REAL TIME SIMULATION DYNAMICS — A SIX DEGREES OF FREEDOM MODEL FOR MARINE APPLICATIONS

Abstract The computer simulation of a marine environment for the study of human interaction in the control of vessels calls for both graphics software and a real time computation of the appropriate movement for own and other ships as a function of their dynamic characteristics. The veracity of the simulation experience depends upon the credibility of the scene and upon the credibility of the movement. It may therefore be worth considering the evolution of a software language that can incorporate both aspects of simulation in a single unified command structure. Work currently in progress addresses this possibility by exploring the implications of a comprehensive dynamics model that can represent in real time all possible motions of a surface or submerged vehicle. Such a ‘distributed dynamic’ scheme implies the allocation of constants to each of the face data bases within a single feature and such constants must specify the extent to which movement occurs in sympathy with the three pivitol axes nearest to it (i.e. those which are fully modelled dynamically). Naturally each of the pivitol axes will share a common control input — the motivation descriptors that treat such a feature as a single entity. It is to be expected that very close coupling between face movement models will replicate the real skeletal structure of the prototype — an interesting evocation of the solid in what is otherwise an exercise in the superficial° These considerations throw up conjectures about the provision of model data and may well lead to a demand for more information from the physiological and behavioural research disiplines.