Assessment of Motion Devices Used for Spatial Orientation Research and Training

Abstract : There are many unresolved issues related to motion-based simulators including: 1) should they even be used, 2) if so, what drive configurations might be preferred and to what aspects of flight should they be applied, 3) what motion cities and artifacts are critical, 4) what drive algorithm or set of drive algorithms best utilizes the motion capabilities of a given configuration to emulate critical aircraft motion cities while producing minimal artifacts, and 5) how can pitot-driven algorithms be made more effective at teaching recovery from the perceptual conflicts of spatial disorientation? None of these questions are answered by this paper. What the paper does contain is a description of the capability of a computer simulation of motion simulators that can be used to help quantitatively address these questions. A sample aircraft maneuver is evaluated for several variants of drive configuration and drive algorithm to illustrate the measures for quantitative comparison of motion systems and the level of effort and input data required to make the comparison. The paper indicates the status of an ongoing effort to develop a modeling tool for use by the spatial orientation and flight simulation communities to gain further understanding of the role of motion simulators.