The goal of this project was to create a 6 Degree of Freedom robot capable of being fitted out to be a driving simulator. The design is based on a Stewart platform and used 6 750watt servos. We created a custom PCB to interface an Arduino with the motor drivers and limit switches. We also wrote the firmware that interfaced SimTools with the motor drivers. The full design and build was done over about eight months worth of weekends. This build process can be seen here.

Since finishing the project for school, we have continued to modify the platform to make it better. The most major upgrade was replacing our custom motor controller with a Thanos AMC Controller. The major limitation of our previous platform was that we only had 8 bit control. This made the platform vibrate as it moved. The new controller allows for much better smoothing and using some of the more advanced features of the motor drivers.

We have also upgraded to a Vive so that it would be easier to implement motion compensation. This feature prevents excess movement in the VR space by subtracting the simulator's motion from the view of the player.

The next step in upgrading the platform will be building a new frame to create a more ideal geometry. The original geometry was chosen very quickly to meet a deadline and there are more optimized geometries available.