Terrain Validation and Enhancements for a Virtual Proving Ground

This paper describes how engineers and scientists from the Ground Vehicle Simulation Laboratory (GVSL) located at the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center’s (TARDEC) National Automotive Center (NAC) have validated a virtual graphical terrain for use in the real-time warfighter/hardware-in-the-loop motion base simulators. This was accomplished by comparing and analyzing the profile data acquired from the virtual environment of Aberdeen Proving Ground’s (APG) Churchville B course with the real data collected over the actual course. To obtain the data from the virtual terrain, complex mathematical equations developed by scientists at GVSL were utilized. The MATLAB analysis tool was used to analyze the data and help verify the terrain. The paper will discuss the processes that are incorporated to validate the database, new techniques being developed to improve our validation and methodologies to give the virtual terrain higher frequency terrain characteristics. Verification of the virtual terrain is important since engineers need to confirm that the profile of the terrain that they are driving the Ride Motion Simulator over corresponds to the real terrain.