Real-Time Structural Deflection Estimation in Hydraulically Actuated Systems Using 3D Flexible Multibody Simulation and DNNs

The precision, stability, and performance of lightweight high-strength steel structures in heavy machinery is affected by their highly nonlinear dynamics. This, in turn, makes control more difficult, simulation more computationally intensive, and achieving real-time autonomy, using standard approaches, impossible. Machine learning through data-driven, physics-informed and physics-inspired networks, however, promises more computationally efficient and accurate solutions to nonlinear dynamic problems. This study proposes a novel framework that has been developed to estimate real-time structural deflection in hydraulically actuated three-dimensional systems. It is based on SLIDE, a machine-learning-based method to estimate dynamic responses of mechanical systems subjected to forced excitations.~Further, an algorithm is introduced for the data acquisition from a hydraulically actuated system using randomized initial configurations and hydraulic pressures.~The new framework was tested on a hydraulically actuated flexible boom with various sensor combinations and lifting various payloads. The neural network was successfully trained in less time using standard parameters from PyTorch, ADAM optimizer, the various sensor inputs, and minimal output data. The SLIDE-trained neural network accelerated deflection estimation solutions by a factor of $10^7$ in reference to flexible multibody simulation batches and provided reasonable accuracy. These results support the studies goal of providing robust, real-time solutions for control, robotic manipulators, structural health monitoring, and automation problems.

Data-driven simulation for general purpose multibody dynamics using deep neural networks

In this paper, a machine learning-based simulation framework of general-purpose multibody dynamics is introduced. The aim of the framework is to generate a well-trained meta-model of multibody dynamics (MBD) systems. To this end, deep neural network (DNN) is employed to the framework so as to construct data-based meta-model representing multibody systems. Constructing well-defined training data set with time variable is essential to get accurate and reliable motion data such as displacement, velocity, acceleration, and forces. As a result of the introduced approach, the meta-model provides motion estimation of system dynamics without solving the analytical equations of motion. The performance of the proposed DNN meta-modeling was evaluated to represent several MBD systems.