Vehicle Simulation Laboratory
Facilities
Motion System
CAE 300 Series Motion System: is a 6 DOF Stewart platform. The actuators have 91.4 cm stroke, 8.9 cm bore, and hydrostatic bearings. Three 37.3kW induction motors with matching variable displacement pumps power the system. The nominal bandwidth is 10Hz (3dB) in gain, or 5 Hz in phase (90 deg phase). VSL has extended the bandwidth to over 15Hz (phase and gain). The motion envelope for the system is:
| DoF | Displacement | Velocity | Acceleration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surge | +0.7m, -0.61m | 0.7m/s | 1.2g |
| Sway | +0.59m, -0.59m | 0.7m/s | 1.2g |
| Heave | +0.56m, -0.49m | 0.6m/s | +2g,-0g |
| Roll | +21deg, -21deg | 30deg/s | 400deg/s2 |
| Pitch | +22deg, -20deg | 30deg/s | 400deg/s2 |
| Yaw | +24deg,-24deg | 30deg/s | 400deg/s2 |
Visual System
4 Channels nVidia GTX-285, rending with X-plane, 38ms transport delay, 60Hz update. Front cockpit uses 3 Sony monitors projecting through infinity optics boxes. Rear cockpit uses helmet mounted display.
Front Cockpit
The front cockpit is for fixed wing research. The cockpit is based on a CRJ200 with touch-screen based glass cockpit. Column, wheel and rudder pedal control loading is provided by Opinicus REALFeel 4000X units. Two auto-throttle channels are provided by REALFeel RC units. Out-the-window scenes are display by 3 Sony monitors projected through infinity optics boxes.
Rear Cockpit
The rear cockpit is for rotary wing research. The cockpit controls are based on a Bell 206. Cyclic control loading is provided by a McFadden Model 292B hydraulic unit. Pedals are loaded by variable springs and dampers. Out-the-window scenes are displayed on either a Kaiser XL-100 helmet of a CAE fibre-optic helmet. Helmeted mounted rate-gyros and Polhemus magnetic tracker provide estimates of head motion and eliminate visual lag. A touch-screen glass cockpit is used to display instruments.
Real Time Host
The main real-time host computer is an Intel iCore 7 Quad core running Quansar QNX. The flight equations, motion cueing, and real-time I/O are executed on this computer. Quansar QNX supports real-time MATLAB-Simulink.
Operator's Workstation
The operator’s workstation consists of a PC front-end to the Quansar QNX real-time host, the CAE motion control cabinet, 3 monitors that mirror the out-the-window scene, and 2 monitors that mirror the glass cockpit instruments.