Navigation and Behaviour for Simulated Ground Vehicles
FEATURES
Vehicle movement that fits your simulation
Kythera treats ground vehicles as vehicles, not as generic agents that happen to be on wheels. It plans routes that respect how a vehicle really moves, its turning circle, its size, and whether it steers like a car or a tank, then follows those routes convincingly across complex terrain. The result is movement that reads as the real thing. Kythera is C++ middleware that plugs into the engine you already use, so it works with your existing simulation rather than tying you to a single platform.
01
Movement that matches how a vehicle moves
A vehicle can't turn on the spot the way a person can, so its routes have to account for how it really moves: its turning radius, slowing down for corners, and when it needs to reverse instead of rotating. Kythera plans vehicle routes with those constraints built in, so the paths it produces are ones the vehicle can actually drive and follow.
02
Wheeled and tracked steering
Kythera supports the two steering models that cover most vehicles in a scenario. Ackermann steering covers conventional wheeled vehicles, the ones that steer through a turning circle, such as a car or a truck. Differential (slip/skid) steering covers tracked and skid-steer vehicles, which turn by driving their two sides at different speeds and can rotate much more tightly. For differential-drive vehicles, Kythera adds movement modes that use what they can do, such as turning to face a direction before driving off, or rotating and moving at the same time, so tracked vehicles move convincingly instead of behaving like wheeled ones.
03
Path following you can tune
Planning a good route is only part of the job; the vehicle then has to follow it convincingly. Kythera offers a choice of path-following controllers, including pure-pursuit, Stanley and blended approaches, so you can match the following behaviour to the vehicle and the look you want. Reversing, changing direction and cornering are handled as part of planning, so vehicles cope with tight, complex spaces instead of getting stuck or moving awkwardly.
04
Terrain-aware routing across 3D environments
Vehicle pathfinding uses the same Navigation Mesh and terrain analysis as the rest of Kythera, so vehicles follow roads, avoid dangerous ground and respect the movement limits set for their type. It works in full 3D and across multi-level structures, so it handles cases like a route that has to go over a bridge rather than under it. It also uses Kythera's avoidance, so vehicles steer around each other and around obstacles while staying within their steering limits.
WHY IT MATTERS
What this means for your simulation
Vehicles that move like the real platforms they represent, across a range of types, realistic terrain and complex 3D environments. That adds to the credibility of any scenario where trainees work alongside them or against them.
GET IN TOUCH
Talk to us about your simulation needs
Interested in using our tools? We'd love to hear from you.
Please use the form to send us some information on your company. We'll get back to you and invite you to book a call with us to discuss your needs and start the evaluation process.
For more general enquiries, you can email us on contact@intelligentartefacts.com.