Design and Development Of A 6-DOF System For Virtual Bicycle Simulator

Abstract

There are many variations of the competition that takes place in Olympic track cycling. Hence, a bicycle simulator will provide a number of benefits to coaches and athletes in practical training. It is extremely low cost compared to a real Velodrome track, which requires a long construction time due to the unique geometry and size. In this project, a 6-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) motion platform is designed and developed to simulate the Velodrome track cycling. A parallel manipulator was chosen to control the moving platform due to its higher accuracy and greater weight to strength ratio compared to a serial manipulator. The 6-DOF platform is controlled by linear actuators and micro-controller. An optical encoder was installed for closed-loop position feedback control. An inverse kinematics model was developed to obtain the movement of the platform and validated with its CAD model. Furthermore, a design feasibility program was developed to determine the optimum design dimensions for the motion platform. All the positions (3-axes) and orientations (3-rotational axes) data are tracked for analysis purpose. A lab-scale prototype was successfully built for analysis and validation purposes. A standard Velodrome track dimensions was chosen for simulation. A gyro accelerometer was installed at the platform to acquire the actual motion of the platform. The data is used to validate the control algorithms and accuracy of the motion platform. The experiment was conducted and the results analysed for further development.