Performance improvements of a 6-DOF motion platform

Six degree-of-freedom motion platforms are extensively used as vehicular and flight simulators. It is difficult to modify the design of a platform after installation if some issues such as improving the performance and smoothness of the platform are encountered. Hence, various issues encountered such as jerky motion on using different mock-ups and irregular response are difficult to be dealt without changing the controllers and modifying the design. This paper presents two approaches to make the platform behave smoothly. The first one is the dynamic speed control to reduce jerks. The second one is the variable travel control to reduce distance between consecutive positions, thus maintaining smoothness of operation. These two approaches were implemented on a truck driving simulator and the overall performance became significantly better. Similar approach can be applied to other motion platforms facing the similar issues.