HeavyGoods not only simulates swept paths for tractor-trailer combinations, but also for followers. An example is the following transport of a rotor blade, which is transported by a tractor (blue), a dolly (red) and a follower (green) using blade adapters:
Of course, simulations without an intermediate dolly are also possible:
HeavyGoods also simulates more complex follower combinations such as the transport shown below, carrying a transformer (grey) with side girder bridge (red) and follower (green). For details see Boiler bridges and side girder bridges.
Activate manual steering system for follower
Usually, the follower (the rearmost vehicle) has an additional steering system that allows a transport attendant to manually steer the vehicle by remote control. In order for the follower to be able to maneuver accordingly in the HeavyGoods simulation, you must first ensure that the digital follower also has an auxiliary steering system. In case of an official vehicle record from a vehicle manufacturer, you do not have to do anything else, see also Get digital vehicles from a manufacturer.
If you have created the digital follower yourself (see Configure your own vehicles), open it in HeavyGoods, click on Steering in the left margin column in the chapter overview and then check the checkbox Manual Steering. After clicking on Save, you can use the vehicle.
Assemble follower combination
Follow the instructions Create a vehicle combination using your follower.
Simulate driving maneuvers
Once you have loaded this vehicle into the simulation, you can activate the option Manual steering:
By clicking on Simulate, the automatic simulation steers the follower independently of the vehicle's forced steering system. The maximum steering angles of the follower's axles and the maximum turning angle of the turntable are taken into account. Apart from this, the steering of the follower is not limited. Thus, the virtual vehicle in the HeavyGoods mode Manual Steering has the same degrees of freedom as a vehicle that is steered manually in practice. The simulation's computational kernel ensures that the steering angles of all axles are matched to the alignment of the steering axle.
Steering the follower yourself - Product outlook
It is currently not possible for users to specify the track of the trailing vehicle themselves.
In future, users will be able to specify a second guideline for the follower (in addition to the existing guideline for the tractor unit) and thus guide the trailer into the desired lane. The corresponding driving maneuvers are smoothed and only steer as much as necessary.
The implementation of this task is technically challenging and is being realized in cooperation with other development partners. There is currently no forecast for the completion date. As soon as the function is available, all customers will be informed via the usual channels.
Steering the follower yourself - workaround
In future, there will be a special product function for influencing the track of the follower (see chapter above). Until then, you can work with low obstacles (e.g. height 100 mm) that can be swept.
To do this, draw an obstacle with the red polygon tool or red circle tool and then activate the Can be traversed option in the box at the top right. In this way, the simulation ensures that the follower's wheels do not drive over the obstacle surface, while the load can, however, sweep over the obstacle. The simulation mode Manual Steering uses the maneuverability of the follower to drive around the obstacle area.
You can steer the tractor either by guideline or, for more complex driving maneuvers, select the automatic mode, which automatically navigates the vehicle combination from start to finish. Keep the green area as small as possible, but as large as necessary and add obstacles at the relevant parts.
You can watch a video tutorial by clicking the [ i ] button, see screenshot:
Force exact start and target position
In automatic simulations (automatic search for a driving maneuver from a start position A to a target position B), it can happen that the vehicle does not reach the exact target position specified by the user, but is offset by a few centimetres or is slightly bent. In some cases, the vehicle may also start its movement from a slightly different starting position.
This position tolerance is alogrithmic. In order to enforce an exact start or finish position, it is often helpful to mark a “parking space” with traversable areas, i.e. to use obstacles to define a corridor from which the vehicle should start or into which the vehicle should enter. For further details, see also: Steering the follower youself
Optimize the steering function of the turntable
Occasionally, the simulation delivers driving maneuvers in which the follower steers back and forth more strongly than expected (e.g. zigzag maneuvers). This is often due to the fact that the steering function of the turntable is not matched to the vehicle length or to the load support distance (= distance between the front and the rear turntable). The steering function determines how strongly the follower steers depending on the rotation of the turntable. If the steering function is set too "aggressively", this will lead to "shaky" driving maneuvers in long vehicle combinations.
With HeavyGoods, it is also possible to store different steering functions on a follower for different support distances. For example, a sharper steering can be stored for a smaller span and a weaker steering for larger spans.
To do this, open the follower via Administration - Vehicles, click on Turntable in the left-hand chapter navigation and then on the Enter turntable steering functions button. You can define a weak steering for a span of 50 meters or more, for example, as follows:
Shorten route section
In addition, the simulation kernel generally delivers more balanced driving maneuvers with fewer steering movements if the maneuver only passes through a single route section and does not pass through several bottlenecks in succession in a single simulation. This is due to the fact that a passage is found more quickly for shorter route sections, so that more computing power can be spent on optimizing the passage.
So give it a try and cut your route section into several shorter parts!
