Trifilar pendulum method based on coordinate transformations and distance measurements

The analysis of trifilar pendulums is simplified by a method which simultaneously determines all 10 inertia parameters of a complex rigid body,namely the mass,the coordinates of the center of gravity,the moments of inertia and the products of inertia,without any angular measurements.The key improvements in the improved method include using a balancing weight to render an easy stance adjustment,measuring distances between a point to four predefined points to calculate the coordinates of that point,and calculating all the matrices for the coordinate transformation.Error indices are defined for the important parameters to evaluate the accuracy.Results for a vehicle powertrain are presented to exemplify the applicability and accuracy of the approach.