Motion Generation for Crane Simulators Using Streamlined Motion Blending Technology

For development of a simulator with a motion platform to generate an appropriate motion to reproduce the motion sense for the users, one of the most significant but disregarded complicated tasks is to build up a dynamic virtual motion model to reflect the motion of the simulated object in the corresponding physical world. Recently, a motion generation method based on motion blending technology was developed to alleviate the complication involved. It decomposes the simulated motion into a great number of parameterized motion blocks which are depicted by real motion data acquired from field tests and stored in a database. This paper proposes a streamlined motion blending technology suitable for a container crane simulator to further improve the current motion generation method based on the motion blending technology. Motion components, rather than motion blocks specially marked and stored in a database, are taken as the basic motion unit easily acquired through united analysis of crane dynamics and motion perception characteristics. They are then blended on demand to produce a one-stop model to directly act as the driving command of the motion platform without the need for a subsequent dedicated wash-out procedure. The calculation workload is greatly reduced and finally allows for achievement of higher fidelity of motion perceptions. Experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed streamlined motion blending technology for motion perception generation. Better training effect is found to be achieved due to more realistic simulation effects. The comprehensive training effectiveness index is enhanced from 54% to 82% once a motion simulation system developed using the proposed approach is introduced into the crane simulator.