A parallel cable-driven motion base for virtual acceleration

This paper presents a new motion base design for creating virtual acceleration using a parallel cable-drive mechanism architecture, WARP. It has several advantages: 1) the rotational motion range is large, 2) the traveling room can be grounded on the floor, 3) a scene projection is possible for all the walls, and 4) the redundancy improves the safety for cut of cables. Optimal mechanism design is performed for a class of WARP mechanisms to develop a prototype. A trajectory planning method for long-term virtual acceleration is proposed. A low frequency component of acceleration is realized by rotational motion, and a high frequency is produced by translational motion. Experimental results creating the virtual acceleration of jet coaster trajectories demonstrated the effectiveness of this new design