Another Multibody Dynamics in Natural Coordinates through Automatic Differentiation and High-Index DAE Solving

The Natural Coordinates (NCs) method for Lagrangian modelling and simulation of multi-body systems is valued for giving simple, sparse models. We describe our version of it (NPNCs) and compare with the classical ap- proach of Jalon and Bayo (JBNCs). NPNCs use the high-index differential- algebraic equation solver DAETS. Algorithmic differentiation, not symbolic algebra, forms the equations of motion from the Lagrangian. NPNCs give significantly smaller equation systems than JBNCs, at the cost of a non- constant mass matrix for fully 3D models—a minor downside in the DAETS context. A 2D and a 3D example are presented, with numerical results.