Measure Object Stability with Velocity and Disturbance

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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers around measuring the stability of an object in motion, specifically how velocity and disturbances (changes in velocity) affect this stability metric. Participants explore different methods and formulations for calculating this metric, considering both theoretical and practical implications.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Mathematical reasoning

Main Points Raised

  • One participant introduces the concept of a "stability metric" based on an object's velocity and the disturbances affecting it.
  • Another participant identifies the term "disturbance" as equivalent to acceleration and mentions inertia as a related concept, providing a formula for mass based on acceleration.
  • A different participant suggests measuring disturbance as the root mean square (rms) of the difference between actual velocity and a reference velocity, proposing a specific mathematical formulation for this calculation.
  • The original poster refines their question by introducing a scenario involving multiple cars and emphasizes the need to account for disturbances when comparing their stability metrics to others.
  • One participant proposes a method involving the summation of work done on the car, incorporating acceleration, speed, mass, and time to derive a stability metric.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express various viewpoints and methods for calculating the stability metric, with no consensus reached on a single approach or formula. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the best way to derive the stability metric considering disturbances.

Contextual Notes

Participants mention the need for a known reference velocity and the complexities introduced by random accelerations, which may affect the calculations. There are also unresolved mathematical steps in deriving the stability metric.

Who May Find This Useful

This discussion may be of interest to those studying dynamics, control systems, or anyone involved in measuring and analyzing the stability of moving objects in various contexts.

klyau
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Dear All,

Hope you guys can help on this. I would like to measure how stable is an object moving at a spped, let's call it the stability metric.

For instance, an object is moving at a certain speed, but through the object history, we know that it changes its velocity with a certain amount, let's call it disturbance. The lower the disturbance, the higher the stability metric, which means more stable.

And, I would like calculate stability metric which is a function of velocity and disturbance.

Thanks.
 
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This thing you are calling "disurbance" (change in velocity) already has a name: acceleration. And the resistance to acceleration is "inertia". The equation for finding inertia (mass) given acceleration is m=f/a.
 
When you mention disturbance, I suppose you refer to random accelerations acting on the object, making the velocityto fluctuate around an equilibrium value.
A measure of this disturbance can be the rms of the difference between the actual velocity and the reference value.
If [tex]V_{ref}[/tex] is the reference value and [tex]V_{act}[/tex] the actual value you can have the disturbance at moment [tex]k[/tex]
[tex]dist[k] = \left(V_{act}[k] - V_{ref}[k]\right)^2[/tex]
If you want the value for n time instants you have the rms value:
[tex]dist = \frac{1}{n}\sum_{k=1}^n\left(V_{act}[k] - V_{ref}[k]\right)^2[/tex]
 
Thanks for your prompt replies. However, I still have some doubts in getting the stability metric.

As for SGT method, it requires the V reference to be known.

Let me refine my question.

Suppose, there are 5 cars moving around and I am in one of the car. To get the stability metric of how stable am I compared to the others, I first get the average velocity of all the cars and compare how close is my velocity to the average velocity.

However, disturbance (acceleration and variance in acceleration) does occur. Therefore, we need to take account of disturbance to show my real stability metric compared to others.

Specifically, how can I get derive my stabililty metric? Thanks.
 
You could sum up all the absolute value of the all the work done on the car via the absolute values of acceleration x speed x mass x time.
 

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