Lunar Rover Vehicle Simulation Infrastructure
GPU-accelerated framework for lunar vehicle simulation
As a graduate researcher at the Simulation-Based Engineering Lab (UW–Madison), I contribute to the development of simulation infrastructure for MoonRacer — a lunar mobility simulation project in collaboration with Intuitive Machines.
My work focuses on building a GPU-accelerated simulation pipeline for analyzing lunar vehicle-terrain interaction, with CRM-based deformable terrain and ANCF tire models, using Project Chrono.
Key Contributions:
- Simulation Framework Development: I extend and maintain Chrono’s modular infrastructure to support MoonRacer simulations, enabling scalable lunar rover testing scenarios.
- CRM Terrain Modeling: I integrate Continuum Representation of Material (CRM) terrain into Chrono to realistically simulate lunar regolith response under rover wheel loads.
- ANCF Tire Models: I implement Absolute Nodal Coordinate Formulation (ANCF) for flexible tire modeling, enabling detailed simulation of wheel-soil contact and sinkage.
- Visualization & Logging Tools: I build debugging overlays and logging utilities for visualizing contact forces, terrain deformation, and rover response metrics.
Left: Vehicle concept. Right: Simulation of rover using ANCF tire model.
This project strengthens my expertise in multi-body simulation, high-performance computing, and vehicle-environment interaction modeling — and prepares me to contribute to extreme-terrain mobility tools and simulation-based design workflows.