Workspace and Stability analysis of an Aerial Platform Vehicle using Multibody Dynamics.

Aerial Platform Vehicles (APV) are widely used in industries and construction activities to enable human operations at elevated locations. Traditionally, scaffoldings are used in the industries to reach elevated regions, however it is time intensive and consumes enormous human and material resources. APVs comes in handy to reach elevated regions with ease and almost instantaneously. However, because of unforeseen and unavoidable loads, the operation of the APV can be dangerous and put human safety at risk and cause downtime. So, it is important to consider all the possible external loads during the design and development of an APV to find its safe operation region. MULTITEL MTE270EX is considered in this thesis study to analyse its workspace or the safe operation region. The stability of a APV mainly depends on its outriggers position, mass of contents in its basket and external loads. So, it is important to study the behaviour of the APV in multiple outrigger positions, combinations of the different weight classes in the basket and various external loads. Multi-body dynamics modelling approach is employed to study the interaction between the components of the APV and to find its safe workspace. Initially all the components of the APV are considered rigid to simplify the model and to reduce simulation cost. Later, flexibility is introduced to make the model more realistic. Moreover, workspace of the multi-body model’s results is compared with that of the analytical model and eventually validated with the experimental results. Finally, a few strategies will be explored to improve the stability and workspace region of the Aerial platform vehicle. Like, using alternative light materials for the components of the APV to reduce their weight and further enhances the stability thus increasing the workspace. Another strategy is to actively control the height of the outriggers individually in real time to improve the stability of the APV.