Design and control of a cable-controlled haptic motion simulator

SUMMARY In this work, we discuss the design, construction, and testing of a cable-controlled motion simulator for a Virtual Reality (VR) hang gliding environment. The system comprises a cable-controlled motion simulator, a joystick, a Lego™ direction sensor, and a VR environment. The motion simulator and joystick are built out of motors, pulleys, cables, and aluminum beams. The VR environment and motion simulator interact haptically with each other to give a realistic feel to the operator. A dynamic analysis is performed on the simulator to show the effect of gravity and the directional motion on the operator. A series of experiments are then performed to test the effectiveness of the cable-controlled simulator, and the results were very encouraging despite minor glitches with high-speed maneuvers.