Desdemona, an alternative moving base design for driving simulation P.J. Feenstra, M. Wentink, Z.C. Roza and W. Bles TNO Defence, Security and Safety BU Human Factors P.O. Box 23, 3769 ZG Soesterberg Netherlands
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Abstract Desdemona is a moving-base research-simulator that was designed with a special focus on spatial disorientation demonstrations, flight simulation, and driving simulation. The cabin is equipped with a car mock-up that contains force-feedback on pedals and steering wheel, and out-the-window visuals. The cabin is mounted in a fully gimbaled system that, as a whole, can move vertically and horizontally. To enable sustained accelerations, the system can centrifuge around a central-yaw axis while the cabin is somewhere at an eccentric position on the horizontal track. The six degrees-of-freedom result in a large cylindrical motion space with a wide dynamic range relative to conventional hexapod design. The design offers new possibilities with respect to motion cueing and human motion perception, in particular for driving simulation, e.g., the possibility to cue sustained-sway acceleration when driving a curve by centrifugation around the central axis. This paper describes the Desdemona simulator in a car driving application. The different components required for car driving are discussed and an example of recorded real-world vehicle data is given. This curve-driving data has been used to demonstrate basic motion filter design principles for driving simulation in Desdemona.
Résumé
DSC 2007 North America – Iowa City – September 2007
Introduction It is still difficult to simulate vehicle motion in a realistic way. Incorrect simulator motion even causes simulator sickness (Kennedy, R.S. et al., 1992). Therefore, the use of motion in simulators is still subject to debate. In order to explore the requirements for proper motion simulation, an advanced motion platform is required. Desdemona provides just that (Figure 1). It features enhanced performance and new capabilities as compared to standard hexapod designs. Desdemona is a moving-base research-simulator located at TNO (Soesterberg, The Netherlands) that was designed with a special focus on spatial disorientation demonstrations, flight simulation, and driving simulation. It was built in close cooperation with AMST (Ranshofen, Austria). The simulator has 6 Degrees of Freedom (DoF) (Figure 2). The cabin is mounted in a gimbaled system (3 DoF, >2π radians), which as a whole can move vertically along a heave axis (1 DoF, ±1m) and horizontally along a linear arm (1 DoF, ±4m). This structure can as a whole rotate around a central axis to facilitate centrifugal motion (1 DoF,
