximating unknown object models. Finally, a local–global optimization method is implemented to find appropriate grasp configurations for dexterous hand. The presented planning framework is validated in simulation experiments. Simulation results demonstrated that the presented grasp-planning framework enables the multi-finger hand to grasp unknown objects effectively.

In this paper, an impedance control algorithm based on velocity for capturing two low impact docking mechanisms (LIDMs) is presented. The main idea of this algorithm is to track desired forces when the position errors of two LIDMs are random by designing the relationship between the velocity and contact forces measured by a load sensing ring to achieve low impact docking. In this paper, the governing equation of an impedance controller between the deviation of forces and velocity is derived, and simulations are designed to verify how impedance parameters affect the control characteristics. The performance of the presented control algorithm is validated by using the MATLAB and ADAMS software for capturing simulations. The results of capturing simulations demonstrate that the impedance control algorithm can respond fast and has excellent robustness when the environmental errors are random, and the contact forces and torques satisfy the low impact requirements.

An energy absorption system (EAS) composed of a carbon nanotube (CNT) with nested buckyballs is put forward for energy dissipation during impact owing to the outstanding mechanical properties of both CNTs and buckyballs. Here we implement a series of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to investigate the energy absorption capabilities of several different EASs based on a variety of design parameters. For example, the effects of impact energy, the number of nested buckyballs, and of the size of the buckyballs are analyzed to optimize the energy absorption capability of the EASs by tuning the relevant design parameters. Simulation results indicate that the energy absorption capability of the EAS is closely associated with the deformation characteristics of the confined buckyballs. A low impact energy leads to recoverable deformation of the buckyballs and the dissipated energy is mainly converted to thermal energy. However, a high impact energy yields non-recoverable deformation of buckyballs and thus the energy dissipation is dominated by the strain energy of the EAS. The simulation results also reveal that there exists an optimal value of the number of buckyballs for an EAS under a certain impact energy. Larger buckyballs are able to deform to a larger degree yet also need less impact energy to induce plastic deformation, therefore performing with a better overall energy absorption ability. Overall, the EAS in this study shows a remarkably high energy absorption density of 2 kJ g⁻¹, it is a promising candidate for mitigating impact energy and sheds light on the research of buckyball-filled CNTs for other applications.

There are many factors causing the shimmy of the aircraft landing gear and structural clearance of landing gear is a typical factor. Some aircraft in service or operation did not shimmy before, but suddenly appeared after a period of use. To solve the problem of clearance shimmy during the service of a certain aircraft, we established a dynamic model of rotating gear with clearance based on the flexible multi-body dynamics model of landing gear and L-N contact theory. We defined different types of clearance and established a mechanical model of aircraft pendulum vibration considering the clearance of landing gear structure for dynamic simulation, and studied the effects of different clearance types, clearance size of motion pair and different clearance positions on the stability of pendulum. The results show that the axial clearance has little effect on the shimmy performance of landing gear; the radial clearance has a certain effect on the shimmy performance of medium speed running, which slightly improves the shimmy damping required by medium speed running; the rotational clearance affects the shimmy performance of the nose landing gear by affecting the force transmission of structural components. The required shimmy damping coefficient increases at low speed and decreases at high speed. The main reason for the return clearance is that during the return, the shimmy damper does not work, which leads to the decrease of the shimmy damping performance and the increase of the required shimmy damping coefficient in the whole speed range. Meanwhile, the structural clearance will increase the shimmy frequency of the nose landing gear. By analysing the yaw angle of the nose landing gear and the time domain curve of the yaw angle of the yaw damper, we can determine which structure of the landing gear and which type of clearance is the cause of the yaw. Finally, the coupling effect caused by the main structural parameters of the landing gear in “gap shimmy” was analysed according to different mechanical stability distances and strut stiffness of the nose landing gear, providing reference for aircraft anti-shimmy design, nose landing gear fault diagnosis and nose landing gear maintenance support.