Design and control of a haptic interactive motion simulator for virtual entertainment systems

SUMMARY In this paper, an interactive virtual reality motion simulator is designed and analyzed. The main components of the system include a bilateral control interface, networking, a virtual environment, and a motion simulator. The virtual reality entertainment system uses a virtual environment that enables the operator to feel the actual feedback through a haptic interface as well as the distorted motion from the virtual environment just as s/he would in the real environment. The control scheme for the simulator uses the change in velocity and acceleration that the operator imposes on the joystick, the environmental changes imposed on the motion simulator, and the haptic feedback to the operator to maneuver the simulator in the real environment. The stability of the closed-loop system is analyzed based on the Nyquist stability criteria. It is shown that the proposed design for the simulator system works well and the theoretical findings are validated experimentally.