Introduction

Multibody Systems (MBS) play an important role in concurrent computer aided technical mechanics. Major areas of application include vehicle dynamics, robotics, biomechanics, heavy machinery and many more. The ability to design and optimize such technical multibody systems gives a company working in this area the competitive edge on the market. However, for a long time there were no generally applicable mathematical tools to this extent which was due in part to the simulation of MBS being either too slow or too inaccurate. Efficient simulation and the reliable generation of derivative information are at the heart of modern derivative based dynamic optimization methods like the optimization boundary value problem (B VP) approach developed by BOCK and coworkers [Bock81, Bock83, BP84, Sch187]. Presently, due to its applicability in many engineering disciplines, mathematical optimization may be considered a new key technology [BSS93, HJLS96].