Design, simulation, and experiments on the delay compensation for a vehicle simulator

Real-time man-in-the-loop simulators are important tools for vehicle operator training as well as human performance research. Simulator implementation using digital computers offers many important advantages but may also cause problems. One of the most significant and troublesome artifacts of digital computer simulation is the presence of transport delays in the operator/vehicle control loop. Transport delays have been shown to destabilize the system, resulting in poorer control of the simulated vehicle. They may also contribute to art increased likelihood of ''simulator sickness'' inhuman operators. Therefore, it is desirable to compensate the system in such a way that delay effects on operator performance and well-being are minimized Algorithmic compensators (digital filters) have been used in vehicle simulators to provide phase lead to counteract the system transport delay. A recent approach uses an odd number of terms (usually three) from the vehicle's velocity history to more closely approximate the ideal phase performance at frequencies of interest. The research presented in this article extends the compensator design to include an arbitrary even or odd number of velocity terms and compares the performance of a compensator using four velocity terms for prediction with that of a three-velocity-term compensator and a simple lead/lag delay compensator.