Throttle, Motion Cueing, and Platform Control Systems of 3-DOF Locomotive Simulator

The need of train simulator in Indonesia arises from our necessity to improve mode of training of train drivers as our train usage grows. This paper explains about the design and implementation of throttle lever, motion cueing, and platform control systems of 3-DOF train/locomotive simulator. These components are parts of train/locomotive simulator’s input and movement control. Throttle lever system is a user-input system which informs the simulator system about the throttle level from the user. Motion cueing is the system which calculates the platform’s position to produce the feeling of real train/locomotive movement to the user while also considers the platform’s mechanical restrictions in its calculation and algorithm. The platform control receives required platform position from the motion cueing and moves the platform after the calculation of the platform’s inverse kinematics. These subsystems communicate to each other via MQTT with RabbitMQ as the Advance Message Queuing Protocol. After testing and verification the results show that that inverse kinematic have maximum error of 0.33 degree for pitch movement and 1.01 degree for roll movement. There is no measurable error on surge movement. Communication between sub-systems would run on zero congestion. Hence, the whole system runs in real-time. The force per mass input given to the user by the platform motion is calculated using human’s otolith system model and compared with the force per mass input given by the real train motion. Steady-state error for surge perception is 10%. The pitch and roll perception has error in the transient response.